It has been well over a year since I last posted anything and almost two years since there was significant activity here. The lack of activity has not been for want of news, as plenty of newsworthy goings on over the last year could have been reported. Instead for various personal reasons I have been obliged to take a prolonged leave of absence. As a result the site has fallen behind both in reporting and development.
To make up, and hopefully rejuvenate site activity, I expect to be posting several catch-up articles plus finishing others still in draft from over a year ago
So far 2014 has been busy with a number of velomobile highlights including several significant organised road trips and a number of new velomobile models. There have also been several other industry changes among the manufacturers all of which need covering. While we are now leaving summer and moving toward the end of the year there are still a number of events to anticipate including the upcoming Speed Challenge at Battle Mountain.
S o with my apologies all I can say for now is, watch this space …
It has been some time since I posted anything, not because there has been nothing to write about, rather I have been too busy with other things working on the website back-end. The observant may have noted a few small changes which reflect this, and there is more to come, but more of that later. There are also a couple of posts I am working on that should be up shortly.
Mean while I thought I would link to this report via BikeBiz on the recent debate on “cycle safety” in the British parliament. It is depressing! It is particularly depressing that so much parliamentary time was wasted going round in circles, seemingly blind to the point, that it is high-speed heavy vehicles that are the danger, not cycling itself, and polystyrene helmets offer NO PROTECTION against such a danger. That blindness, a blindness which kills in an altogether more subtile way, is what makes cyclists/blogosphere/twitersphere so mad.
The unscientific, irrational, and too often bullying, level of debate is seriously distracting from real solutions to improve on road safety. Technology has become the god of our age. While I am most certainly not anti-technology, I find it very troubling that there is such blind faith in technology, and that the general public are too willing receive the claims that liars marketers make concerning their wares, especially when the wares “might” save the life, say of a child. This faith is dangerously miss-placed. Safety costs! and unfortunately helmets are viewed by too many as a simple and cheap solution. The parody video below and the cartoon at the start highlight, that there are many areas where real safety improvements could be made and, if the arguments of cycle helmet proponents were followed, would require mandatory wearing of PPE.
In an age driven by imagery, icons and what can be seen externally, the idea of a helmet as a guaranteed provider of protection, if not invincibility, is ingrained in the general public. Images of soldiers in bullet proof helmets, construction workers in hard hats, motorcyclists in crash helmets, all of which have saved lives, seem to prove that cycle helmets and compulsion to wear them MUST be a good thing. The following might just change your mind:
A couple of key points from this video:
Average speed of collision 40 km/h ( mph)
Maximum speed at which a cycle helmet offers any protection 20 km/h ( mph).
While proponents point to motorcycle helmets and seatbelts, there is a failure to understand the dynamic differences between, the way such safety devices work, and how a cycle helmet is supposed to work. Last night I did a simple experiment and broke a cycle helmet with my bare hands something I could not do to a human skull or a motorcycle helmet. I have made reference before to a cycle accident I was involved in, in 1988, in which a cycle helmet (which I was not wearing) did not save my life! – When I get time and energy I plan on writing up a more detailed account including some technical analysis – In that event my skull exceeded the performance requirements of a cycle helmet!
The “protection” provided by a cycle helmet – vertical impact between 12 & 15 mph – is artificial and highly contrived, you may note from the video above what part of the dummy’s head usually strikes the car, and I am sure many others could confirm the same from their own experience. As my experiment demonstrated a cycle helmet offers next to no protection in the case of side impact. My accident mentioned above was an exception as I hit a vehicle with what was essentially a vertical impact (my face was looking down) at about 20 mph. I have come off my bike a handful of times since, and on no occasion has my head recieved any injury. It should also be noted that the theoretical efficacy of helmets is very much dependent on the proper fitting and attachment of the helmet to the head of the rider. I think it would be safe to say that in most cases, outside of professional cycle sport, helmets are worn incorrectly.
The argument “if it saves a life” is disingenuous. The assumption is that they will do no harm even if they do no good. Evidence is mounting that statistically this is not the case. Thankfully the parliamentary debate attempted to recognize this, as cycling’s health and life benefits far exceed any risks; but also analytically, this assumption is not true. Helmets, like drugs and medicines, have side-effects:
They make your head bigger – thus increasing the chances of striking or being struck by another object
They alter the shape of your head – thus altering the natural way your body interacts with its environment – this can affect perception, balance and response in an accident
They, in most cases, cover your head in an array of convenient grab handles – thus increasing the chances of snagging, leading to the very kind of rotational head and brain injury which results in death or serious life impairment
They attach a hangman’s noose to your head – a fact tragically illustrated by the 14 documented case where little children died by strangulation while playing wearing a cycle helmet
If it saves 1 life but kills 20 it is not worth it! I recommend reviewing the scientific data available via cyclehelmets.org.
