More musing on new velomobile

I built a quick mockup of the new concept.  One thing that became obvious sitting on it and observing the space required for pedaling is that the derailleur post and front derailleur stick up into your sight line with the seat very reclined.

 In the picture you can sort of see the recline of the seat.  It's about what the ultra marathon riders are using for their seats and about the angle I need to be at to sort of fit in the WAW.  I'll also try it with the seat in a more upright position.   If you have bumps for your knees and feet vision to the front and sides can be quite good as most the shell would now be a few inches lower than normal.  One big disadvantage of this approch is that you may need a couple of sizes of tops for different sized folks.  I am not too worried about this as I am making it to fit me.  Making a different top would make sense if there was enough demand.
The sawhorses with the foam clamped to them were to check shoulder width.  It's now 51.5 cm which just fits me but I will make in a couple of cm wider so I don't touch all the time.   Right now my base pattern is a bit too short in the front to get a nice nose shape.  I may have to extend it 10-15 cm.  If I do this I will shorten the tail by the same amount so the total length stays at 280 cm.  Even with this change the back end will be very aerodynamic.  There may have to be a bit of a bump for my shoulders.   Maximum width on the base is 71 cm with a track width of 78 cm.  Next step will be to mock up the wheels and imagine what the shape may end up being. 

Thoughts on a new fast velomobile

The most sales of velombiles seem to be to folks who want to ride fast. This is not suprising as early adopters would mostly be serious cyclists and one of the primary reasons for considering a velomobile would be to go faster. What I am thinking of is something along the lines of a Milan/WAW/Evo K. It would have to have very good speed potential and still carry just enough gear to go touring. 

As for overall size it would similiar to the WAW.  With a shorter nose and a  longer pointer tail.  I would also have a bit more room for my feet, knees and shoulders. I am 6'2" and have size ten and half feet so I don't quite fit the WAW.  I could modify the WAW by putting in bumps for my knees and shoulders but it just seems wrong to do this to such a nice machine. Better that it eventually goes to some one who fits it properly. It should be possible to have a smaller frontal area than the Quest and still have enough room for gear.  From the bit I have ridden the WAW there is quite a bit to be said for its great cornering ability.  This comes about by its wider stance and front wheels that are canted in quite a bit.  Having you sit right on the floor helps too. 


It is very tempting to go with open wheel wells to decrease the turning raduis and make servicing the front wheels, brakes and suspension simplier.  Open wheel wells can be quite efficient provided that the wheels are nicely faired into the body with very little space around the tires.  The Evo K seems to verify that open wheel wells can be quite quick.  The best way to get this result may be to build the shell without the wheel wells and then glue them in afterwards.  Once the wheels are installed cut the opening to just fit around the tire. You could even adjust the size of the opening with an add on flat panel if you used bigger tires in winter and then switched to faster ones for summer time riding.  The big advantage is in how I would fabricate the bottom half as it is quite a simple part to vaccum bag or infuse without having to work around the wheel wells. Making the wheel well as a separate unit would also simplify making this part.  The risk of not having successful parts would be reduced. When you are vaccuum bagging or infusing you either get very good parts or junk you have to throw away.  What happens if you loose vaccuum at a critical point is  the part expands about 30% and fills with air.


My preference is for a head out velo but design it so a racing hood could be added for speed freaks.  I prefer the slightly bigger head opening so you can see inside the velo when riding with the roof on. The size I have on the Borealis seems about right.  This with a small foam cover for use in the most inclement conditions might be the best all round compromise.  The head  opening should be just large enough so you can crawl out of it if necessary. The size of the door section  should be large enough to make getting in and out easy.  Rather than go with a hinged door one that just lifts on and off is worth trying.  If it could just snap in place that may be ideal.  It should also sit on a substantial foam gasket so it doesn't rattle.  If it was just long enough so it could be made in different sizes depending on the height needed to clear your knees  you would have the option of customising the size of the velomobile a bit.  If you did the same with the section where your feet are with a removeable cover you would would gain easy access to the front derailleur, headlight and a bit more usefull storage space in front of the wheel wells.

Suspension on all three wheels.  While I would like to develop my concept for a carbon/basalt fiber spring front suspension it will most likey have the standard front suspension as found in other velos.  The time and effort to develop this is hard to justify when velomobiel.nl makes a very good unit.  Rear suspension should be an air shock  so the rider can personalize it to suit them.  The rear swing arm is best if not single sided so you have the option of using a Rohloff or rear hub motor.  Structurally  the double sided swing arm should be easier to implement.  If the rear swing arm can be pulled out of the bottom of the shell so changing the rear tire would be the same as on a normal trike.  One would have a removeable cover over this opening to clean up the air flow and keep everything clean. 

