Moving things with home-made trailer
As mentioned, I now have a studio, on the Kinkerstraat in Amsterdam. That is all very nice, but of course before I could use it for anything it was necessary to move all the stuff that I have collected here in our flat. Some of this is extremely heavy, and in any case it was far to much and too far away to be carried. I didn’t feel like paying for a van, and so a more creative solution was needed.
What I decided to do was to construct a sort of trailer for my bike, and move everything on this. I have seen such things before, although they mainly seem to be used to take kids to school rather than lugging big steel tables and such like. All the same, it seemed like a mad enough idea to be interesting.
I started out by making a quick trip to Het Juttersdok, my favourite second-hand shop in this area, in order to seek out some parts that might be usable. Ideally I would have liked some smallish wheels with tyres, such as those for a child’s bike, but these were not to be found. Instead, I found a sort of metal frame with two plastic wheels about 12cm wide, although a bit steep at €10.
As I was wondering whether it was worth paying this much for such a flimsy piece of junk, a couple of small boys who appeared to be assisting in the shop said that the thing I was looking at needed to be thrown away. Of course I then said that in that case I would do so for them! After some consultation with the man at the cash desk it appeared that it was not to be thrown away, but that I could have it for €5. Done deal.
After dragging the thing home, all that was necessary was to cobble together a wooden surface to sit over the frame, and some sort of arm to connect it to the bicycle. This last stage was the most tricky, necessitating quite a bit of sawing and drilling into bits of steel bar in order to make a sturdy enough bracket. However, after about 3 hours of work and some test runs round the neighbourhood, the thing was ready to go.
I am quite pleased to be able to say that it does in fact work! I have now successfully managed to move the majority of my stuff to the studio, although not without some curious stares from passers-by. What is a shame though is that people here will just stare like idiots and not say anything, whereas back in Glasgow they would be throwing all sorts of smart-ass comments, abuse, and friendly encouragement. The Dutch could do to come out of their shell a bit at times.
