Merrill's Roll Over America Adventure

Interest in Velomobiles Accelerates

2011-12-01T21:51:00.006-05:00

This past Sunday,(11-27-11) The Hartford Courant published an article titled, "Interest in Velomobiles Accelerates - New Britain Resident Rides Bullet shaped recumbent trike cross country" Here's the picture that went with the story.
Here's the link to the article in the Hartford Courant

Here's me turning the camera on the photographer as he attached a big camera to the velomobile to take some video.

Interviews of ROAM Riders

2011-10-08T16:18:00.005-04:00

The guy who interviewed me at the campground in Indiana sent me a link to this video. It's a nice compilation of interviews with some of the ROAM riders. It is a 30 minute video. I'm interviewed about 25 minutes into it.

2011-10-04T22:01:00.010-04:00

A friend just directed me to this interesting video of Harald Winkler's presentation on his 12 kilo foam velomobile at the 6th annual velomobile seminar.

While I was on the Community Video website I found all of these other videos about velomobiles.

query=velomobile%20AND%20collection%3Aopensource_movies">http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=velomobile%20AND%20collection%3Aopensource_movies

2011-08-28T14:35:00.002-04:00

OK so I guess I'm officially in ROAM withdrawal. I've spend the better part of the day going through other riders blogs and searching YouTube for ROAM video. Since I found one the includes me, here it is:

2011-08-28T14:15:00.001-04:00

Video from the last day of riding down the bike path in Virginia

2011-08-28T10:53:00.005-04:00

Video of our arrival in Georgetown (a section of DC)

Reflections on ROAM

2011-08-27T16:10:00.003-04:00

As one of the riders said at the EU reception, "Others will do it, but we were the first to ride velomobiles across the US." It was quite an adventure. Had we not had a time definite that we had to reach DC (the Europeans had planes to catch), we might still be riding. The last couple of weeks I would develop "hot foot" 90 to 100 miles into each day's ride. It would have been easy to stop someplace else to camp if we hadn't had the imposed discipline of Josef's planning.

It was a great group of riders from 7 countries. 22 Europeans and group of North Americans that varied in size over the ride. Over 50 riders participated in some part of the ride. 35 riders peddled into DC and John Abbey drove the truck carrying his damaged velomoblile.

There were several velos that were damaged along the route. The primary culprit was the dreaded rumble strip. Great for waking dozing truck drivers, they were the bane of our existence. It turns out that when you ride a velomobile on a rumble strip, the bouncing it causes screws up the rear suspension and creates a phenomena very much like skidding on ice in a car. Three velos flipped after losing control on rumble strips. Drivers were generally courteous although two riders were forced off the road by passing cars. Finally on the afternoon of the "victory lap" in DC one of the Dutch riders was hit by what turned out to be an unmarked secret service car making a turn. The rider was a little banged up but the velo will need some serious repairs.

That said, we velomobilists (velonauts if you prefer) definitely prefer roads to Multi Use Trails.

Local bike activists, rightly proud of the the trails they have worked so hard to establish couldn't quite understand why we kept ignoring their carefully planned routes to ride down roads. The reality is that velomobiles are best suited to smooth surfaces with the gentle curves of roads rather than the sharper turns of some bike paths. Packed limestone may be fine for mountain bikes but give us a road any day. Gravel, forget about it. We spent a lot of time on US 12 the least traveled of the cross country routes. While there were trucks, it had a wide shoulder and a smooth surface. There were times in Indiana riding on bumpy back roads when we all longed for US 12. At the end of the ride Mike, one of the North American riders presented Josef (our tour captain) with a replica of a US 12 sign

For four weeks I focused almost completely on riding and related tasks, (eating, sleeping and keeping the velomobile running). I frequently found myself asking what day of the week it was, and only looked at the news for stories about ROAM. I think this was my favorite.

I got to know some great folks that I hope to stay in touch with. Roll Over Europe anyone?

Made it to Washington!

2011-08-27T15:30:00.006-04:00

We made it to DC. The highlight of the trip was our arrival in Georgetown (a section of DC)

We arrived at 6:30pm and decided to stay together as a group. In order to do that the first two riders stopped to block the crossing traffic at intersections so that all the velos could proceeded through the intersection. We were all blowing our horns and ringing bells. No one on the sidewalk had a clue what was going on but they were all snapping pictures and shouting questions.

After our impromptu parade, we ended up parking our velos in the lower level of the basement parking garage and posing for a group picture. Maybe in front of the Welcome to Washington DC would have been a better picture, but here's the garage shot.

The next morning we attempted a "victory lap" around the capital city only to be thwarted by a combination of mother nature (it rained hard on us for the first time of trip) and the park police who wouldn't allow us into Lafayette Park across for a picture in front of the White House and then proceeded to chase us off of several other photo op locations. We did manage to line up the velomobiles on the mall for a picture in front of the capitol.Another shot of the velos.

Finally here's one of me in front of the Washington monument which was closed due to the damage caused by the earth quake earlier in the week.

Fort Wayne IN

2011-08-18T22:52:00.002-04:00

Made it back to the eastern time zone today. The highlight of the day was the town of Nappanee IN.

Velos parked in front of the round Amish barn.

Namanne has a large Amish community that in addition to the horse and buggy have embraced>BREAK

bicycles and tricycles. This was new to me so you can imagine my surprise when I rolled up to an intersection to find twist young Amish guys one on a Tour Easy recumbent and the other on a Baccetta recumbent. I chatted with them for a couple of minutes and learned that an Amish guy runs the only recumbent shop in Indiana.
One of the Dutch riders works for a company called Ciber that is located near Nappanee and treated the group to lunch at the Amish Acres resort.

Location : 1136-1798 N Harry Baals Dr, Fort Wayne, IN 46805,

Battery replaced

2011-08-17T12:55:00.001-04:00

Happy to report a good experiance with Golden Oasis New Energy Group. After one of my 20 ah batteries only held 12.5 ah I sent them reporting the problem an told them I would be passing through Chicago today. This morning one of the SAG vans drove me over to swap the bad battery for a new one. No hassles and they were very impressed with our cross county trip

Location : Jane Addams Memorial Tollway, Elk Grove Village, IL 60007,

Met up with my brother outside of Chicago

2011-08-17T11:06:00.001-04:00

On the ride from Madison WI to Evanston IL I met up with my brother Brian and his co workers who came out to see the velomobiles.

Location : 1451-1461 Sherman Ave, Evanston, IL 60201,

Twin cities

2011-08-13T13:26:00.001-04:00

Rest day in the rain cities. We only ride 60 miles between camp sites on the east and west sides. Stopped for a vegan scone, soy cappachino and a new bike pump at freewheel cycle and cafe. A very cool place.

Location : Midtown Greenway, Minneapolis, MN 55407,

Flooding in SD still causing problems.

2011-08-10T22:51:00.003-04:00

The spring's floods washed out part of u s 12 in Roscoe south dakota so we had to take a detour be about 20 miles. When we finally got for lunch to Ipswitch SD, one of the locals mentioned that the priest at the catholic church had somethin sorta like this without the shell. I suggested he give him a call and a few minutes later there was a priest outside of the Subway checking out the velos.
It turns out that Fr. Randy Philips has a 2008 ICE trike that had been a demo. I asked him what he thought the odds were that 34 velomobiles would roll through his little town of ipswich. Later I wondered what the odds were that we would encounter a recumbent trike riding priest in at town of 941 souls in the middle of South Dakota.