Ground clearance of around 10 to 12 cm.   Some cars are in this range for ground clearnace.  This will make it a very practical vehicle as it will handle most roads with ease.  Just the occassional speed bump that causes cars problems too may be an issue. 

Reverse gear would still be with at least one foot hole open. The mould would have  bumps for both feet so you then have the option of adding reverse or not.

Seat could be made easily removeable to make gear storage and cleaning the velombile easier.  If you can take the seat with you it would make the velmobile unrideable. 


This would be a monocoque structure with all the bike parts fitted to it.  There would be no separate frame except for the rear swing arm and a carbon front boom assembly.  Constuction would be out of kevlar and carbon fiber with some honeycomb or foam cores where necessary.  To get the most performance out of these materials the parts would be vacuum bagged or infused.  We have been looking into an epoxy resin system that seems safer to use than previous offerings.  It has very high elongation which would help to build a very tough shell.  There is a epoxy clear cost option that could add a very minimum of weight or even a paint that can be sprayed in the mould that would be lots lighter than gel coat.  In a few months there is an epoxy gelcoat coming from this manufacturer that can be bent into a one inch radius without cracking.  With any of these options spider cracks common in gel coat would no longer occur.   Target weight of less than 25 kg.  Cost is unknown at this point but it would be very competitve. Chances of this happening soon are quite low.

New Projects

New Borealis
Now that I almost have my new shop operational what I would like to do is rebuild the moulds for the Borealis V2 so it has all the changes I made when doing the V3.  The real problem with this is that there are a limited number of Sprint NT(narrow track) frames available.  ICE still has enough of these frames left to make this redesign worthwhile.  Once these frames are used up I would convert the tooling to accept a frame replacement we would build into the composite parts. 

To make this more attractive the pricing on this velomobile is very reasonable at $C 6,800 for the shell and the trike outfitted with suspension on all three wheels and drum brakes.  This price is only available until the frames for the Sprint NT are used up.  The final product would be very practical everyday velomobile similiar in preformance to a Strada or Mango.  It would not be avialable until Spring 2012 as it will take some time to rework the moulds.  We would only go ahead with this if there was sufficient interest.

Scorpion FS as a Velomobile

Now that the Borealis V3 is done I have been looking at the Scorpion FS trike as a basis for a velombile using the same shell.  I would have to modify the shell a fair bit to make it work.  The wheel wells would move foward a bit as the seat to front wheels distance is quite different between the Scorpion and the Sprint.  We would also have to devise a new mounting system. There may be some other issues that come up but they can be addressed when they do.  This combination would make a great velomobile not quite as fast as the quicker ones but very practical for extending your riding season.  We have a couple of folks already interested but would need a few more to make this come about.  This should be very attractive to those who already own a Scorpion FS as you would get  the benefits of a velomobile for less than half the cost of a regular velomobile.

Local Election

We have a local Municipal election coming up on November 19th.  This will be a very important election for our town as it will set the tone for either rampant sprawl or a more liveable place.  Only about 25% of the electorate comes out and votes for the level of goverment that has the most influence over your life.  The municipal council consists of a Mayor and six Councillors who are elected at large.  For your vote to have the most impact only vote for those candidates who you are happy with.  You do not have to vote for all the positions available. It is better not to vote for a candidate who you are unsure about if this means they end up having more votes than the ones you are sure about.  If you are concerned about cycling and liveable community issues, here as some recommendations for council, partially based of a questionnaire, past performance and personal experience.  If you want to go through the questionnaire you can find it at http://www.rmcyclist.info/

Most Recommended:


Alex Pope
Carley O'Rourke
Christian Cowley
Kiersten Duncan
Corisa Bell
Craig Speirs (incumbent)

Recommended

Peter Tam
Randy Goos
Graeme Ross
John Mackenzie
Sandy MacDougal
Dana Lang

Not Recommended

Claus Andrup
Cheryl Ashlie(incumbent)
Judy Dueck(incumbent)
Mike Morden(incumbent)
Al Hogarht (incumbent)
Jacques Blackstone 
Wendy Cook
Graham Mowatt
Ken Stewart
Elizabeth Taylor
Grover Telford
Robert Masse

Here's a couple of things I wrote a while back:

"Please spend my tax dollars on cycling infrastructure.  When I moved my business to Maple Ridge cycling here was better than what it is now.  With growth, traffic volume has grown, choking the roads with cars, turning a reasonable cycling experience into a more stressful activity.  I ride part of the 123 bike route and also use the bike lanes on 240th Street to get to work.  This is one of the better parts of my day.  To make this town a more liveable place there should be more accommodation for walking and cycling.  One way to ensure this is to start funding cycling infrastructure in a meaningful way.  Perhaps five dollars per capita would a reasonable goal."

