Top 5 Types of Bike Campers

bicycle campers are cool not only is it a great little project to do but you end up with something that can change your recreational opportunities in this video i'm going to show you some of the most popular designs and the pros and cons with each one of them the general idea is to create something that is lightweight and waterproof yet strong enough to carry a bed and some of your other possessions that you'll need for a couple of days of camping one of the more popular ways to build these is to make a frame out of metal or wood and then use coroplast for the exterior siding and roof coroplast is a type of plastic cardboard that you'll see commonly used for real estate and political signs one of the most popular designs is the nomad camper created by paul elkins his coroplast-based design has an aerodynamic front resembling one of those classic airstream trailers paul has put a lot of wonderful creativity and design skill into the nomad plans which he has made available for only twenty dollars on his website if you are about to build a bicycle camper his plans are a great place to start as it will give you a lot of fundamental information on design parameters and good old measurements and things like that that will help guide you towards your own personal plan paul's detailed plans are available as a downloadable pdf from his website elkinsdiy.com and for twenty dollars this is a great way to get started with your build now let's take a look at some campers that were influenced by paul's nomad design the first one up is made by the gentleman from the youtube channel green speed gtr this one is pulled by an e-bike so you can see that he has added extra solar panels on the roof to charge those batteries i like the clear extension he has made off the back of the camper it looks like it will do a great job of helping to keep the rain out and the inside nice and dry the solar panels hang over both sides of the top of the camper so you'll get a good charge no matter what direction that the camper is oriented it's got a nice little waterproof vent on the top of the camper near the front another interesting thing is you can see that the camper has its own braking system here you can get a little view of the inside and you can see that he's got a little area to come in and take your shoes off before you lay down on the bed the walls have a little bit of the insulating foil sided bubble wrap which you'll see used for a lot of rv applications and a little area to store some of his water bottles etc near the front just perfect for a nice little camping trip here's another one that shows how simple you can keep the design yet still have something that is functional and very fun for being on the road this elkins influence design has gone away with the airstream front and has gone with a little bit more simplified design using one panel for the whole roof line and then two panels for the front and the rear he's made a nice little window that you can look out for when you're laying in bed in addition there's little vents above and below to provide extra airflow and comfort for when you're sleeping a nice and simple interior layout you've got some little storage nice and simple interior layout you've got the foil line bubble wrap to help insulate the walls in the ceiling you've got some little covers for the wheels on the inside that create some little shelves and just enough space for a comfy little bed in the middle paul's elegant design is inexpensive simple lightweight and strong enough to be a serious contender for your bicycle camper needs you can see why this is one of the most popular designs out there for di wires and now we have the box camper these are one of the simplest designs to make because essentially you're just building a box that fits and seats a person comfortably of course a good example of one is done by youtube user alex tech one of the main advantages of a box camper is that you get a lot of interior space the wheels are on the outside so you don't have wheel well covers on the inside to compromise any of the interior the flat roof gives him plenty of space to put solar panels to help charge those bike batteries as well as run lights and other fun things at night he's even added a nice little chimney for his heater here he's lined the interior of the camper with a quilted fabric material it's got an interesting look and i'm sure it works fantastically as an insulation he's run some color changing led lights along the roof which provides a fantastic look for the interior plenty of room to sit up or lay down and enough space for two people comfortably the box camper has some serious advantages when it comes to interior space this next example of a box camper is called the green mamba and what's unique is that it uses two campers to buddy together and create a sheltered area between them you can see the video for this one on the youtube channel ebike camping and kajak turin each one of the green mamba trailers is pulled by a recumbent electric bicycle to combine together is fairly simple they park next to each other open the adjoining side walls and hook them together in the middle so then you end up with this each camper still has their own little space but you've got a nice sheltered area in between what a great and flexible way to use this nice little box camper design so not only does each box camper have plenty of room for the individual but hooked together you create a great space and what a wonderful way for friends to travel together this is another type of box camper these ones are usually very compact and unfold to create a larger structure the idea with these modular and expanding campers is that inside of the little trailer you've got all these little panels that become the walls the ceilings and so on in addition to that you create a little tent structure that expands the living space greatly advantage of this design is that they fall down into such a small size it makes it much easier to transport them another great advantage is all of the living space that can be created from such a compact trailer with the addition of the tent off the side you've got a dressing area a shower area a bathroom all kinds of potential lots of living space in a compact package this design can be a great option for those who like to diy and really customize their camper for particular uses here is a great example of an expanding trailer that also has an add-on little tent structure for a shower this trailer is built out of wood yet is still lightweight enough that he's able to pull it on a