With the Trude Trailer Bicycle Trailer, Imitation is Explicitly Welcome

You can do a lot with the 250 watts of a standard ebike motor. For example, you can ascend a ten-kilometre climb of eight per cent at incredible speed without breaking a sweat at the summit. Or – somewhat more productively – get items from A to B with a trailer. Compared to the many ebikes, however, the number of trailers on offer is quite small. So how about building the trailer yourself?

Apparently, the people from the Welcome Werkstatt in Hamburg’s Barnbek district had this thought once. They turned the “what if?” into a “here you go”. After they had made a trailer for themselves to transport larger building materials, they let their experiences flow into a Do-It-Yourself manual. Now any of you can view and download it from the website of the district workshop and use it as a blueprint for your own trailer.

The Trude Trailer bicycle trailer from the Welcome Werkstatt in Hamburg

Artistically valuable

For their trailer, the Welcome Werkstatt took inspiration from the work of XYZ Cargo. Using the simplest and cheapest means possible, the company has for years been creating cargo bicycles whose frames are assembled from bolted aluminium profiles. The idea for this came from Till Wolfer and the Danish artist collective N55. Several times a year, XYZ Cargo offers workshops where you can build your own cargo bike. Ready-made kits serve as a basis, for example for a longjohn, a tricycle cargo bike, or one with four wheels called a cargo truck. Starting from this, there are hardly any limits to your imagination.

The instructions for the Welcome Werkstatt bicycle trailer called Trude Trailer are also based on this approach. With a length of 225 centimetres when the drawbar is folded and a width of 96 centimetres, it falls more into the XXL category. Its actual cargo area measures 165 centimetres in length and 65 centimetres in width. It is enclosed by a kind of lattice with a height of 43 centimetres. Anything that exceeds these dimensions can therefore be passed through the lattice with appropriate securing.

Enormously resilient

Its designers describe the trailer as stable and light. In fact, it is approved for a maximum load of 150 kilograms. However, according to its own statement, it has already handled considerably more than that without any problems. With its 34 kilograms, the Trude Trailer weighs as much as many an e-cargo bike.

A bicycle is only a small load for the Trude Trailer.

Two of the three wheels are braked by hydraulic disc brakes. The third wheel at the front of the drawbar is originally equipped with a hydraulic rim brake and a hub dynamo. If you wish, you can of course also install disc brakes in this position. The hydraulic variants do increase the price compared to the conventional ones with Bowden cable. However, the trailer requires quite long cables. In view of the performance of the brakes, this clearly speaks in favour of the hydraulic solutions.

With a payload of 150 kilograms, hydraulic disc brakes are entirely appropriate.

Old and new in the mix

At present, only a trailer hitch from a specialist dealer can be considered. When buying, be sure to check the maximum towing capacity for which the hitch is designed. In the Welcome Werkstatt, there are plans for a self-built hitch. But it seems to take some time until it is finished.

This is how the current coupling of the bicycle trailer looks like.

The workshop has neatly compiled all the individual parts of the trailer in a parts list. You can find it on their website. With the equipment listed there, you will end up with a price of around 880 euros for the trailer. However, this should only serve as a rough estimate. You could reduce the sum even further, for example, by using second-hand bicycle parts. That would certainly be in the spirit of the inventors.

Almost to go it alone

You don’t need any special tools to build your own bike. Everyday things such as a saw, a drill, a file, several aluminium profiles and, among other things, adhesive tape should suffice – no joke. In the corresponding download you will find CAD models and drawings for individual parts as well as for the complete trailer.

Speaking of simple: the rubber buffers for the drawbar stop are made from an old bicycle inner tube.

Occasionally, however, you won’t be able to get by without a few things that only the least of us might have at home. One tip is to use a CNC milling machine to make the mounts for the disc brakes and the holes for the headset. Other parts require a 3D printer. At these points, it helps to go to suitably equipped open workshops or to use appropriate service providers. If your friends and acquaintances don’t already know what to do.

Parts such as the mountings for the brake body of the hydraulic disc brakes, on the other hand, are a case for the CNC milling machine.

From there, someone can only help to a limited extent when it comes to one of the most important prerequisites in connection with such a project. Time. You can’t build your own bicycle trailer within a few hours. The workshop does not say how many working hours you should expect. It certainly depends on the equipment you have and your own skills. But without desire and patience, it will probably not be successful. To all who try, good luck!

Pictures: Welcome Werkstatt e.V.