We love hiking around in the mountains, take everything with us and just put our tent down wherever we feel like it.
Since our son, Wolf, is only 3 years old, he needs to take a ride on someones back once in a while. 
And so there is only one person to carry a backpack with all the gear: three sleeping bags, three matrasses, a tent, all the food and water, etc.
All together we calculated a weight of about 32kg. How can one carry this much in the mountains?

So I started thinking of a solution... I designed a one-man pull cart. After sketching some ideas I checked the internet on existing solutions... and guess what I found?

It seemed all these solutions were not bad, but they all lacked something: some were not stable, others too heavy, and again other just not ergonomic.
All except one: The monowalker.

I could of course just get if over with and buy a cart like this. But it seemed so much more interesting to build a similar cart myself. This way I can adapt it to our own needs and get the price down to a minimum.

I kinda used the monowalker basic shape as an inspiration to build my own cart. All together I built this for about 120 Euro.
I only used basic materials:
- 2 metal pipes
- a plywood board
- a U-shaped profile
- a bmx wheel
- a brake (recovered from an old home trainer)
- 8 quick lock systems

it was actually the wheel that would make for most of the cost

This was the result:

I bought myself a second hand pipe bender for a couple of bucks and tried bending several steel and aluminium pipes.
After some trials I discovered bending pipes is not as easy as it seems. Sure the action is easy enough, but you really need to use the right material. So, after trying 3 to 4 pipes I found out the easiest pipes to bent were the ones meant to be bend! (duuh)
​So I started bending pipes used for central heating. They have a blend with some more magnesium inside, which makes it softer and easier to form.

First I tryed bending two steel pipes supporting the whole length.
I used pipe brackets for central heating to attach the board to the pipes. It worked fine, but it was difficult to dissassemble and to transport in the trunk of the car.

The downside of using central heating pipes is that they are produced for easy bending and so I needed to reinforce the wheel fork to prevent it from bending back.

I took the model for a testdrive and decided to make some changes, so I built a second model, which worked out great!

I decided to split the handle pipes and the wheel support pipes. I then used quick fix brackets to be able to assemble and disassemble faster.
This way it's easier to transform it to a backpack.
No welding is done (as I not yet master any welding skills) and everything can be taken appart by one single wrench! (this prevents a heavy tool kit in my backpack!)

Wheels and handles can be disassembled by hand. This makes it possible to quickly transform the cart into a backpack!

The central heating tubes that support the wheels were replaced by stainless steel tubes, which were very difficult to bend, but didn't need any reinforcement

A brake was really necessary! 
The Monowalker uses a system to fix the braking strenght, but this seems not practical in the mountains as you really need to be able to pull your braking handle when you suddenly go down a slope.
So I installed a normal bike brake system and it worked fine!
Although I would use a disc brake or some kind on my next model, because these traditional brakes wear of fast and are more fragile. it is actually the weakest part of the whole system.

My father gave the cart a testdrive in the Belgian Hills

During a intensive hike in the pyrenees, I took 32kg up a mountain on a very rocky path. Actually these pictures were taken on the easier parts (!)

It was a succes! Although I would advise to take easier roads! haha

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