"There is a very vocal segment of folks who are advocating for more local shopping.  While I can agree with more local shopping it should not be at the expense of green space.  When I moved here 28 years ago I understood that I would have to travel some distance to shop and that was one of the things that I liked about the place.  It seems that new comers didn't properly understand what was here when they moved.  Cheap houses lured them here and now they want Maple Ridge to become Burnaby.  If I wanted to live in Burnaby I could have moved there long ago."

"It seems long time residents are subsidising new homes.  To get to the new housing you need to drive on the roads paid for by long term residents and use existing infrastructure to service the new homes.  Al Hogarht has stated that new houses only pay about 25% of their costs, business and older housing pays for the rest.  As a business owner I find it difficult to deal with the very increasing taxes--never mind as a long term resident."

New Signal Lights

We are working on some new signal lights.  The first set is now installed in the next Borealis V3.  Here are a couple of pictures of them being made.

First I cast a layer of casting resin on a sheet of glass and laid a light layer of glass onto it. Once this had set I added the lights on top and bonded them in place with another layer of glass as you can see in the photo above. 

Here are the lights ready to install in the shell.  All four of them together weigh in at just less than 30 grams.  They consist of three 2 watt LEDs in each light.  They do get quite hot so that is the reason for the extra metal bit they are bolted to.  It acts as an additional heat shink and allows air to circulate around the LEDs.  I originally considered just casting them in resin but they get a bit too hot for that as their temparture gets close to the HTD point of the resin.  If they get too hot they will have short service life.  This all seems quite a bit of trouble compared to just bonding in an off the shelf LED as is found on most velos.  The reason is that I don't consider these other lights adequate in all circumstances. They are not very visible in full sunlight.  These new lights are hard to look at from less than about 10 feet and are very visible even in full sunlight.  Another advanatage is that with a bit of extra work they can be mounted flush on the shell.  They draw the same amount of power that our present turn signal lights with 18 LEDs in them use.  Here is how they look once bonded in the shell with a bit more resin added to make them flush.

The better way to do it would be to make a mould so you cast the light with a little spigot sticking out that would fit through the hole in the shell.  Then you mask around the sticking out part and carefull sand it off to match the shape of the shell.  Sand to 1000 or even 2000 grit and polish.  Once you had done a few you could probably get the sanding and polishing down to five minutes or so.  This would also allow fitting to almost any velo. 

Riding to Quadra Island

A few weeks ago I tried to ride from Maple Ridge to Quadra Island in one day.  I am eventually moving there and taking the velomobile part of the business along too.  The route I picked out is about 260 km.  This is just a bit further than the furthest I have ridden in a day before.  The plan was to get up early so I could catch the ferry from Tsawwassen to Duke Point on Vancouver Island.  This ferry runs every two and a half hours with the first one being at 5:15.  I was planning on catching the 7:45 as this should leave enough time to ride to Quadra Island before it got completely dark. I also needed to make it to Campbell River early enough to catch the last ferry to Quadra Island.

 I set off around 4 am riding for the first while in the dark.  I was making good time and would have been half an hour early for the ferry when I had a mechanical problem about 45 minutes ride from the ferry.  Luckily I was able to get  replacement parts thanks to Brock at Cambie Cycles and was back on my way but missed the next two ferry sailings.  Now it looked like there was no chance of making it to Campbell River before dark.  Luckily I had a backup plan to stay with friends who were house sitting a place about 100 km from Duke Point. 

I managed to find the bike route through Naniamo but lost it about 2/3 of the way through town.  As I was riding along a busy 4 lane road I passed a guy riding on the sidewalk who looked like a regular commuter. We were going slightly uphill as the time but we were close in speed.  He passed me and was just creeping way but looked back a few times so I was a bit motivated to catch him.  I eventually passed him as it flattened out a bit and then he caught a ride on the back of a truck by grapping the handrail on the back edge of the truck. I had almost caught him again when he turned off to a shopping mall.  The look on his face when he looked back was priceless as he was at least 200 meters ahead with the truck trick and thought he had left me behind. I was hoping to catch him and congratulate him on the move with the truck.  I was feeling pretty good at the time considering that I had everything I would take for self supported touring along except for the tent and cooking gear.  

