Details of the Roll Over America begin to gel. It looks like it will be the largest gathering of velomobiles the USA has ever seen. The route is beginning to come together and day three looks pretty intense about 150 miles and over 6,000 feet of elevation gain. More motivation to keep training. I did 60 miles yesterday.

The "new" Alleweder Velomobile

Shortly after the last post I experienced one of those rare times when the stars aligned. I posted to BentriderOnline on a Friday that I had signed up to the Roll Over America and now I needed figure out which options I wanted to get with the Alleweder kit. I assumed I would be buying the kit in the fall and building over the winter. The next day I had a message from Larry, a fellow bentrider that he had just take delivery of a new Greenspeed Glyde and his Alleweder was up for sale. His asking price for it was less than the unbuilt kit. He delivered it on Monday. Here a picture of me in it.

The Next Challenge

Ever since I was a kid the idea of riding across the country has appealed to me. However, job, mortgage, kids etc all intervened to push the idea off the priority list. Next year I'll turn 50 and through Bentrideronline I discovered that a group of 24 European velonouts are planning what they are calling the Roll Over America. ROAM won't be your typical relaxed two or three month cross country ride. Since the Europeans will be doing this on their August vacation (yes, most Europeans get the whole month of August off) the ride will be an ambitious 4,000 kilometers (3,300 miles) in 30 days. Its now or never, if all goes as planned, I'll be rider # 36.

Next step, acquiring a real velomobile. The Quest is a beautiful machine now manufactured in Toronto, but with a daughter starting college next September the $8K price tag is out of the question.

The only thing significantly cheaper is the FAW+ from VelomobilesUSA that can be purchased as a kit for a little over $3K.

It's an updated version of the original production velomobile before the industry got into fiberglass, Kevlar and carbon fiber. Fortunately, I have a friend who's built a couple of airplanes so the idea of building a velomobile out of aluminum doesn't sound too daunting.

It's on!

The 2010 Terratrike Car Free Challenge that is. Which means that this is the third year of this blog as I started it for the 2007 Car free Challenge. The point of this is to not use the car for a month. I know I won't be completely pure (its really hard to transport teenagers on a one person trike and the tandem isn't complete yet).

Here's the trike after I returned from the store with a week's worth of of groceries.

Human Powered Vehicle Challenge at CCSU

Pictures from the Human Powered Vehicle Challenge East.

The Missouri S&T entry has to take the prize for coolest looking vehicle. The female member of the team (each team has to include a female rider) told me she'd gotten this baby up over 45 mph on the flat.

See all the pictures here

CCSU to host Human Powered Vehicle Challenge

The 2010 ASME Human Powered Vehicle Challenge East will be hosted by Central Connecticut State College this May 7th -9th. On Friday May 7th from 5 to 7pm the vehicles from 30 teams from throughout the Americans will be on display at the Student Center Circle at CCSU in New Britain. The races will take place Saturday the 8th and Sunday morning the 9th at Stafford Motor Speedway.

Completely by chance I met one of the members of CCSU's Human Powered Vehicle Club while out riding my trike. He invited me over to the campus to see the vacuum bagging of their new carbon fiber fairing being made based on the male plug pictured to the right.

The carbon fiber will make the vehicle a lot lighter than its predecessors. Here's a nice write up on the team and a link to pictures of their past vehicles just click the years under What's up in the right hand column.

Beautiful Borealis Velomobile

Here's a new production shell to mount over a Trice production trike. The paint job is custom and truly a work of art. More pictures at:

http://gccvelomobile.blogspot.com/

Quest Velomobiles now produced in Toronto

Ray at Bluevelo has started delivering a north american made Quest Velomobile

Pictured here with a rain roof & windshield the Quest was developed in the Netherlands. The fiberglass shell provides protection for year round riding as well as great aerodynamics.

Tandem Progress

Here's a picture of the tandem project hanging from the ceiling in my messy basement. There's still a lot of work to do, but it's begining to look like a trike.