Trailer Trash is 1!

Trailer Trash has been up and running for a year! Happy birthday to us!

In a year we’ve built about four trailers, a couple of handcarts, a wind turbine, a two-person-trike, several wack bikes, some rocket stoves, a bike powered sound system and ran a series of ‘build your own bike‘ workshops for homeless types. And it was all research.

Reflecting back on the year, our aims seem to be moving more towards ‘intelligent use of locally sourced scrap materials to help minimise our environmental impact’… And ‘bikes are great’ of course.

Our birthday promise to ourselves is to get a bit more organised about making use of all the people who’ve said they’d love to help out down the workshop. Some kind of structure to volunteering on the various projects we’re running. We’re also interested in applying permaculture principles and techniques into how we run our ‘business’.

Although things have been a little quiet on the blog of late, that’s mainly due to a dodgy digital camera. A good chunk of time was spent on a massive post Climate Camp clean-up and stock-take.  Otherwise, we’ve been having fun with the following…

• Started a new commission for a thin but useful bike trailer, designed around a narrow passage to a back garden in Catherine Street.
• We’ve been working on the bike generators and putting a plan together for a top class ‘bike powered event / shouting machine’.
• We’ve got a ‘Cambridge Green Tech’ group up and running, who meet every week at Workshop54 to work on practical sustainable technology, get in touch if you’re interested.
• We’ve been running fairly regular, but adhoc, ‘Bring Your Own Bike Sessions‘, best way to hear about them is to either join our mailing list or our Facebook group.

A few pictures, as evidence of labour:

The 'Bat Bike'... Next generation power generation bike machine.

Design for our latest trailer commission.

Materials for the trailer... Some would call it 'scrap'.

The infamous Workshop54 "Wheel Pile" is no more.

A years worth of metal collecting. Nearly all of our scrap metal came from businesses based in the same building or the area close to Workshop54.

We love this: Montana Transit Authority

ATTENTION ALL BIKE HACKERS
JOIN THE BIKE BLOC
COPENHAGEN DEC 2009

Trailer Trash in the local press

Click on the thumbnail below to see an article about the Councils new ‘work bike’ fleet which was in the Cambridge News last week.

And some links… Pimp Bikes and a leg powered hoovercraft. Nice.

More Link-Up Workshop Photos

We’ve come to the end of the Link-Up Friday workshops, so a few more photos from the project. Was a lot of fun and in 7 Fridays we managed to fix up 45 bikes, quite a few of them complete rebuilds. Not too bad.

Photo update…

We’re busy down Workshop54 finishing up the ‘council trailer’, working on a some different ideas for hitch designs, planning to build a ‘double bike‘ and discovering a whole new sport involving two shopping trolleys, 2 long lengths of chain and four people… So some photos in the meantime…

Vicky down Workshop54 giving the 'council trailer' it's first test ride.

The 'Feix cinema trailer' is almost done.

The 'council trailer' in kit form.

The 'council trailer' finished, minus a paint job and flag.

Lights, reflectors and kick stands. Swanky.

Bike Workshops for homeless & ex-homeless…

We’re pleased to announce that we’ve teamed up with Cambridge Link-Up to provide a series of workshops for homeless and ex-homeless people to come along and build their own bike, or just fix up the one they’ve already got. First workshop is next Friday 8th, 11-5pm. Should be a lot of fun and we’re looking forward to the pile of dead bikes that’s taking over Workshop54 getting smaller.

Too many projects…

Sorry to anyone who’s been trying to come down for the drop-in sessions over the last couple of weeks and found the workshop closed. The main protagonist behind Trailer Trash has been pretty busy working on another of his projects TerrorBull Games… Publishing our new game ‘Crunch – the game for utter bankers‘.

We’ve just updated the drop-in sessions page, as we’re going to be changing the times and dates very soon to more weekend and evenings, rather than the ‘every Tuesday’ times at the moment. We’ve also set up a mailing list so that you sign up to receive updates on these sessions as well as other events down Workshop54.

Stuck in Berlin

Sods law in action… The week we announce to the world that every Tuesday and Wednesday will be an open drop-in session at Workshop54, we manage to get stuck in Berlin on official board game business due to snow.

Still, it’s not all bad, we’ve been making contacts with radical bike workshops over this side of Europe and it looks like Trailer Trash might spend a month or so here later in the year working on some big bike project. Either that or just burning around town on fixed wheel bikes seeing how many parties we can manage.

Welcome to Trailer Trash

We build bespoke bicycle trailers from scrap material. We are focussed on building trailers for local businesses with specific requirements that cannot be met by an ‘off the shelf’ trailer.

Need to carry hot food? Tools? Awkward bulky items? Fragile items? We’re happy to talk about any ideas for bike trailers and see if we can build a trailer to suit your specific needs.

We think that more businesses will look to pedal power as a way of getting around. Costs of running vehicles can be prohibitive for a small business. Take into account the environmental impact and the wasted time stuck in traffic jams and it makes a lot of sense to use bikes for local journeys.

Trailer Trash moved into Workshop54 in November 2008, based in the Cambridge Community Innovation Centre run by Citylife.

Workshop54 - Home of Trailer Trash