After Naniamo you have no choice but to ride the Island Highway which has a good shoulder most places until you can turn off onto Northwest Bay Road.  This avoids some climbing to get to Parksville and gets you to the old highway along the coast .   I rode along this until Qualicum Bay where I turned uphill with the knowledge that a meal was waiting for me.  The last 4 or so km were the toughest riding I had done for a few years.  It was steeply uphill and slow going with the extra weight I was carrying. I ended up stopping a few times and riding with no shoe (too lazy to stop and change shoes) on my right foot as it was quite sore.  Seems I can only ride 80 km before having to change to walking shoes rather than the clipless cycling shoes.  I much prefer to be clipped in as you can pull back some which is especially helpful when climbing.  I had the same issue on ROAM where I rode half the day in cycling shoes and the other half in walking shoes.  Needless to say the meal that night was right and the company good.  About eight and half hours of riding with some short breaks while riding.

The next morning I set out fairly early with the goal of reaching home around lunch time.  About a hour and a half into the ride I stopped for coffee at a small farm market and ended up buying some cherries and plums.  About 25 km from the ferry I started to look for some place that had ice cream. I passed a mini golf center and noticed it had an Island Farms ice cream sign out so I stopped, turned around and went back.  It was a worthwhile stop as I had a chocolate mocha milk shake made with chocolate milk--highly recommended!!!  Just as I was leaving after the milkshake I was stopped by a fellow in a pickup truck.  It turned out to be one of my employees from over twenty years ago.  We had a good chat and agreed to get together again later that weekend.  He also stopped on his way back for a milkshake as I recommended  and agreed that it was worth stoppinh for.  At Willow Point I noticed the ferry crossing back to Campbell River and thought I had missed that one for sure as I was still 10 plus km from the ferry.  But I rolled up to the ticket booth in Campell River, paid the fare and rolled right onto the ferry.  I was kind of hoping for a bit longer rest before tackling the ride up and  across the island. the ferry ride is only about 10 minutes.  The last kilometer of the ride is very pleasant as its all downhill.  All in all a good ride with about 5.5 hours of riding with a couple of longish breaks.

I think this ride is possible for me in one day.  It would help to start out with a good nights's sleep and not have any mechanical problems.  Maybe the option of riding to Horseshoe Bay instead of Tsawwassen might be better as it takes quite a while to ride back to Naniamo from Duke Point.  Passing thruogh Vancouver should be pretty easy early in the morning even if it means riding a few more hills.  I'll try this next time for a change of scenery.  Also having an empty velo(lighter) would help especially at the end of the day when you are tired.

Misc Observations on ROAM

It was a great experience.  Glad that I was able to take part in the first few days.  It has given me a new perspective on what's possible in a velomobile.

Velomobiles seem to attract a very interesting set of folks.  This reminds me of the early days of white water kayak paddling and then later on the early sea kayaking crowd.   It would have been great to do the whole ride and get to know them better. 

Saw some velomobiles that I had not seen before.  The Evo R is simply a spectacular velo.  Light and fast.  I really enjoyed looking over the craftsmanship that went into building it.  It's expensive but the builder has put his heart and soul into it.  The graphite rear swing arm must have taken a few days if not a week to make.  The Milan is great in its own way.  It's very fast and looks much better in person than on the internet.  Markus assembled it from a kit where he added all the bike parts to the shell.  His pride of ownership is very high.  He suffered a lot from the collision that occurred.  Luckily the damage was cosmetic and he could continue his ride.  Another very interesting machine was the Pterovelo.  Lots of thought and effort went into building this enclosed velo.  Frans did a very nice job of the build.  Every time he passed me he just disappeared off into the distance.  The Pterovelo is quick and it demonstrates that there is more than one way to build a fast, efficient machine.  I am very curious to see how this one evolves.  It would be marvellous if it could be made to work for my wet, cold, maritime climate.

There were some electric assist velos on the ride too.  About day three I found out that Merrill in the Alleweder had electric assist.  He always passed me in the last part of each day's ride.  I was faster on any downhill but he was quicker otherwise.  He would  just creep away if it was early in the day so slowly that you were tempted to up your tempo.  I managed not to get sucked in.  Aaron in his Quest also had electric assist which was quite useful to him when his feet started giving him trouble.  He could take some of the load off his feet by using the assist.  Apparently Aaron was the only Quest that Joerg couldn't easily pass as Aaron used his assist to keep up.  Taylor and Patrick also had electric assist.  I was a bit suprised at how well the electric assists worked even on long day at over 200 km.  It really became a matter to how you used them so you had juice in the battery when you really needed it.  The first couple of days were a learning cuvre for some with electric assist.  Electric assist made it possible for Patrick to take part in the ride.  While I have tried electric assist, I have a hard time putting up with the extra weight on the flats. It just doesn't feel like a proper bike.  However, this attitude may change with my move to Quadra Island where the riding is all up and down and definitely not velomobile friendly terrain.