psudo fg'ed bicycle stereo trailer

Below are some pictures of a bicycle trailer I built a mini car stereo into. It isn't truely fiberglass because I just stretched the fleece and coated it with resin; no actuall glass mat was applied.

This was built by me out of a frustration that the battery powered boom boxes that a group of local cyclists was using to provide music on community rides was not loud enough. I had some old car audio stuff kicking around in the garage so I slapped this together. The amp is a 2ch Lightening Audio Amp. The speakers are 6.5" three way cheapo's from Wal-Mart. The signal comes from a (3rd generation?) iPod wired directly to the amp via a 1/8" miniplug-to-RCA cable.

The budget for the project was zero dollars and we went over by about $130 buying wheels, resin, wood, and whatnot. I know it's crap-tastic but it wasn't designed to win shows. Feel free to leave comments or questions but please be nice since I already said this was done on-the-cheap and not designed to be beautiful.

 A lid has since been made to cover the battery opening.

I'm guesing your not much for riding in the rain?

It's always good to see practical solutions to basic problems.  How heavy is the trailer?  How long will it play before needing recharged?

I was going to say something but I had better not.       Is that a third nipple, or is it a switch?

• The trailer is not used in the rain because it is miserable to be riding in the rain whether you have tunes or not. Seriously though, we only use the trailer for monthly group rides, not everyday tootling around on the streets.

• The trailer/amp/speakers probably weighs about 20lbs. The car battery adds about another 30lbs. It isn't as heavy to tow as you might think though. Since bicycles are geared much wider than cars, you can tow much heavier (relitive) weights with little dificulty.

• Depending on many factors, we *expect* the play time to be somewhere around an hour to an hour and a half. I was pretty conservative with the gain settings and volume controls. We have done preliminary testing but we have never run it for more than about 30 minutes without a charge. A deep cycle battery would be fantastic but again, due to budget concerns we can't afford one. 

• You can see whatever you want to see in the shape... personally I'd freak out if a chick took off her top and revealed anything even remotely resembing this monstrosity...

• Yes, that is the amp turn on switch.

ROFL... Brings back memories... The Rat-Rod of Towables!

I LOVE IT!

It worked great at the ride on Friday night. We played it for just over an hour with no noticable reduction in volume.

The people who saw it gave different reactions from smiles to cars pulling up next to us and giving us 'high fives' through their windows. Several people asked where they could buy one and how much it cost. I think they were disapointed to hear that it was custom built and not for sale.

I know this is a "car" audio forum but if you have some spare parts laying around your house, 12V stereos can be a lot of fun for bikes too!

hehe... this is "the12volt.com" I see no rule/regulation or whatnot saying that this is a "car" "audio" forum...

ok I'm done pretending I'm a brat... I'm not very good at it >.<