Longest ride ever

2011-08-10T00:30:00.001-04:00

Today was a 160 mile ride from Bowman ND to Mobridge SD. It was generally down hill, the temperature a perfect mid 70's and partly cloudy. With the exception of a few miles of road construction the road was smooth with a car or truck passing every 5 or 10 minutes. In the morning we were blasting along at 25 to 30 mph with a tail wind. After 50 miles we had our coffee break and I joined a bunch of folks for an early lunch. 15 miles later I started wishing I had coffee instead. 70 miles into the ride I was gettring distinctly drowsy. I kept hoping that over the next hill there might be aa town big enough to have a place to buy coffee. At one point I found my self with my head resting on the inside of the roof fighting to keep my eyes open. I looked down at the speedometer I saw that even on the verge of falling asleep I was still pedaling fast enough to be going 27 miles an hour. Just then as I was writing off another cluster of broken down buildings and farm equipment as another us been town, I spotted a hand written sign for a restaurant with a neon "Open" sign. I hung a quick U turn and went back to a little dive full of locals. Coffee in hand, I fielded the usual, "What do you call them there little buggies?" When I asked how much I owned, the owner said, "That will be 50 cents, no you only had one it's on the house. You have a safe ride." Later in the day we stopped at the Prarie Dog cafe where they had a map where patron could stick a push pin in to their home town. For you dewing the blog with my location shown on a map its clear, but for us riding through the endless hay and wheat feilds, it was quite a revelation that we are now almost half way across the country.

Location : Indian Creek Rd, Mobridge, SD 57601,

Miles & Miles in Miles City

2011-08-08T08:09:00.001-04:00

Miles Kingsbury (ROAM rider) on right poses with Miles Milligan owner of Pedal Power Sports in front of the Miles city sign

Location : 299-201 Front St, Miles City, Mt 59301,

Repair day in Miles City

2011-08-07T19:48:00.001-04:00

Our rest day in Miles City turned into repair day for a lots of folks. I discovered a quite a few loose bolts on my velomobile which contributed to the lousy steering I was experiancing.

In the picture Bengy is completing major surgery on his Quest. Seated on the ground next to him is Miles, The owner of bike shop in Miles City.

Location : 299-201 Front St, Miles City, Mt 59301,

Why no daily posts?

2011-08-07T19:13:00.001-04:00

I had the best of intentions to blog daily about ROAM (Roll Over America) but the reality of the trip makes that hard. On a typical riding day we get up as early as possible (someone's alarm goes off around 5:30am). Then we pack up, eat something and get on the road as fast as we can. For me that's been as early as 6:30 and once as late as 8:30. The reason for this mad dash to ride in the cool morning rather than the hot afternoon. That and the later you get into camp the less time you have for dinner etc. Typically we ride 100 to 150 miles each day. Prior to ROAM I had done one century ride, so this has been challenging. Each day we have coffee break and a lunch break planned. In Montana, which will take us 6 days to ride across there are only a million people (less than a third of CT's population) and great swaths of the state don't have cell phone service.

Location : 299-201 Front St, Miles City, Mt 59301,

Day 8

2011-08-05T00:15:00.001-04:00

Today we rode 131 miles. We had a 12 hill that wasn't fun, but we were rewarded with a the 10 mile down hill to lunch. After lunch we had a couple of climbs but then a 20 mile stretch of rolling hills that gently decended into Harlowton Montana. After realizing how primitive the camp site at the rodeo grounds was, one of our of our advance people called the superintendent of schools and got him to open the high school locker room so we could take showers. Lots of towns folks came by to check out the velos including a guy with two six shooter on his hips. The europeans assumed he was the sheriff an was surprised that a regular guy could walk around wearing guys.

Location : Address not available

Day 3, State 3

2011-08-02T11:34:00.001-04:00

Today after at long hot 150 miles we crossed into Idaho. When my doctor told me I'd probably need to eat around 5000 calories a day I thought he was crazy. I just finished my fifth meal of the day. After 150+ miles I found myself polishing off a big ribeye, baked potato, plate of pasta, salad and bread. Good thing the new headlight works because it's now 10:30 pm and I still have a couple of miles to ride to the hell's gate camp ground

Location : 3200-3298 Tina Ave, Missoula, Mt 59808,

Day 2 Cascade Locks to Umatilma

2011-07-30T14:18:00.001-04:00

The day started out cool and comfortble. Most of the day's ride was on the sholder of I 84. Not particularly fun. After a while you get used to the big trucks whizzing by. The real problems were the rumble stop and road debris particularly the wires from blown truck tires. Among the group we had 15 to 20 flat tires. The rumble caused one ride to lose control and flip. Rider was banged up and velo shell sustained some cracks. Fortunately we're done with highway for a while.

I discovered today that

Location : 28-36 E Main St, Walla Walla, WA 99362,

Out of the coastal forest and into the dry grasslands. You can see the big hydro dam in the distnce

2011-07-29T14:05:00.001-04:00

Location : The Dalles-California Hwy, The Dalles, OR 97058,

Blasting down I-84

2011-07-29T01:09:00.001-04:00

Yes there is an I 84 in OR too, and out here you are allowed to ride a bike on the sholder. After some negotiating the OR DOT agreed to set up a rolling blockade so the we could ride through a narrow tunnel without cars or trucks. This picture is of the group blasting down hill on the way to the tunnel. Every velomobilist'z fantasy, racing down a hill on an interstate without cars or trucks.

Location : 841 NE Forest Ln, Cascade Locks, OR 97014,

Made the Portland TV news as Roam launched today

2011-07-28T21:44:00.001-04:00

Velomobiles start 3,100-mile trek in Portland | kgw.com Portland

Location : 1 Cramblett Way, Cascade Locks, OR 97014,

2 hours until the start of ROAM

2011-07-28T12:42:00.001-04:00

Excitement is building. We leave the hotel for the down town send off in twenty minutes.

Location : 9930 N Whitaker Rd, Portland, OR 97217,

T minus 14 hours

2011-07-28T02:26:00.001-04:00

Last day before we start

Location : 3950 Ridge Ln, West Linn, OR 97068,

Parachute Making

2011-07-25T09:30:00.001-04:00

I spent the evening sewing two drag chutes to slow me down as I desend the rockies. As I ran the sewing machine I couldn't help but think, "Thanks Grandma Gay for not sewing something for me but rather teaching me to use her old treddle sewing machine. Thankfully, we moved up to an electric machine. I've got new found respect for people sew tents and stuff made of nylon. I did a passible job but its not pretty. Certainly won't be quitting the day job to become a tailor.

Location : 80-86 Thorniley St, New Britain, CT 06051,

Location : 144-178 Ella Grasso Rd, Newington, CT 06111,

The Roll Over America Route

2011-07-22T22:27:00.003-04:00

Yup that's right, the plan is to ride from one side of the country all the way across to the other. 3 days until I fly out to Portland.

Homebuilt roof for under $60

2011-07-06T22:58:00.020-04:00

They say that imitation is the highest form of flattery. This is my homebuilt version of the Flavobike roof. The Alleweder has a large opening so it required 2 x 4' aluminum rods, a short piece of 1/4" derlin rod, a sheet of blue foam camping pad, a 2' x2' piece of polycarbonate, some nylon nuts and bolts and two tubes of liquid nails extreme outdoor glue.

