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One of the people that I cuts my yard for me asked if I could build him a cargo trike that he could haul his lawn mower stuff around in. After going over a few design details with him the following trike was built. The cargo box lower frame is built from bedrails. The top sections are also built from a king sized bed headboard and footboard that I cut apart and welded back together to fit what I needed. It was just a coincidence that both sections ended up being made from bed parts. It wasn’t planned that way. The rear section of the trike came from a tadpole trike I built for someone a few years ago that had had a stroke. He couldn’t ride a two wheel bike for a while but the trike eventually ended back up with me after he got well enough to ride his regular bike again. I recycled what I needed out of it which was everything but the seat and steering handles. The deck of the trailer is 1/4″ plywood painted top and bottom with a couple of coats of rubber undercoating for vehicles. Yes, I know that’s kind of thin but I was trying to hold down the weight and it was only going to hold a push mower and maybe a gas tank for it. The frame supports it pretty well underneath. The guy was told if he wanted to haul more than about 100 lbs in it he needed to put a 1/2″ piece of plywood in it. With a thicker floor it would probably be capable of about 400 lbs of load weight. It’s got a 21 speed gear system in it – Shimino I think. Most other cargo trikes I’ve seen normaly only have a single speed system. I don’t understand that. The front brakes are rim type and operated with the normal hand grips on the handlebars. The back brake is also a rim type but it is operated with a foot pedal. The box has 3 two inch diamter pvc tubes added to hold rakes, hoes, shovel,etc.. on one side while the other side has supports to hold a weed eater. Above the forks that hold the front wheels are T-bars for mounting lights, etc…. The tool tubes would work well for fishing rods too! The front wheels are 20″ Steel 72 spoke wheels. Those can also handle a pretty good weight load besides just looking pretty on low rider type bikes. The rear is a 24″ standard bike wheel. It’s had white front tires simple because I had a new set of them in my workshop. They would have looked better with the yellow and green paint I wanted to use initially. The front gate on it folds down for use as a ramp for loading a push mower. It can also be chained in the horizontal position to add length to the cargo box if needed. It also has a piece of plywood mounted to it as to suport the ramp capability. My plan was originally to paint it green and yellow but the guy that wanted decided he wanted it painted with the black plastic truck bed paint so it would be easy to fix if it got scratched up in use. So…. it got painted black. Below are a few build pictures and a couple of the final results. Initial cargo box framing
Side Framing added
Tadpole Trike frame that will become rear section.
Lower support tube added to stiffen main boom tube and steering mount tube at the end
First assembly to make sure it all fits properly
Front gate built and lower cargo box supports welded on.
Mounts for weed eater made and test fitted
Sand blasted and two coats of primer painted.
Painted with two coats black plastic truck bed paint
Close up of controls and rear brake pedal. There is a spring that holds
Completely assembled with tool tubes and decking. Ready for new owner.
To finish the story here. The guy that asked me to build it lost his job a few days It was sold on the local Craigs List about 2 weeks later to a guy that
That’s the 3rd time someone has screwed me around after asking me to build them something. |