Legal compulsion sends a most unwanted message: generating a false sense of security, to both riders and drivers, leading directly to increased complacency and then injury and death when the “force-field” fails to protect in anaccident vehicle incident. It also criminalises, and therefore harms, those who recognize the physical dangers of helmet wearing as well as the limited protection they offer. The comments of Graeme King after the BikeBiz article are very pertinent.
Those who know me know I am not a fan of facebook. While the theory behind social networking sites is great, the potential for collaboration and connectedness to improve productivity seems obvious. I find the practice to be quite the opposite, with a lot of time being wasted in gossip and social misery, while creating an illusion of being connected to a much larger social group, than in the real world. The results often being a decrease in real world social connectedness. Khalid Albaih’s cartoon above, sums things up nicely for me.
While I am seriously concerned at the closed and controlling nature of facebook, and see it as a force which is sucking the life out of the internet, I do recognize that there are those who succeed in making social networking work for themselves. Velomobile.co.uk has therefore joined up. We have both a facebook page and a Google Plus page. Generally I think I like Google Plus better than facebook, it seems more open, less controlling and better structured, to avoid the socially damaging connections that seem to be part of regular facebook life. There is still work to do on both pages, for now they act as pointers to this site so please feel free to like and link them as you please.
I am back in the UK and have been busy with work on the website back-end, including dealing with a security breach in which the site was hacked and “malicious” code and links were injected into most pages. It is believed the “damage” has been cleaned up but if you notice any suspicious behaviour on the site please let us know.
I have several articles to post and I will shortly be writing up both my test rides and manufacturer visits in more detail. Meanwhile here is a report of my last day in Flevoland.
The last day was marred by an accident in the Sunrider. As I returned from Putten I performed an inadvertent Elk Test on a cycle-path-roundabout in Harderwijk, and overturned.
This was the third time I had passed through this particular cycle junction. The first day in the Alleweder, I had passed very slowly, giving more attention to reading the fietspad direction signs and following the map on my iPhone, to be able to properly observe the path. The evening before I had passed through at some speed, and felt comfortable with how the velomobile handled, albeit in the opposite direction. This was the second time in the Sunrider, and I had assumed that the flow of the junction would be the same in the opposite direction. As I entered the junction I experienced a sharp turn to the right followed by a sharp turn to the left, at just enough speed to loose control and then roll over. I became aware things were going wrong in the middle of the maneuver and had that feeling of helplessness as I tried to slow and correct the steering. Instead I felt myself slowly falling over and found myself on my side with a grazed hand and elbow and significant damage to the Sunrider upper body.
Being an engineer I have a strong urge to analyise the accident and learn the why. However I currently have no opportunity to investigate the site as I would like. The accident may have been compounded by a number of factors: a tendency of the particular model I was riding at the time to pull to the left when braking, thus adding to the over turning force; the contribution of adverse camber; or I may have touched the centre curb, etc, etc. However, despite the accident, I beat my time of the previous day by about 30 minutes!
Laying aside the accident, my impression of the Sunrider was positive. The drenching which was avoided on the previous day was definitely part of that impression. Despite being very heavy (c. 43 Kg) it was not difficult to ride, and I was pleasantly surprised by the performance increase over the previous day. However to be fair, the performance comparison should really only be made after at least a couple of journeys in each machine over the same route, to average out any differences due to muscle training and route knowledge.
The design does need some refinement and I am pleased to report that Leo Vischer is doing excellent work developing the Mk 2 Sunrider which should go a long way to answering those criticisms. The Mk 2 is expected to be on the market by the summer of 2013.
After returning the Sunrider to Alligt, and sorting out how to pay for the damage*, I again visited Flevobike, where I had an arrangement to test ride an Orca. The machine I tested was one with the electric assist option, the “stealth black” model in the photo. Andre Vrielink went over the controls with me as well as making a minor adjustment to fit the Orca to my size.
I was not able to take the Orca back to Putten, however I was able to give it a good run round Dronten over some varied terrain, enough to revise my initially negative impression to a much more positive one, but more of that later.
After the ride I was able to spend some time with Andre discussing the Orca, Flevobike and velomobiles in general. I was particularly interested to learn the differences between the original Versatile and the Orca, as visually it is hard to distinguish one from the other. These may well be summarised as, a number of refinements to the details and build method, that significantly improve the build quality, and give an incremental improvement on the performance.
*Before doing any significant test-riding in Europe I would strongly recommend ensuring you have suitable cycle cover that includes coverage for cycles you ride that are loaned to you.