I used a fiberglass flag wand to figure out the shape of the curve so that I could just see out to the sides from under the roof then traced it on to a piece of cardboard. I then used the cardboard as a template as I bent the aluminum tube to create the desired curve of the roof. Then I cut an inch long slot in one end of each tube. I cut a similar slot into a short piece of derlin rod. Once that was done I drilled a hole through the aluminum and darlin perpendicular from the slot. This way its the darlin not the aluminum tube that touches the vertical connection to the velomobile.

I then fired up the BBQ and heated a sheet of blue foam camping pad (Walmart $5.95) and stretched it over an empty propane tank to put a curve in it. Next I cut a piece of 1/16" polycarbonate to the proper size. Then I put it all together by cutting some 4' long strips of fabric about 2.5" wide and glueing them to the blue foam with liquid nails. It was a lot easier when I glued the fabric to one side of the foam and let it dry. The next day I used a short piece of the 3/8" aluminum tube as spacing guide to glue the fabric around to the other side of the foam. This created a sleave on either side of the foam. After the glue dried I slid the aluminum tubes through to give the roof its shape. Then I drilled holes along the edge of the windshield and poked coresponding holes through the foam. Finally I secured the windshield to the foam using nylon nuts and bolts from McMaster-Carr.

All of that was fine but the back end was kind of long and didn't match the roof line of the turtle deck so I cut a V out of back.

Then I applied some Liquid Nails glue to the edges.

And finally I stitched up the incision from the inside so that it can't be seen from outside.

And voila a sub $60 roof (sub $50 if you count the cost of the individual nylon nuts and bolts rather than the cost of the bags of 50).

Here's a view from the front.

Training for the Roll Over America

2011-06-05T15:37:00.002-04:00

Every day is a day closer to the July 28th start of the Roll Over America. We're expecting about 50 velomobiles in Portland Oregon for the ride cross country to Washington DC. That's 3,000 miles in 30 days with a couple of rest days. So that means that we'll be averaging 120 miles a day. Every time I say that I think about how much more training I need to do. This morning I did 62 miles up to the Massachusetts line on the Farmington Valley rail trail.

2010-11-22T20:37:00.005-05:00

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

2010-11-22T20:26:00.002-05:00

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

2010-07-04T10:54:00.004-04:00

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!

2010-05-16T20:54:00.002-04:00

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

2010-05-09T21:29:00.006-04:00

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

2010-04-17T21:18:00.007-04:00

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

2010-03-06T21:15:00.004-05:00

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

2010-02-14T17:14:00.003-05:00

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

2010-01-12T19:45:00.000-05:00

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.

Probably the last ride of the decade

2009-12-27T22:31:00.003-05:00

It was a balmy 50 degrees today. Not bad for the end of December in New England. I dug the trike out from behind the snowblower and lawnmower and did a loop around the reservoir. Nice easy 7 mile ride. It was a little odd seeing piles of melting snow while riding in a light jacket. Well the weather is supposed to revert back to what one would expect in winter so the trike is stowed back in the garage. I seems like yesterday that we were worrying about Y2K and here it is 10 years later.

I just finished hanging the tandem trike project from the ceiling of the basement to start working on the chain line. The camera battery needs charging so no pictures yet, but soon.

New England Human Powered Vehicle Rally

2009-05-12T22:46:00.006-04:00

I finally got around to uploading the pictures off the camera from last weekends Human Powered Vehicle Rally at the Portsmouth, NH Sustainability Fair. As usual I took more pictures of hardware than people. There were some nicely done home builts that I might want to copy. Thanks again to Ethan Davis for organizing the event.

Car Free on Earthday

2009-04-30T16:27:00.002-04:00

I had the pleasure of celebrating Earthday with a photo shoot and interview about my velomobile for the New Britain Herald our local paper.

Tasmanian homebuilt velomobile pictures

2009-04-27T15:45:00.005-04:00

I recently found this great set of pictures of a homebuilt coroplast velomobile on the BentriderOnline message board velomobile thread. The builder lives in Tasmania, Austrailia, but thanks to the internet we can see the whole process. The pictures document the build and start with the finished product. To see how it was built start at the end and work back to the begining.

2009-04-12T22:11:00.003-04:00

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

2009-02-08T18:33:00.002-05:00

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

2008-12-13T14:48:00.011-05:00

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

2008-11-16T18:11:00.009-05:00

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

2008-11-01T22:03:00.003-04:00

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

2008-10-12T21:45:00.006-04:00

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

2008-09-13T15:29:00.003-04:00

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

David's trike is done!

2008-09-02T22:02:00.002-04:00

At long last, trike #4 is done and off to Maryland with its new owner, 14 year old David. We visited his parents (old friends from high school) back at Thanksgiving of 07. I showed them this blog and David who has never really been able to ride a bike due to a disability that effects his balance, got very excited.
In the spring his dad emailed to see if I had a set of plans because David really wanted a trike. As if by design, the very next email in the in box was from my friend Mike who had started building trike with my help. He had just found a great deal on a used Catrike and had a new raise burning a hole in his pocket. Mike bought the Catrike and the half done trike with all the parts was available. I offered to finish the trike for David and now there's a very happy 14 year old who hopefully got to take a ride today after school.
The trike is a variation on my original design. It used the back end of a recycled suspension mountain bike. The front wheels are 20" BMX wheels with 14mm axles. It uses under seat steering is based on the Peter Eland's spreadsheet. The front wheels have rim U brakes operated by a single brake lever.

Velomobiles Burlington VT October 4th

2008-07-28T20:24:00.012-04:00

The Velomobiles are coming to Vermont!
This year the HPV Burlington Bikefest takes the place of the New England Human Powered and Ultra Efficient Vehicle rally held in Amherst, MA for the last several years.

Last weekend I tagged along with my wife to a conference she had in Burlington and met up with some of the folks organizing the event. Phil, Marc and Stu have some big plans. There will be camping in a nice municipal campground right on the the shoreline bike path. A ride out to a working farm and an expo at Oakledge Park where folks can checkout the velomobiles and other interesting vehicles.

Burlington is a great little city on the shores of Lake Champlain. I was impressed by how much was going on there. The lake front is gorgeous and certainly not hurt by a bike path that hugs the shore. There are great restaurants and lots of micro brewed beer. There's also a thriving arts scene and lots of little non profit organizations doing good things. One that I particularly enjoyed finding was Local Motion the bike advocacy group that has worked to extend the bike path north along the island line.

Early October in Burlington is peak foliage season, which will make the trip that much better. If you've been fantasizing about a velomobile, plan to come. It will be a great place to see (possibly even ride) a bunch of manufactured as well as homebuilt velomobiles.
The HPV Burlington Bikefest website will soon be getting updates and we hope an online registration feature, so check it out.

Bentrider Online announces 2008 Car Free Challenge

2008-05-29T22:59:00.003-04:00

BentriderOnline.com has just announced their 2008 Car Free Challenge to run during the month of July. The Challenge is again being sponsored by TerraTrike and the prize will be a 2008 Cruiser trike. Unlike past years, this year the prize will be determined by the luck of the draw rather than through an essay contest. With gas prices over $4.00 Bryan at Bentrider figured last year's 200+ entries could easily become 400. So if you're thinking about going car free even for a month, check it out.

Plainville Earthstock

2008-04-20T22:12:00.005-04:00

I took the velomobile out to the Plainville Earthstock festival in Plainville today. Pictures I was set up between my friends at from the Plainville Greenway Alliance and Mike Zych, proud owner of a new (for him) Catrike Road. He also had his VW deisel modified to run on french fry oil. Lots of people came over to check of the velomobile. Unfortunately I forgot to take any pictures. On a sad note, I heard today that Bantam Bakery closed today. Apparently fuel and flour price increases really squeezed them.

