For the last 6 months I've thinking about how to build a tandem recumbent trike using what I've learned from the last couple of projects. I started with some 1.75 inch square aluminum tubing salvaged from the renovation of a doctor's office. The tubing was the frame of an interior glass wall above the reception counter. The tubing was just sitting there waiting to get taken to the dump so I asked if I could save them the trip.

Here's a picture of the cut tube laid out on the floor of the back porch. Off to the right in the dark you can barely make out the back end of a 20" suspension mountain bike. The white circle shows the placement of the front wheels. The beast is long, almost 13 feet. I've designed it so that it will come apart in the middle so that it will fit on the car roof for transport. There's lots to do, but it's always nice to see how its going go together. Like the past projects, the the tubing will be riveted and epoxied together. The seats were purchased from Andrew Carter whose Recycled Recumbent website is quite interesting.

Lots of pictures of Velomobiles

I just stumbled on a Flicker Group called Velomobiles It's the biggest collection of velomobile pictures I've found to date.

Rebuild of Mike's Fairing

While a nice concept, our attempt at a front fairing out of a recycled coroplast political sign detailed in the Nov 16th post was not a success. The attempt to bring together the strips of coroplast into a nice smooth curve in the front of the two top sections just didn't work.

So back to the drawing board for a much better design. This design used a 4'x8' sheet of orange coroplast and an 18" by 8' section of left over yellow coroplast. All of it 4 mil as we haven't found anyone to sell us the thinner 2mil stuff.

This time the fairing uses a much simpler two pieces on each side with a middle channel to improve forward vision. The picture below shows the fairing almost finished .

It still needs some tape to cover the seems but other wise came out pretty well. Lacking an obvious place outside to mount the headlight, we cut a hole in the front of the fairing and mounted it inside by attaching it to the aluminum frame visible in the first picture above.

Here it is from the side. The back ends still need to be trimmed after the tail box is done. Entry is enabled by tilting the fairing forward. Next step is a wind shield. More pictures click here

Progress on the fairing

Mike and I made substantial progress on the new fairing design. More Pictures
This fairing is being built for Mike's Catrike Speed. The Catrike poses a particular challenge for coroplast fairings because of its reclined seat position. Its usually hard to see over a fairing that doesn't hit your knees.

To solve this dilemma, we put a sight channel down the middle that lowers the fairing by 3.5" between your knees. The nails in the picture are just temporarily holding the coroplast to the aluminum frame. Besides dealing with the sight line issue, our other goal was to build this front fairing out of a single 4x8 recycled political sign.

The final challenge was to see if we could successfully copy Ethan Davis's fairing mount. Ethan developed a very clever design that has a jaw that clamps down on a bracket attached to the fairing frame. This makes a secure mount which with a push from your toe releases the fairing for transport or in case you just want to ride unfaired for a while.

Working on a front fairing out of one sheet of coroplast

I spent the day working with Mike on a front fairing for his Catrike speed. The first try based on a design he had seen online didn't work as well as hoped. It was so high it was impossible to see the road in front of you for about 30 feet. We shifted gears and started with a 8' by 1.5' piece of coroplast left over from my fairing. Its bent around an piece of aluminum that we shaped into half an ellipse to make the leading edge of a vertical airfoil. It's based on Ethan Davis's fairing. What we're doing differently is making two bumps with a channel down the middle. The bumps provide knee and toe clearance and the channel provides forward visibility. We're making the prototype with scraps and recycled signs but it looks like this design could be made with a single 4x8 sheet of coroplast with limited cutting. We hope to finish it up tomorrow and get both pictures and plans up soon.

Burlington Bikefest 08

Last weekend's Burlington Bikefest was a blast. We had six velomobile's plus Krash's velokit (not pictured) plus quite a few recumbents. Phil and the local crew in Burlington did a great job with press coverage. Riding back from Shelburn Farms (scene of the picture) I looked to my left and saw a TV van with camera woman filming me.





I let people take test rides on both Saturday and Sunday. In the picture to the left was one of the last test rides. Mom and son waited around patiently until everyone else had ridden It's not really a two person vehicle, but after all that waiting I didn't have the heart to tell the little guy he couldn't take a ride. In all I think I held court talking about my trike and letting people ride it for about 5 hours over the course of the weekend. More pictures

Hartford tour

I rode the trike with the fairing into Hartford today. It was a great opportunity to publicize the Burlington Bikefest and velomobile rally coming up on Oct 3-5. As usual the velomobile attracted lots of attention and people were taking pictures of it before I even got to Bushnell Park. I ran into Dave, Mike and Maggie who are all planning to make the trip up to Burlington.
I wasn't the only person who thought the Hartford tour might be a good place to promote something cycling related. At the East Coast Greenways table I ran into Steve Mitchell who has a new web site www.bikingiscool.com Among other things it has links to videos of trail related shows shown on Simsbury's public access station. Steve was talking up a New Haven to Hartford ride along the route of the greenway.
I also met a couple who noticed the ad for Bianca Signs on my velomobile and asked if they could take a picture because her name was Bianca. I never caught his name but he handed me a sticker for BeatBikeBlog which is all about riding in Hartford, CT