bicycle without any kind of electrical assist it is also easy to disconnect it from the bicycle and pull it by hand so that you can bring it into more remote camp spots it has an expandable area for your feet that's folded out when it's time for sleeping on the back of the trailer he stores water and shower curtains for his outdoor shower just use your little camp stove to heat up some water so you can have a nice hot shower so to get his shower ready he pours the water into the shower bag that he's got there on the ground and adds cold water to get the temperature to where he wants he sets up a little pole off the top of the trailer and hangs the shower head from that with a little hose in a pump that goes down into the bag of warm water with the help of some old tent poles he's able to arrange a little structure that holds up the outdoor shower curtain press the little switch that activates the water pump and there you have it a nice warm shower out in nature now you can see into the camper a little bit and there's enough room to store quite a bit of stuff in there while you're traveling the fold out section where you put your feet when sleeping is still tucked in so you can have the outdoor shower activate when you open the door a bit there's a little table that folds down and it makes it a lot easier for when you're preparing dinner when it's time for bed you simply take down the shower curtain and expand the little foot well for your feet and then you got an interior light for reading and you're ready for a good night's sleep here's another interesting example of a small trailer that folds out into a bigger size this design is so lightweight and easy to tow to set up this innovative structure you simply open the trailer pull out the tent and inflate the supports and then all of a sudden you've got a lot of living space plenty of room to sit up straight and sleep comfortably even a little window to look outside and with this design there's even a stand-up entryway next up are the teardrop campers these are modeled after the classic ones that were designed to be pulled by the family car the teardrop shape is classically aerodynamic and compact it allows a person to sit upright as well as stretch out fully for a nice comfortable sleep the roofs are nice and flat and angled perfect for a solar panel that nice looking teardrop shape has a lovely low profile nice big tires tinted windows all the way around and even a vent for the roof regardless of whether you run it with the high end forward or the high end back you're still going to benefit from a nice aerodynamic curve in addition to that these are very comfortable for sitting upright as well as for sleeping it's an overall great design and that's why it's a classic and here is what i'm calling the tear box camper so these are very similar to the classic teardrop camper that we were just looking at but the design is a little more boxy i think the advantage of this is that it's just easier for the diy person to do the curves on the teardrop camper a little more complicated you still got that nice angle for the solar panel you've got room to sit up it's easy to lay down and you don't have to expand anything and of course with that nice angular front to it you've got the aerodynamic that help you when you're hauling this very similar to the teardrop camper and of course one advantage of these as well is there's more interior room so there you go the tear box camper so there we have it the top five bicycle camper designs first we have the paul elkins inspired models next we have the box camper then we have the expandables with the tent add-ons followed by the teardrop campers as well as the tier box campers so now that we've seen all of those that are very popular let's take a look at some individuals these are the interesting custom designs that you'll find out there this custom one is modeled after a gypsy wagon and they've done a fantastic job wouldn't you like to take a spin with this next up is one that's a twit twist on the paul elkins it doesn't have the aerodynamic front but it's got the nice smooth roof that's almost like one of the old covered wagons the z triton is perhaps one of the most interesting bicycle campers ever made it integrates a bicycle a camper and a boat into one drivable system here you see it in bicycle mode with the wheel down and the driver pointed forward with the smaller part of the craft angled to the front to provide some aerodynamics when you're bicycling in bow boat mode the drive wheel for the bicycle is pulled up and then the craft is put in the water and driven in the other direction the canopy slides back to allow you to get in and out and there's a nice little window screen so in boat mode you've got a competent craft when you're using the z triton as a camper it can host two people for dinner and also two people can spend the night comfortably in the cabin they feel so good about their design that as of february 2022 they are going to production check this one out two bicycles are used for the frame there's some metal hooping that helps to hold up the coroplast structure coroplast is the plastic cardboard that you'll often see for realtor signs or politician signs it's got two little beds inside and it sits and sleeps two people relatively comfortably and our final example for custom trailers is a guy named randall who had an epiphany in the middle of the night and created this design himself he welded two bicycles together to create quite the powerhouse it works off of gasoline he can pedal it or use electrical assist carries tons of stuff including his custom-made bicycle trailer the trailer design is pretty simple he uses a single piece of siding that curves for the walls and the roof he says it's the most comfortable bed that he's ever slept in and it's just enough room for him and his dog he says that some people think that these campers would be claustrophobic but he said that he's willing to bet money that anybody who tries it is going to get addicted to it well as you can see there are many different types of bike campers what a wonderful hobby this is there's so much you can learn from building one of these and if you have kids get them involved because it's such a great family activity if you really enjoy building and using these maybe make some for your local houseless folks and change somebody's life happy cycling everybody aloha

Channel: DIY Kauai

Views: 114,575

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Id: 73uJrp6j1WQ

Length: 13min 54sec (834 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 21 2022