Over seat stearing conversion

2008-03-02T22:14:00.000-05:00

I 've finally finished the coversion from underseat steering to the "Windcheetah" style overseat steering. The change was necesitated by my plan to put a floor and wheel wells into the fairing. The old handlebars would have hit the wheel wells every time I tried to turn. As you can see from the pictures I've bolted it all together just like the rest of the trike. I used 1.25" square tubing and a piece of tubing that's the same 7/8'' as handlebars.
The snow had melted off the road soI took it out for a test ride this afternoon. I didn't take it down a hill but I suspect I need to tighted the connection with the universal joint. There's some play in it. The other issue is that its prety hard to turn. The steering assembly is attached to the frame with a bolt that goes through a bushing on each side of the frame. Maybe some oil would help. The only other problem was that my rear derailer cable cought on the bit of bolt I didn't saw off fush with the nut.
The other advantage of this set up is that I had a chance to redo the steering linkage and hopefully improved the ackerman compensation. The old set up was off and an I went through tires about every 1000 miles. The turning radius dramticly improved. The old handle bars used to hit the seat limiting the turning circle to the width of my little street.

Laser front end alignment

2008-02-18T16:43:00.000-05:00

I spent the long weekend switching over from underseat stearing to Windcheetah style club steering, which of course means I needed to do a front end alignment. My system is copied from Larry Varney's friend and mechanic Walt Smith. Walt graciously did an alignment for me at the 2005 Bentride.
The system uses two magnetic laser torpedo levels. Idealy its a two person job with the rider sitting on the trike (there's a little frame flex in all trikes). The other person lines up the targets first very close to the lasers and then again 20' to 30' away. I've found that an inch of toe in at 20-30 feet works pretty well.

Do It Yourself LED Headlamp

2007-12-08T17:23:00.000-05:00

I stumbled upon this cool DIY LED headlight last night. Allen Chapman, the do it yourselfer who came up with it has done a really good job documenting how he built it and where he bought the parts. Light output wise it compares to the $400 to $500 high end lights. It looks like a fun winter project and I like the square tube look. It goes with the trike.

An Inconvenient Truth

2007-11-07T22:34:00.000-05:00

I rode over to Bantam Bakery in Plainville this evening for a showing of Al Gore's movie, An Inconvenient Truth. The showing was organized by the Plainville Greenway Alliance and the Plainville Conservation Commission. They had a good crowd and you can't beat Bantam Bakery for snacks.

In order to do the ride I had to get the trike's lighting system set up. I'm running a 20w Halogen headlight off of a 12 motor cycle battery. Like the rest of the trike its a home built set up. The light is actually a car fog light with a white bulb rather than the yellow that it came with. For visibility I'm also using a planet bike strobe mounted mid way up my flag pole. A 5 LED red light on the back of the fairing and just for added 360 degree visibility a xenon strobe at the top of my flag pole. I runs off of a 9 volt transistor radio battery. Finally I've mounted a headlamp to the visor of my helmet which I usually run in the flashing mode. Over kill you say? I was glad to have some extras as I watched the front headlight dim to dull glow as the battery ran down. Maybe someone will get me that killer LED headlight I saw over at REI for Christmas (Hint, Hint).

So watching the Nobel Prize winner's movie it's really hard not to think about how much different this country maybe the world would be if the supreme court hadn't given W the presidency.

Calculate your carbon foot print with the handy online tool on the Inconvenient Truth web site.

Obviously the more you can leave the car a home and walk, ride or take the bus the smaller your footprint will be.

Bentride 2007

2007-08-29T22:32:00.000-04:00

This past weekend was the annual BentriderOnline.com Bentride in Hammondsport NY.

The Glen Curtis museum played host to the festivities. Curtis, if you're not familiar with him, was a motorcycle pioneer who used his knowledge of engines to also become a well know builder of airplanes. In the picture you can see a bunch of us test riding recumbents beneath a sculpture of one of Curtis's early planes.

Here are some of the gang who came from far and wide for the Saturday expo and Sunday ride.

My velomobile attracted quite a bit of attention. Here's Bentrider's Mr. Trike himself, Larry Varney taking it for a spin.

After the expo, a bunch of us rode to lunch in Bath. What was that about there being a stereotype that recumbent riders are all old men with beards and aerobellies. OK maybe there are a couple guys who fit the description.

There were two other velomobiles in attendance. In this picture John Tetz (white shirt) builder of the zote foam velomobile talks with Krash, builder of the VeloKit (pictured in the second picture)

All in all it was another great recumbent weekend. The weather Sunday was perfect for the 47 mile ride around Lake Keuka. Thanks again to Bryan Ball at BendriderOnline for organizing it.

Bentride this weekend

2007-08-22T21:16:00.000-04:00

I'm looking forward to the annual Bentride around Kukla Lake in NY this weekend. Bryan Ball, publisher of Bentrideronline.com organizes this event each year. This year I'll be heading out with my friend Mike. We haven't finished building his trike yet, but it will be a great opportunity to check out the new trikes and other people's homebuilts.

A great week end

2007-06-25T07:21:00.000-04:00

Saturday I dropped my daughter off for her first day of her summer job as a life guard and went in to Hartford to hear Bill Moyers and Barak Obama at the 50th annual synod of the United Church of Christ. They were great. An intelligent, thought provoking, motivating speech from a presidential candidate. What a concept!

Having done my church thing on Saturday, Sunday was for cycling. Newington Bicycle held their 2nd annual recumbent trike rally. Mike Gallagher put together a nice ride and good food. There were 8 of us who rode including Mike and his wife on their Greenspeed tandem, Franny Yerkes on her ICE trike, Alex (my trike building apprentice from last summer) and a woman doing her first trike ride on a borrowed Greenspeed gt3s, John (I think) on a HP Scorpion trike and John Tetz and I in our home built velomibiles.

John has just fitted his zote foam velomobile with a 4 1/2 lb homebuilt electric assist system which he kept talking about as still being in the test phase. Well John, when a 75 year old guy passes me with ease going up a hill, I'd say the test is successful. John and I had lots of fun racing down the hills. The aerodynamics of velomobiles make it easy to leave everyone else in the dust. I set a new speed record for my velomobile at 47.4 miles per hour coming down the hill into Newington at the end of the ride. That front end alignment I did a little while ago made all the difference in the world. At 47+ mph the trike was rock steady.

After the ride I had arranged to meet up with my new friend Mike, one of the blog readers who had contacted me about building a trike/velomobile. We had planned out a rear suspension trike with 20" BMX wheels all around. Knowing that Mike has been spending a lot of time reading everything he could about trike construction on internet I knew he would be excited to see John's zote foam velomobile. Over lunch at the end of the ride I asked John if he wouldn't mind stopping by my house. Three homebuilders talking trikes, it was great fun. I know I eagerly awaiting John's write up of the power assist.

So what's next?

2007-06-16T08:09:00.000-04:00

I think my middle aged knees will appriciate a couple of days off, but I'm looking forward to next Sunday's 2nd annual Newington recumbent trike rally. Over the next week, I'll be working on the story of my car free challenge experiance for BentriderOnline.

