Bicycle caravans

[Skybird]

This is the by far best quality design I have seen so far. It costs, but judging by the quality of the materials (carbon or fiberglass) and the professional crafting (producer is a professional car industry contractor), it makes sense.

Haben will!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0PSmhDf5G0

Company advertisment video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-X1b7PA0l7w

https://www.caravaning.de/neuheiten/modyplast-fahrrad-caravan/

https://mody-plast.de/

Detail photos: https://mody-plast.de/produkte/fahrradwohnwagen/galerie-mody-outdoor/

The highest value versions of the three models weigh 42 and 50 kg (carbon or fibreglass), and cost 7500 and 5500 Euros in their base version, prices again for carbon and fibreglass . You can spend more for additonal items like the solar panel and charging unit, and a mini refrigeratopr ( up to -20°C!), tent, and so on. I know how it feels to shuttle a trailer with 2, 3 and 4 beer crates (17-18kg per crate), so i would recommend the carbon version (42 kg) and an ebike with a motor with higher torque, since you also will have some more kilograms in luggage with you. The differences between the three models seem to be minmal and focus on wheels and tires only to match different demands for stability due to the expected terrain.

However, a luxury item, you can spend around 10 thousand Euros, if you want. But then, ebikes have become hilariously expensive, and not only due to corona and interrupted supply chains, but because the industry discovered that people pay prices like for cars. Touring ebikes costing arond 5,000 and mountain bikes up to 10,000 do not shock me anymore. I would not pay that, but thats the new pricing reality. You can, however find cheaper ebikes, still. Waiting time currently up to 6 months, however.


I bought mine price reduced from 3000 to 2400, plus stuff like saddle, additonal battery, packs. I use Bosch 500 power packs. If not going uphill at the Teutoburger Forest, one full load under normal mixed driving conditions and gears and realistic engine support gets me to a range of 95-100km, with the 5+ km of elevations at the Teutoburger Forest, that I would need to climb twice per tour, it is reduced to 70-80 km. That are no calculated values, but my real world experiences after now 4 seasons and almost 20 thousand km. I always have at least two batteries on board for daily tour lengths between 125 and 150 km. My longest daily tour ever was two years ago, around 185km.

[Reece]

Good grief!! :Kaleun_Sick:

[Jimbuna]

I prefer a lot more space I'm afraid.

[Skybird]

Eat less. :O:

[Skybird]

Its better than a small one man tent or even a bivvybag. And more weather- (and water- !)resistent.

But i question the weight practicability, and you still need civilization to charge your ebike batteries. Doing that with solar panels still takes quite some tech kit and own-hand-design, and so there is no off-the-shelf solution I know of. I saw one trailer where somebody constructed a huge box with a huge panel on it that could charge a second battery, but that was a home construction, and had the size of a bicycle trailer. And charging a for example 500-battery pack as Bosch uses them, takes several hours even when charging via stable and optimised electricity supply from the wall mount. With a solar panel, clouds, indifferent weather, that is unreliable and unpredictable an ambition, Can left you stranded. And you do not want to drive a 30 kg bike with a caravan trailer adding a further 44kg to it, trust me - you just dont want that.

https://copin-solar.ch/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/wP1000419-600x450.jpg
https://copin-solar.ch/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/wP1000422-600x450.jpg

[Jimbuna]

LOL :)

[Skybird]

Im really turned on by this thing. Many optional things available, amongst them even a refrigerator with up to -20°C, not in the video, a kitchen module, sliding table... The video in the second part shows nicely interior details, how well windows, space and compartments are arranged. It is bigger than one thinks at first glance, inside 2,10m long, 86cm wide, from the outside it is 1,20 wide. The man in the video says he is 1.85m tall - and he has plenty of space left.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=889pAO1Jujg


I will not get it, I have not really use for it and then it is too expensive if not to be used. But I like it very much. Dreams dreams dreams...

[Jimbuna]

Nothing more than a European Rickshaw :)

[Skybird]

Jim, you like the Moby, you will love the B-Turtle.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eD4rltvCZy8
I would not have one minute of sleep in that, every mild blow of a wind would ring my alarm bells.
I mean I would even span a tarp over the Moby, just to direct wind over its sides. :hmmm: Wind and high tents/cabins just do not combine nicely. The B-Turtle is a wind-trap under half of its bottom.

[Jimbuna]

If it doesn't have a toilet and a shower then it's a non starter for me I'm afraid.

I like a few home comforts.

[Skybird]

Craving for attention? This one will get you some! :D
Looks like some Mad Max SciFi post-doomsday mahcinery. The specs of the solar-electrical system are impressive - charging batteries additonally to sucking power for driving - thats what you want when sitting still in a place for the night and needing power to "survive" the break.





https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaNzutZjYxU

[Skybird]

The Mody from the first video in the thread has since unfortunately been discontinued. The producing - and formerly healthy - company actually made car racing parts, started to suffer from the hysterical car-hostile climate in Germany, therefore had to lay off 90% of its employees, and then the cost explosion of inflation was added, so that the production costs more than tripled and production could only be maintained with red figures, although the company could not save itself from requests from home and abroad.

A cautionary tale of what lies ahead. Here it only affected a medium-sized company with about 30-40 employees, with 90% of them now beign fired. But the same pattern is eating like rust deeper and deeper into the big economic picture and the rest of the SME sector, and it is already becoming apparent that the job promises derived from digitization and the energy turnaround are not coming true, but are instead destroying more jobs in net terms than they are generating. And that's not even taking into account the increase in material costs in the manufacturing sector.

I feel sorry for this, since the scene generates a great demand for such - admittedly somewhat eccentric - vehicles, and the company, according to its own statements, could have sold dozens of Modys every day if it had been able to produce so quickly. But the tripling of material costs, promising to climb even much higher, have broken it its neck. Thus, the disappearance of the best bicycle caravan by far in terms of quality only serves as a warning for the economic and financial crash that is still ahead of us - and there are now increasing signs of this.

Welcome to the perfect storm. It's not coming - it's here. But many idiots in the federal govenment still have not gotten it, destroy economic infrastructure and throw immense amounts of money out of the window for short lasting strawfires or even nothing.


And they will never really be held accountable that goes beyond verbal phrases.

[Eichhörnchen]

https://i.imgur.com/rzOG4R9.jpg

STEED was ahead of his time - had one of these. I think he used to struggle on the hills a bit

[Skybird]

"Made in Britain" has suffered a bit, it seems. They do not build them like they used to anymore...