Campers are a popular way to travel with the family, and smaller versions for bike camping have popped up too. But what if you want to go cabin camping with your dog in areas that don’t have car access – or cabins? If you’re handy, you could just build a wooden cabin to bring along with you on an electric bike.
That’s exactly what Jack Steward did. He’s a cabin builder who has tried his hand at small, towable cabins that can be moved around by car. They’re effectively rustic wooden tiny homes. You can see them on his Tiny Cabin Life page.
But Jack downsized even further with his latest build, which he calls the Bike Cabin. With a footprint of just 3.5 x 8 feet, it’s a mere 28 square feet (2.6 square meters) and claims to be the “world’s smallest cabin.”
It may be small, but it still comes with many of the creature comforts of a modern-day camping cabin.
There are three windows with mosquito netting, a sloping roof for rain runoff, electric lighting, candle lanterns, a propane stove for cooking, a camp chair and table, two fans for cooling, a memory foam mattress, and perhaps most importantly, space for Jack’s dog.
“I wanted to design a cabin so small and so light that I could tow it behind a bicycle,” Jack explained, “and thus get deeper into the woods, into places where my car is not allowed.”
Jack took his dog with him, and the two of them drove as far as they could into Sand Dunes State Forest in Minnesota, towing the bike camper on a tilt trailer.
Once they reached the proverbial (and literal) end of the road, Jack unloaded the camper and pulled an Engwe folding fat tire e-bike out of the back of the car.
The cabin rolls on a pair of small-diameter bike wheels and features four corner jacks to take the weight off the bike wheels and bearings when parked.
Jack rode his e-bike and cabin into the pine forest until he found a suitable place to set up camp. Once he detached the Bike Cabin, he was able to continue along with his dog, exploring the forest by e-bike while the cabin waited for him back at camp.
While this is certainly a niche use case, it demonstrates the power and diverse capabilities of electric bicycles, especially fat tire e-bikes.
Pulling an entire micro-cabin into the woods might be possible with a pedal bike, but it certainly wouldn’t be an enjoyable experience. It’s hard to enjoy nature while pedaling several hundred pounds of cabin without assistance. With a fat tire e-bike, though, Jack demonstrates how easy and even fun it can be to pull your own home with you. The pedal assist allowed him to still get a bit of exercise and contribute to the effort, but it seemed like he was also able to take in the experience without being exhausted.
As cargo e-bikes and utility electric bikes become increasingly commonplace as well, more people are realizing just how effective electric bikes can be for an increasingly wide range of tasks normally considered the territory of cars and trucks.
It just goes to show you don’t always need a big vehicle to tow a camper or tiny home. In fact, sometimes a smaller vehicle can get the job done while taking you places you couldn’t reach any other way.
Author: Micah Toll
Source: Electrek