Without the pressure of needing the velomobile on a daily basis I will be able to start some redesigns which I'll continue to document on this blog. I've been operating under the principal of, "If it aint keeping you from riding don't start taking it apart. you're going to need to ride the thing tomorrow." Some of the issues I'll address are:

The lid of the tailbox. I really like the look of the lid, but the thing was a pain in neck to line up to fit down tightly and frankly velco was not the best way to secure it. It blew off 3 times. Twice I had to backtrack to find it. I think bungee cords are probably the better solution.

The steering of the trike. What I have now works fine, but the handlebars swing out in a wide arc that will interfer with wheel wells for the fairing. This has been the primary project I've put off because I knew I couldn't get it done in one evening so that I could ride the next day.

The floor of the velomobile With warm summer weather around the corner, tightening up the velomobile with a floor hasn't been my top priority, but the real advantage of a velomobile is to extend the riding season later into the fall and winter.

A rain/sun awning I was lucky during the challenge month that I only got caught in the rain 3 times all on the way home when it didn't really matter if I got wet. A coroplast roof extending a foot or so out in front of my head seams like it would do the trick.

Other projects on the horizon:

Helping a friend build a rear suspension trike similar to the one to the right that I built last year and turning it into a velomobile. He found this blog and realized we lived about 10 miles apart. After he looked me up we spent an afternoon talking trikes and are now developing the shopping list of parts.

Figuring out how to build a no weld trailer out of conduit. My experiance riding the velomobile with the tailbox filled to the gills with groceries made me think that a trailer would be a better solution. I'm sure I was very very close to the weight limit on the tail box and the trike handled like a battleship. I've seen write ups of how to build a trailer out of conduit, but they all involve welding nasty galvinized conduit. I don't have a welding set up and I'm not excited about exposing anyone to the zinc fumes that are released when welding anything galvanized. So hopefully I devise a workable alternative to share with the world.

Finally, I'll also be working on a blog with the Plainville Greenway Alliance, a volunteer group working to fill the hole in the Farmington Valley Greenway that eventually will run from New Haven,CT to to Northhampton MA and be part of the East Coast Greenway.

Last Day

2007-06-15T21:48:00.000-04:00

Well its after 10pm on June 15th and I'm not planning on going anywhere tonight so I guess this is the end of the challenge. Over the past month I've ridden 306 miles in my velomobile through 10 towns in central CT. Thousands of people have seen me, hundreds have waved, given me a friendly toot of the horn or a thumbs up. A bright yellow velomobile with "Car free challenge" written across the back attracts attention. I'm happy to report that virtually all of it was positive.

Many of the women I know were concerned about my safety as I rode in traffic. The only near miss was when someone was so intent on looking at me as they passed me that they almost caused a head on collision.

Lots of people thought this had something to do with high gas prices. The fact that gasoline prices reached record highs during the challenge month was, however, purely coincidental. Back when I was driving I typically filled the tank once a week at about $35 right before the challenge started. So in the month I saved $140 on gas. To be honest that pales in comparison to the $303 car payment. Put another way, before the gas prices went up this spring it typically cost about $25 to fill the tank. That means the higher prices added $10 a week. Most Americans spend more than that a week on coffee they could make at home.

No this wasn't about gas prices this was about seeing if I could do it and getting into shape. I'm happy to report that riding everyday, I've lost about 5lbs and about an inch around the middle. My homebuilt velomobile held up pretty well and I have enjoyed showing it off.

This blog has been my first serious try at blogging. In the last two weeks since I figured out how to put a site meter on it there have been 540 visits. My blog has been featured in a local political blog and a blog by a recumbent bike rider somewhere where I think the speak Portuguese. I followed a link back to his site and it wasn't Spanish.

2nd to last day

2007-06-14T22:41:00.000-04:00

Today I rode to two events. The first was a ground breaking for a renovation and expansion of New Britain's HRA Head Start program. This was a great milestone as we'll finally be able to offer high quality preschool to poor children in a nice facility rather than the 90 year old school and portable classrooms that we've been making due with for so long. There were lots of folks I know at the event and for some it was the first time they had seen the velomobile.
Eventually I checked my watch and had to make a rather hasty departure to allow my self enough time to stop at the office before heading to my next meeting at the State Department of Education in Middletown. As I rode through Berlin I stopped in front of the local hardware store to take of my jacket and stick it in the tailbox. As I was putting the lid back on a guy came over to check out the trike. Turns out he was at the hardware store to pick up some parts for his latest project putting an electrical assist on a bike. Apparently we live about a mile apart. I hope to connect with him in the future. The next stop on the way was at Berlin Bike shop for a planet bike high intensity LED flasher. Bruce, Mark and some of the other mechanics came out to admire the trike.
After cranking up a long hill in the granny gear there was the thrill of a long steep decent. I hit 38 miles per hour and the trike handled well. Last Saturday's front end alignment certainly helped. As I came into Cromwell I realized that my options of places to pick up something for lunch were rather limited so I ducked in for a salad at (forgive me) McDonald's. To my surprise, sitting a table was Bill Graustein. Bill was the first person I met in CT who regularly commutes to work on a recumbent bike. He's also the chair of the board of trustees of a foundation that funds much of the early childhood work going on in CT. After a little quick showing off of the velomobile it was on to my meeting.
On the way home I stopped in to say hello and show off the velomobile at Suburban Cycle in Berlin. As of the end of the day I was up to 295.4 miles for the month. Even if I have to invent a couple of errands, I get in at least another 5 miles tomorrow to break 300 miles during the challenge.

Ride to the Plainville Greenways Alliance Meeting

2007-06-12T22:24:00.000-04:00

With only a 1/2 mile to and from work today it didn't really feel like I had been out for a ride today so I decided that I would finally go to a Plainville Greenway Alliance meeting. Plainville is the next town over from New Britain and is the one town along the Farmington Valley Greenway route where there hasn't been any construction. There is an East-West rail line that carries through traffic and a line that goes north and south to the town line. This North-South line in Plainville is the only strech of the rail line that used to run from New Haven up to North Hampton, MA that is still active. The small but dedicated Plainville group came together to try to save an old railway bridge that crosses Northwest drive near the Farmington town line that had been abandoned by the railroad. While the group was too late to save the bridge, they have continued to work to close the gap in the trail. At some point during the meeting I asked, "So do you guys have any kind of web presence?" Of course the answer I got was, "Well, no we've kind of been waiting for someone who has a clue how to do that sort of stuff to help us". So sometime in the next week I'll be setting up a blog for them.

Starting Week 4 with a ride to Hartford

2007-06-11T17:47:00.000-04:00

I started the last week of the car free challenge with a ride to a meeting in Hartford for work. This is now the 3rd trip into the capitol city so I've perfected the route and shaved about 10 minutes off the trip. That's probably due mostly to having lost a couple pounds and gotten into better shape with daily riding. As of the end of the ride today my mileage for the challenge is 253 miles so far. Not much compared to the training regime of hard core racers but I'm just using it for daily transportation. There were several fairly level stretches were I found myself spinning out in the top gear doing 26 miles per hour. The fairing definitely has an impact when I start getting up over about 15 miles per hour.
I've just added a link to pictures I took of Ethan Davis's corplast fairing. Its in the Favorite Web Pages section to the right and down.

Red Bull anyone?

