NACA pic

The NACA duct just out of the mould and trimmed up ready to be bonded in.  I suppose that you could even bond it in with silicone but I will most likely glass it in place or use a higher strength adhesive.  

Carbon Rear Swing Arm/NACA Duct/Milan XL(MaX) Progress

The third try at building a carbon swing arm for the Milan.  It is still a work in progress but very nearly ready.  Still needs to have nicely machined dropouts rather than the present trial ones.  The steel version of this weighs in at 1150 g while this one is 700 g. 

Two views of the NACA duct installed.  The NACA duct itself weighs in at around 30 g.  You end up adding a good portion of that weight to bond it in place.  The duct is made to fit onto the door with a small flange that matches the shape of the door.  The tricky part is cutting the hole to just the right size.   You should be able to retro fit this into existing doors with some care and patience.  I have tried it out a couple of times now  and it moves a surprising amount of air.  I can feel the flow almost at my face once you get to about 20 kph.   If you ride with the hood I would highly recommend adding one.  Also in the picture you can see the larger knee pumps in the door so I can pedal the SL without having to move the BB forward of my favored spot.   I will eventually make a new door as this one was a bit of an experiment with the laminate and I cut out the knee bumps and made them slightly larger.  This door now overlaps the shell so water runs off to the outside.  There is still the rain gutter under it which very effectively stiffens the edge of the cockpit opening.  The knee bumps being larger than the original ones must be slowing me down.  I sure can't tell as the SL is a real rocket even compared to the GT which is already pretty quick.   On some of the hills here it is scary fast.  I use the brakes more than with the GT.  

Lots of progress on the larger Milan.  I may end up calling in the Milan MX.  Most of the moulds are now made and the first two bottom parts are moulded.  I ended up having to remake the rib mould that stiffens the sides.  They are a few days away from being done and then we can carry on assembling the velo.  Looking forward to being able to sit in it and see how big it is.  

Lights, 103 km ride

Here you can see the mounting bracket I have made up for some Lezyne lights.  Just three layers of carbon around a 1" tube,a teardrop shaped price of wood and a bolt to hold it on.  The tube is stiff enough to be a tight spring fit around the light such that you can slide it in and out.  I use them as daytime flashing lights.  Definitely lights to be seen by as the normal headlights are brighter by they don.t have a flashing function.  

The second pattern for a NACA duct is in the background while the mould for it is in the foreground.  The mould is ready to be used so I can try the duct out in the door.  With the hood on this should help by being able to direct some of the airflow onto the front visor.  I will have to experiment some to see how it can be made to work best.    

On the island here there is a New Years's Eve Epic Ride.   The goal is to ride about 100 km for the day and less if you are less ambitious.You start out at 9 am and the first section is a going north to Granite Bay about 20 km away.   I wasn't sure if I could ride by upright bike for three hours and about half the distance is on gravel road so I ended up using my short wheel base recumbent. It proved a bit tricky on some of the downhills when you encountered loose gravel.  Once at Granite Bay you ride back up to the paved road and then the group splits up.  The less ambitious folks head back to the start and ride the rest of the 100 km on the less hilly and mostly paved south end of the island.  The more ambitious ride out to Surge Narrows on a very twisty and steep road that is mostly gravel.  I rode back to the start and then home for lunch and to change bikes.  It was a welcome change to ride the Milan.  Much warmer and quicker, it being less hilly helps too.  The first bit was cold as it was at or below freezing so staying warm wasn't easy.  I stopped briefly at Granite Bay to take a picture and was soon back on the bike to try warm up a bit.  I slowed down going downhill a few times just to stay a bit warmer. Rode the last half in the velomobile and was nice and warm except my feet started to get cold after a couple of hours.  I could have put the neoprene covers on the cycling shoes or switched to regular shoes which would have solved the cold foot problem.   Ended up riding most of the day to get the 103 km in with over 1700 meters of climbing.   I have ridden over 250 km in a day that seemed less difficult.   There was a great turn out for the ride this year with about 60 participants.