BACKPACK ON WHEELS

Our housewives, especially elderly ones, have long appreciated the shopping cart — a small two-wheeled cart with a bag attached to its frame, resembling a tourist backpack in shape. How many different purchases they carry on these carts, returning from the market or the store! It turned out that the small cart, whose official load capacity is only 20 kg, can handle 30, 40, and more kilograms!

Tourists, primarily kayakers, quickly adopted the cart. It was onto these carts that huge bundles with packed collapsible boats migrated from their backs. Outside the city, at a campsite, the cart facilitates camp chores, such as delivering water and firewood to the camp kitchen.

Why not take the heavy backpack off your shoulders and put it on wheels? It’s hard to say now which tourist first came up with this idea — to abandon the ancient way of carrying heavy loads — “on one’s own back.” But that doesn’t matter. An excellent design for a single-wheel cart for a tourist backpack was sent to our editorial office from Ufa by an indefatigable DIY enthusiast — V. V. Petrovsky, whom readers know as the author of numerous micro-motorcycles and a participant in exhibitions and competitions of homemade automotive and motorcycle equipment. Vitaly Vasilyevich converted a two-wheeled cart into a single-wheeled vehicle, which significantly improved its cross-country ability and maneuverability, and reduced its weight.

The general view of the “Tourist” cart is shown in Figure 1; the diagram in two projections — in Figure 2. The wheel size 12X272 is taken from a children’s scooter, the fork — from a scooter or bicycle. If a ready-made fork cannot be obtained, it is made from a thin-walled steel tube Ø 20 mm, bent according to the drawing or welded from three parts. To bend the tube, it must be tightly packed with well-dried sand, and the ends closed with wooden plugs. Then, on a forge or in the flame of a strong blowtorch, heat the pipe to bright red heat and bend it on a metal mandrel of the appropriate diameter.

A drawbar made of steel pipe with an outer Ø 30 mm is welded to the fork, having two cross members made of steel angle for attaching the cargo platform, a folding stand, and a handle. The drawbar can be made collapsible (folding or telescopic), then the cart in disassembled form can fit in a backpack. The cargo platform is made from 5—6 mm thick plywood and attached to the cross members with M3 bolts. Depending on the type of backpack available, it is advisable to rivet eyes or rings to the cargo platform for quick “mooring” when loading. It should be borne in mind that the backpack when transported on the described cart must be tightly packed and firmly tied to the platform, otherwise the stability of the entire system deteriorates and transportation becomes tiring.

FROM THE EDITORIAL BOARD:

In our opinion, the cart design proposed by V. V. Petrovsky opens up wide possibilities for “putting on wheels” various loads that tourists still carry on their backs. For example, the recently released new frame backpack “Ermak” can become much more convenient to use if equipped with easily removable wheels, etc.

The editorial board hopes that tourists will share their experience in creating various equipment and gear on the pages of the magazine: boats, kayaks, tents, sleeping bags, backpacks, campfire equipment.

Recently, automotive and motorcycle tourism has become increasingly popular. In this regard, various trailers for passenger cars, roof and motorcycle luggage racks, and sleeping complexes are of great interest.

Comrade tourists! Send descriptions, drawings, and photographs of your developments with a note on the envelope: “Tourist to Tourist.” This will be the name of our new column.