2007-06-09T18:30:00.000-04:00

This afternoon I rode up to Walnut Hill Park to check out the New Britain Criterium race. Lots of spandex clad guys on expensive bikes. On the way home Amy and Kristen from the Red Bull marketing team chased me down to tell me about the Red Bull soap box derby Apparently they saw my velomobile and thought that it looked like like something that might get entered into the race. They gave me some free samples and were good sports about following me home so that I could get the camera

Building the front fairing

2007-06-09T08:40:00.000-04:00

The front fairing is built out of coroplast. Sometimes called corrugated plastic it's waterproof and light weight. As you can see from the ribs of the fairing I used recycled signs for the parts that wouldn't show. The basic skeleton consists of a coroplast bulkhead in the front and then about 18" to 20" behind in a second inverted U shaped piece of coroplast. Finally to add stealth there is an inverted U of 3/8" aluminum tubing that when the fairing is closed fits into a space on the cross bar of the trike next to where the seat attaches.
Here's the fairing skeleton from the front showing the bulkhead and ribs. All of this started as a large drawing on flip chart paper to figure out knee and toe clearances. I then cut out the drawing and traced it on to the coroplast.
Here's the fairing half assembled at the NE electrovelo event in Maine. I had hoped to have the fairing finished for the event. Then I had the crazy idea that I would work on it up there giving a live demo of how to build one of these. It was way too windy and there were too many other cool vehicles to try out. That's me in the formula 1 type electric racer and my son clowning in my half done trike.
Here it is making taped together prior to hot gluing. The fairing is held together with pieces of scored coroplast which enables one to fold the coroplast into an L. Using these L shaped pieces the outer shell is hot glued to the ribs underneath. Preeating the pieces to be glued with a hair drier seams to make a better more durable bond.
Sorry, for some reason this picture comes out sideways. Tip your head to the right for the proper orientation. If you click on the picture you'll get a larger view clearly showing the small scored pieces of coroplast hot glued to the underside of the fairing to hold it all to gether. To finish off the outside I used red electical tape to cover and seal the joints.

Another sideways picture. Tip your head to the left this time for the proper view. As you can see the fairing tips forward for easy entry to the trike. The video clip to the right shows how the fairing lifts forward.

Tail Box construction

2007-06-06T22:54:00.000-04:00

The tail box was inspired by pictures of Lee Wakefield's tailbox.

I used a similar construction method of building a frame out of aluminum. There are two pieces of aluminum L that run parallel to the trike with some cross pieces. The picture is taken from behind the trike

From the side you can see the two vertical pieces that support a cross bar that is higher than the wheel and can therefore go all the way from one side of the tail box to the other
Here you can see a piece of recycled coroplast sign that will serve a bulkhead across the tailbox.
In this picture you see the frame with the coroplast floor of the tailbox in place

Here you can see how joints in the coroplast are reinforced with pieces of coroplast that has been scored with a knife so that it can be bent. These pieces are then hot glued into place

Hot gluing

Here's the finished tail box with out the lid

The finished lid

Rainy Day

2007-06-04T23:15:00.000-04:00

The remnants of tropical storm Barry are soaking us today. I went with the original form of car free transport, I walked to work. Sorry no way to do exciting pictures of duck boots.

When I can't ride I turn my attention to other distractions like how to build a no weld trailer to pull behind the trike. The tail box may be able to hold $113 worth of groceries, but the trike does handle very well with that much weight in the tail box. A trailer that transfers the weight to another set of wheels might be just the trick. I found a couple of interesting designs on the web:
The bamboo trailer http://carryfreedom.com/bamboo.html
Conduit trailer http://drumbent.com/trailer.html
Not being near a local supply of bamboo, I'll probably go with conduit. Now I just have to figure out how to get it home from the store on the trike. On a related homebuilder note, for all of you thinking about experimenting with building something out of coroplast like a fairing or tailbox, I've discovered that coroplast signage gets pitched by fast food franchises on a regular basis. So get to know the manager at your local Tim Horton's or Kentucky Fried Chicken. They get signage to advertise in their stores as part of their franchise deal.

Plainville Trail Day

2007-06-03T16:58:00.000-04:00

Plainville, CT's Greenway Alliance held its trail day today. Clearly not as big a deal as yesterday's event in Southington, but I got to walk down North West Drive to see where the proposed trail will be. Jim Cassidy in the tan shirt behind the trike, Kathy Cole (seated) and her husband Steve (not pictured) have been at the core of the effort to fill the Plainville hole in the East Coast Greenway through CT. So far Plainville is the only town along the old New Haven to North Hampton (MA) rail line not to have any trail building activity going on. north of Plainville the Farmington Valley Greenway is mostly complete from Farmington up to East Granby. To the south part of the trail has been paved in Southington and the trail along the route of the New Haven to Northhampton canal/rail line is complete from Cheshire south to Hamden.

The Plainville Green Alliance meets at the public library on the second Tuesday of the month at 7pm. If you would like more info call 860-747-2909.

Some Stats

2007-06-02T19:39:00.000-04:00

Today's ride was 22 miles which means my ride to Southington a couple of days ago was more like 17 because I went several miles further to get to Panthorne Park where the trail fest was. The mileage total so far for the car free challenge is 181.9 miles. There have also been a couple of times I've had to readjust the sensor when it wasn't recording so I know its really a couple of miles more. I know for the serious racers out there that 180 miles in two and a half weeks is no big deal.

A number of you have been asking, "How much does it weigh?" The trike including the lock that's always on it is 44lbs. The front fairing is 11lbs and the tail box including the tools and patch kit that stay in it are another 12lbs. So yes, I was peddling 67lbs up that killer hill today. It's a good thing I've got a granny gear. 28 teeth in the front and 34 in the back with a 24" wheel. That's 18" of travel for each revolution of the peddles. So far the maximum speed I've hit coming down a hill is 37.9 miles per hour. It would go faster, but until I figure out why there's some play in the steering I start riding the brakes when it gets up over 30.

Southington Trail Day

2007-06-02T18:45:00.000-04:00

I rode out to the Southington celebration of National Trail Day this afternoon. It was a much bigger event than I expected. This picture doesn't do it justice. There must have been over 700 people while I was there and plenty more people coming and going. I briefly met the guy who organized it before he went off in search of a photographer to take my picture. I didn't get as much time at the festival as I had hoped. Repairs to the trike this morning took longer than expected so I got a late start. I ended up making a mad dash for home to catch a ride to my kids orchestra concert.
A couple of days ago I rode to Southington for a work meeting and had an unexpected surprise as I approached the crest of the big hill between Southington an New Britain. Today only about a 1/4 mile away from that spot someone stopped the minivan and got out to take pictures of me as I came by. She commented on the "Cool factor."

Riding to work meetings

2007-06-02T08:27:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I had a meeting for work in Middletown, CT at the State Department of Education. It was an advisory committee meeting not a formal presentation so I didn't feel compelled to show up wearing a tie. The ride was a little over 10 miles each way and it was hot. My strategy was bring a change of cloths, fill the platypus water bladder with ice water and get there early enough to wash up and change prior to the meeting. Everything went according to plan except one of the supports on my left front fender broke requiring the occasional readjustment to keep it from rubbing on the tire.

An unexpected surprise

2007-05-31T21:45:00.000-04:00

I rode to a meeting in Southington today (about 22 miles round trip). There's quite a hill seperating the New Britain from Southington. On my way back I had been climbing this hill slowly for about 15 minutes when two cars came zipping out of a new housing development. They turned and went about 100 yards and pulled over. I heard the girls in the second car yelling to the boys in the first car, "Why did you stop?" Meanwhile I'm slowly chugging up to the crest of the hill. As I pulled even with the first car packed full of 5 or 6 teen age boys, and half expecting some wise acre remarks I was greeted instead by applause.

