These Stand-On Motorized Wagons Have Created a Fascinating Modding Community

Back in July, we blogged about a handy tool called the StepRanger. It’s effectively a motorized wagon—one that you stand up to drive, with a twist throttle and a handbrake. In the time since, the company has sent me a unit to test, and I got the chance to chat with the co-founders, who told me all about it. So much about the electric utility cart is nifty and neat, but what I’m most intrigued by is how people are using them.

As a quick primer, the StepRanger is small enough to fit in the bed of a pickup, and mighty enough to haul 1,000 pounds. It has a coil-sprung front suspension and a rear differential that looks like a miniature Ford 9-inch. A pedestal kicks down and is held in place with pins, and that’s where you stand as you operate it. There’s a kick-down lever for high- and low-range, while a rocker switch on the handlebars allows you to choose between low, medium, and high battery power.

I’ll post my own review of the StepRanger in due time, but for now, I’m gathering inspo from folks like Rob Bitinas in Plymouth, Massachusetts. His is an All-Terrain model that he’s fitted with a rear hitch as well as a boat rack that slides into the standard 2-inch front receiver.

“He hauls a 12-foot aluminum jon boat with the outboard still mounted from his house down to the water,” StepRanger Co-Founder John Harrington told me. “His driveway is 400 feet and straight uphill. He is half a mile from the ocean, so the machine lives in salt air.”

Then there’s Ed Lucas, who utilized some creative recycling techniques on his rig. The StepRanger ships in a crate, and rather than throwing the plywood away, Lucas trimmed them to fit as enclosed side panels. It looks almost factory stock, too.

One of the coolest ways I’ve seen someone use these is in a logging operation. I personally cut and haul a ton of firewood, and the StepRanger absolutely makes sense there. But Tim Jaster in Colorado has taken it a step further by installing a rear hitch and using it to mount a custom-built timber trailer.

The trailer straddles each log, and a modestly sized tong attached to a hand-crank reel grapples them. With the front of the log cinched up by a chain, Jaster then pulls them back to his band sawmill with the StepRanger. It’s not going to yank a 20-foot oak tree that’s 18 inches around, but a typical limbed spruce cut into sections shouldn’t be too big to handle.

And the last one that Harrington and his StepRanger co-founder, Aaron Jones, sent my way was from Turnkey Logic Control. That’s a hydraulic repair service in Ohio, and as you can see, they’ve totally removed the sides from their rig. What appears to be grip tape around the edges keeps everything from sliding off. At the front, there’s a huge honkin’ vice that must make field repairs a breeze.

These work great for indoor service, too, as they are battery-powered and have a compact footprint. StepRangers even have a decently loud horn that you control with a simple button push, which lets people know you’re turning a corner on the factory floor or what have you.

Plenty of other StepRanger owners have modified their wagons to fit their needs, too. Harrington and Jones told me about one scrapyard explorer with limited mobility who installed a remote lift, making it easier to load it onto his Chevy Avalanche’s hitch-mounted platform. Another customer with multiple sclerosis installed a hand crank that loads heavy items into and out of the StepRanger. Then, maybe the wackiest example they mentioned to me was a makeshift spelunking cart that meanders around caves.

It’s super cool hearing how an entire community of makers has formed around these machines. Harrington and Jones both know so much about the lives their wagons live because it’s really just the two of them on staff. All customer service requests go to them directly, as Harrington left his gig at Google to help run StepRanger full-time. As for Jones, he still owns a company that designs heated outdoor furniture, but StepRanger is now his big focus as well.

I’m all for people modifying their vehicles to work smarter, not harder. I just didn’t have a clue such a thing was going on with these manned micro-trucks.

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