I have to say that despite all the worries about safety from so many of the women I know, the reaction to the velomobile and the car free challenge has been universally positive. There's nothing like 25 waves, honks or thumbs up an few amazed, "You built that's" to make you feel like it was a good day.

First Video

2007-05-28T23:34:00.000-04:00

If a picture is worth a thousand words, what's a video worth. You be the judge, but remember this is my first try at this. My daughter did most of the camera work. The editing is kind of rough, but it does give you a good sense of whats under the fairing.

Grocery shopping

2007-05-27T23:06:00.000-04:00

Can this cart full of groceries fit in the tailbox? With the exception of the loaf of bread that got stuck into the "mailbox" behind my head and the two boxes of tissue that tied under my seat, Yes! I fit a week's groceries, $113 worth on my trike.

Father and son triking

2007-05-27T12:40:00.000-04:00

Despite yesterday's qualms about safety, today I hitched up my son's little trike and the two of us headed to church. It's only a mile and its a quiet Sunday morning . My son is always hesitant to get on his trike in this configuration. He'd rather be on his two wheeler but once he's on it he always has fun. Maybe it's that he can loaf from time to time and make me do the work of pulling. He's slowly warming to the attention we get as we ride down the street. It's taken a while for him to understand those people pointing and whistling are giving us their approval not making fun of us.

Insurection on the Homefront

2007-05-26T20:48:00.000-04:00

I got up early this morning to make a few repairs to the fairing. In a car I never realized how many potholes there are. I also now know why most production velemobiles (manufactured fully faired recumbent trikes) come with all wheel suspension. After regluing some joints that had vibrated loose I turned my attention to my 9 year old son's mini trike. I built a tow bar and if I remove the tail box, I can connect the two trikes. This gives me the ability to take him along which was my strategy for getting him to his gymnastics class about 10 miles away in Southington. When I mentioned my plan to my wife she got all worried about whether it was safe. I wouldn't want my son to ride his regular bike on the road behind me because he still can't ride a straight line, but towed behind my trike the two us are pretty darn noticable. Between us there are two flags and a strobe. Well to make a log story short, my son picked up on my wife's concerns and persuaded mom to let him skip gymnastics this week. I used the found time to make some more adjustments to the trikes but I had been looking forward to the ride.

A Trip to Our Favorite Organic Farm

2007-05-25T21:43:00.000-04:00

Its Friday which means market day at Urban Oaks organic farm. Who would have thunk. An organic farm right here in New Britain. With several green houses they run a whole sale business supplying restaurants with organic greens and herbs year round. During the summer they also plant field crops on a couple of acres. Fridays are pick up day for their pre-order business. Order on Tuesday and pick up from 3-6pm on Friday. Since I can never get my act together to pre-order, I just head over when I can. Sometimes I miss out on the incredible morning glory muffins, but usually there are still some scones, all baked fresh by Kathy at Sweat Sage Bakery. The Urban Oaks greens and herbs are always great. They've got kale now. If you would like more info on Urban Oaks or to get on the pre-order list, contact Tony at urbanoaks@earthlink.net

Weekly milage total

2007-05-25T21:21:00.000-04:00

My total for the first week was 85.2 miles. Not much by a racer's training standards, but I'm not a racer. I'm riding for transportation. It's actually more than I thought I would be riding. My daily commute is just 1/2 a mile. My trips during the last week included two rides into Hartford for work, grocery shopping, errands and a trip to an event in Farmington. That one was actually a trip and a half as I discovered that the lid for my tail box had blown off and I had to double back to find it. Fortunately no one had run it over and I have since designed a better means of attaching it.

The politics of the gasoline tax

2007-05-24T18:39:00.000-04:00

The headlines say the Gov. Rell and the Republicans in the legislature want to declare a gas tax holiday for the summer. What a dumb idea. Talk about pandering to the polls, this would cost the state an estimated $124 million at the same time public transportation advocates are pleading for a $12 million increase in mass transit subsidies. Eliminating a 25 cent gas tax for a summer isn't going to do a thing except put off the inevitable.
Oil and gasoline prices are going to go up. We are at or very near peak world oil production at the same time that China and India's economies are booming. With that amazing growth record numbers of new cars are hitting the roads in those two countries driving up demand for gas.
The sooner people start factoring higher gas costs into their decision as they buy cars the more hybrids and smaller cars will be on the road reducing gasoline demand.
The problem isn't that gas prices are too high, the problem is that there's not much in the way of alternatives to cars. Last week I tried to figure out how to take the bus from New Britain to West Hartford (the next town over). What is typically a 15 minute drive would have become a three hour expedition due to 50 minute layover at the mall and walks at either end because the bus doesn't run near our house or where were going.
In europe gas taxes are much much higher than in the US. The result being gasoline prices that are roughly double what they are here. The difference is that mass transit is ubiquitous. Bus, subway and train service makes it quite possible for european families to do most things by public transit and have just one small car that the use occaisonally. Many european countries also have very bike friendly cities. In Copenhagen, Denmark and all through out the Netherlands lots of people use bicycles as a primary means of transportation.

Car Free at the Capitol

2007-05-23T21:53:00.000-04:00

Today I rode the 12 miles to the state capitol in Hartford. The CT Early Childhood Alliance was having a press conference to present about 5,000 pictures drawn by preschoolers of what they want to be when they grow up. We had the Senate President, a bunch of legislators and 40 or so preschoolers dressed up as what they want to be when they grow up. I got to be Ready Rabbit, the mascot of the Ready Set Grow Campaing and wear the big blue bunny outfit. I've decided when I grow up, I definately don't want to be a mascot. I think I sweated a pint in that thing.
Having done my time in the costume I couldn't pass up the opportunity to have Ready pose for a picture in the trike on the lawn in front of the Capital .

Installing a head light

2007-05-22T22:38:00.000-04:00

When I designed the fairing I wanted to have a place for a headlight. Other coroplast fairings that I've seen had a bite taken out of the front where a traditional bicycle light was installed. Most bicycle lights until you get into the real expensive models are mostly useful so that you can be seen. They don't put out enough light to really light up a dark road. For those reasons and because I'm cheep I bought a set of inexpensive car fog lights from JC Whitney took out the yellow light and replaced it with a 20w flood light. Its powered by a 12 motor cycle battery that goes in the tail box. The wires run through the main tube of the trike frame.

Here's the light looking out through the soda bottle window.

A visit to my sponsor

2007-05-22T19:38:00.000-04:00

I finally finished the top of the fairing creating a small storage area behind my head. This was the spot that we decided would be the location of my Bianca Signs Ad. The folks at Bianca were great and did all the lettering on the sides of the fairing.

Here's the trike in front of their shop on Newington Road in New Britain.

Car Free at the antique car show

2007-05-20T20:30:00.000-04:00

After church I headed down the street to the antique car show. Something about showing up at an event celebrating muscle cars of 50's and 60's in a human powered vehical with the words "Car Free Challenge" enblazened across it appealled to me. It was a lot of fun. Lots of people asked how it worked and I possed for quite a few pictues.

Car Free at church

2007-05-20T20:21:00.000-04:00

I rode to church this morning and our new minister of Social Action Ben Doolittle said, "I've been praying for some inspiration for the children's message, you'll be great." So on cue one of the deacons opened the door and I rode down the isle to the front of the church. The theological connection was a bit of a stretch but the kids were pretty interested. Afterwords I got quite a few supportive comments.

Burn Calories not Carbon

2007-05-18T22:32:00.000-04:00

Catchy little phrase, but I have to admit its not original. It was the title of a piece in the most recent rails to trails magazine. 40% of the trips we take are 2 miles or less but 75% of those trips are taken in a car. Take my commute to work for instance. Its only about 1/2 a mile yet until the Car Free Challenge, I usually drove my car. At the same time that we're using our cars for these short trips many of us could stand to lose a few pounds. Add to that the record high gas prices and we all have a reason to think about which of those trips might be walked or cycled.

So why is it that we all still drive so much? We've build our infrastructure based on the premise of cheep gasoline. In fact until 2004 gasoline prices trended down in inflation dollars with a few notable upward blips. So we don't shop in neighborhood or local stores, we jump on the highway and go to the big box. There we easily find a parking space in the great expanse of pavement.

Day 2 -The kid transport dilemma

2007-05-16T14:38:00.000-04:00

I knew from the begining that the most challenging part of the challenge was going to be transporting my kids to their various activities. I can get myself to just about anywhere I need to go under my own power simply by allowing enough time to ride there. Transporting my kids, particularly my nine year old who doesn't know how to ride in a straight line yet is more complicated. I do have an old trail-a-long that I can pull behind my road bike and I've even made a tow bar to pull my son's little recumbent trike behind mine. Further complicating things is the fact that both kids play the cello and their lessons are in a different town.
I figured today would be my best chance to solve this dilemma since my son had his last half day of the school year and I had arranged to pick him up at 1:45. There would be plenty of time to figure this out. The logical first option was the city bus. I've lived in New Britain for 17 years now and I've never ridden the city bus. After checking the web site I discovered that there was a bus from downtown New Britain to the mall and a connecting bus into West Hartford center. Everything seemed doable. There would be a 15 minute walk with a nine year old and a kid sized cello but that seemed a reasonable sacrifice for the cause. Then I examined the bus schedule more carefully. The bus leaves for the mall every hour on the half hour. It misses a connection by 10 minutes with another bus leaving the mall which also runs every hour. So I would have to have left the house at about 2:10 to get to a 5pm lesson and repeat the almost 3 hour trip home. Almost 6 hours on public transit vs. 15 minutes each way by car. No wonder everyone thinks they need a car.
So public transit wasn't a viable option. The more I thought about it the more I said this is maybe a 40 minute bike ride at the most. I could dig out the trail-a-long raise the seat post, hug it up to my road bike, put the cello on my back and get my son to his lesson in much less time than the bus. That was the working plan as I headed to school to collect my son. Then my wife called to ask if I had heard about the tornado watch. I hadn't focused on the weather in the morning. It was warm and sunny as I rode to work. Faced with lousy bus service, a kid, a cello, and a wife nervous about a possible tornado, I concluded I really had no choice but to invoke the cello exemption to the car free challenge. It turned out that wasn't a bad decision. As we loaded the cello into the back of the car, the sky opened up and we got about an inch of rain in a very intense half hour storm.

Bike to Dinner

2007-05-15T21:22:00.000-04:00

As part of their bike to work week events, the Central CT Bicycle Alliance had a bike to dinner which was a nice conclusion to the day. It was great to meet everyone. There was lots of talk about this fall's Hartford neighborhood tour.

I rode to my meeting at the Department of Social Services this afternoon. Fortunately I knew just about everyone around the table so my cargo shorts and casual shirt didn't raise too many eyebrows. Coming home after dinner, everything was going fine until about a half mile from home I lost a derailer pulley. It was to dark to find all the parts so I pushed the trike home.

Day 1

2007-05-15T08:41:00.000-04:00

May 15th - The first day of the car free challenge. My email inbox tells me that this is one of those days you're not supposed to buy gasoline. I don't think those things really work, but maybe its fitting that today I start the month long car free challenge. No gas purchases for a month.
The front fairing held together with masking tape.
Despite my best efforts I did not get the front fairing completed last night. My hope was to start the challenge with a completed fairing, fully decorated with the text that Bianca Signs in New Britain did up for me. It will say Car Free Challenge across the back end, Human Powered Vehicle in front of the front wheel and the web address on the side above the front wheel.

My day today consists of a meeting at my office a half mile from home followed by a meeting in Hartford (10 to 12 miles away). When that's over I'll join up with the Bike to Work gang from the Central CT Cycling Alliance for their "Bike to Dinner" outing. Then home. I'll be riding with just the tail box today. Hopefully I can get the fairing finished up tonight. the forecast includes showers tomorrow.

Fun pictures from the electrovelo & HPV event

2007-05-13T23:29:00.000-04:00

This was one of the funnier scenes of the day. The teacher driving the slick electric racer and his students (who usually pilot the racer) in the 100mpg Moonbeam. The electrovelo is ahead in this shot but the Moonbeam caught him in the straight away.
Despite my objections that it was only half finished one of the student electrovelo racers wanted to try my trike out. It was a pretty funny site with the half finished coroplast fairing flapping in the breaze.
Just before they packed it up I got a chance to take the slick electric racer out for a couple of laps. The crew suggested I go without the top. Here I am as I finished and pulled up next to my trike and its half finished fairing. Right on cue my son who was in the trike stuck his head out to clown for the camera.

More HPV event pics

2007-05-13T23:17:00.000-04:00

Two recumbent bikes with front fairings
My son's little trike always attracts little ones who want to try it out
Here's someone checking out how I'm building my fairing (despite my best efforts it wasn't finished so I took it as a work in progress.
Here's the builder of a photovoltaic charged electric "neighborhood car" telling it's story. Built by a highschool class this electric car can go about 12 miles on a full charge. It's little solar cell it takes about 3 days to fully charge its three lead acid car batteries.

HPV of New England event 2

2007-05-13T23:07:00.000-04:00

Here is a Runabout Cycles, electric assist trike. It rides very well and puts you fairly high up for riding in traffic.
Ethen Davis explaining how he built his coroplast fairing. It's a very cool design that I may try to copy if my son continues to badger me to convert his little trike into a veleomobile.
This was its builder's response to the post Katrina spike in gasoline prices. A 100 mile per gallon 2 seater. He's posted the plans at www.moonbeamplans.net.
A group of folks admiring a homebuilt trike. It's builder started with a $37 closeout on a kids mountain bike and donated wheels from a bike trailer.

New England HPV and Electrovelo event

2007-05-13T22:03:00.000-04:00

For my last big drive before starting the challenge my son and I took a road trip to the Electrovelo and New England HPV event in Scarborough ME. This was a previously scheduled electorvelo race that Ethan Davis,organizer of the Human Powered Vehicals of New England (in the blue jacket behind the electric racer) teamed up with.
Here's a shot of probably the slickest electric racer before the lid went on.
Here it is fully enclosed. Kind of a cross between a formula 1 racer and a recumbent trike.

Scrambling To Get Ready

2007-05-09T14:15:00.000-04:00

May 9th - The challenge starts in just 6 days and I'm still trying to finish the fairing for the trike. "What's a fairing?" you ask. In simple terms its an aerodynamic and weather proof shell around my home built recumbent trike. I'm building mine out of coroplast, a relatively inexpensive corrugated plastic used for outdoor signs. The fairing has several purposes. It will hopefully make me a little more aerodynamic making it easier to ride longer and faster. More importantly for the challenge I'm counting on it to keep me dry when it rains and be a rolling billboard to advertise this blog.

I think I've successfully created the support and hinge system enabling the front half of the fairing to open up for easier in and out access.