Since I wrote the previous post, dreaming about a Human Powered Snowmobile, more snow has fallen. Dry stuff this time and the forecasters might be right that there is more to come. So naturally thoughts turn to human powered ways of snow removal – ideally ways that don’t break your back.
Good memories will probably remember the Google sponsored Innovate-or-die competition (c. 2007) and may perhaps remember the following entry by MrPlowKevin Blake:
Kevin’s snowplow design got him a lengthy report in Mother Earth News, in which he explains the design and build method in quite a lot of technical detail, very useful for anyone wishing to make one for themselves.
However Kevin is not alone. Bob Beechy of Ontario, has designed and built a series of HP plows starting with a trike and evolving the design through a number of diverse machines. Here he is explaining the collection before the snow sets in.
He goes on to demonstrate shifting snow in the following two videos, and he has more on YouTube. In the first he gives an overview of the first two machines and then gives the viewer a driver’s eye view
In the second, which is quite lengthy, you get a demo of the quad plowing the driveway clear.
But there are others too.
Trailcart, website now defunct, and production in limbo due to conflicting business priorities, produced a number of these all-terrain HP quads, one of which is shown above, fitted with an impressive snow plow. It would be great to see these back in production!
Finally there is the tow-plow created by Dave Peterson. A design reminiscent of the old horse-drawn plows of the past, it is fitted behind a regular bike like a bike-trailer, and used to maintain a clear path through the snow. There is more about the plow and how it developed over on a wiki site Appropedia.
After all the dire media hype about severe winter weather warnings here in the UK, we finally had a fall of wet slushy snow followed by a hard freeze. The white traces that are left are not much to look at, and the ice, while a hazard for some, is not much compared to what was threatened, but there is now a wintery brightness in the crisp air which sets the mind going. Now I know there are plenty of places further North or inland that have more snow than they could wish for, and where weather warnings really do warn about severe weather, but all the talk of snow and ice has set me wondering what options there are for winterised human powered transport.
The last video in the recent post about the Drymer trike and the video above, demonstrate that it is perfectly possible to take a human-powered, or even an eAssist trike out in the snow; and it is obvious that a velomobile body goes quite a way toward keeping the rider warm. But what about something beyond this? Going beyond the environmental rows over motorised snowmobile use in Yellowstone park, what about a human-powered snow-mobile?
Minds have already been exercised about this, and a mixture of concepts and products exist which tackle various aspects of the problem.
This concept for a track driven pedal-powered vehicle in skis by Michelle Marin, an industrial designer from Venice, Italy, did the rounds of the design blogs a couple of years ago. As with most concepts there are technical niggles but the general idea is sound. A lower seating position would be good and perhaps larger skis to handle soft snow and a better steering mechanism, something more like Akerman than a home made box car racer.
Following on from this concept, there already exists a commercial kit to convert a standard mountain bike to snowmobile mode. The K-trak is a Canadian developed system where you swap out the front and rear wheels for a ski and tracked wheel assembly which fit directly into the respective fork drop-outs. Thus allowing you to ride your bike through the snow much as you would in normal weather. Regrettably the manufacturers site and online shop has gone offline but the following US promotional video gives a good idea
US adventurer Greg Kolodziejzyk has a review of the K-Track. While his first impressions were positive he is much more cool about the K-Trak’s performance overall. He sumarises the K-Trak system as being a very fun way to go down hill.
However Swis Catrike dealer Bike to the Future has fitted a Catrike with both skis and the K-Trak system and reports better success. The secret it seems is achieving floatation in the snow, something that the MTB mounted K-Trak can only do at speed, i.e. downhill.
Greg’s original purpose for the K-Trak was to enable him to maintain an all-year cycle training program to support his other pedal powered projects, but perhaps another motivation was to test the design for suitability for his plan to pedal across the Greenland Icecap. As he notes on the initial concept page, there are no developed plans as yet, but one of the concepts is a track driven velomobile on skis.
Large skis and a larger track system should help with the floatation but one does wonder how the head-in configuration would perform when it comes to window fog. Unless a successful anti-fog coating or system be applied to the canopy, it is likely that a head-out configuration would be more successful.
While drag reduction due to vehicle speed would be a none issue; reduction of drag due to opposing wind, such as one would expect to meet with on the ice-cap, would still be a very good idea. Also a fairing or enclosure, covering the feet and legs at least, would also be very valuable; as David Gordon Wilson suggests in an editorial in Issue 28, and further hints regarding an observation by Philip Thiel in Issue 29 of Human Power; this would prevent heat loss due to pedalling motion.
Greenspeed, Australian recumbent trike builder, has experimented with the Snow-Trike concept and successfully built the following tracked trike using off-the-shelf components for a motorised vehicle. Please excuse the background noise music, not my choice.
Another home builder has fitted both skis track to his recumbent only in the opposite configuration with the track up-front.
A Finnish HPV enthusiast, inspired by an 1885 Ice-Velocipede, has been experimenting with a Cycle-Ski, but apart from a single page outlining the project and the following short video there is nothing more.
Ski-bikes are purely downhill machines, and currently exist to serve a niche sport. A history of Ski-Bikes is given on the following pages. and kits such as this one from Alpine Ski Bikes can be used to convert a typical MTB but there is absolutely no drive mechanism, just gravity.
I was unable to find much else. I would be interested to know what work, if any, has been done by others; and also to hear any further thoughts or comments. So please add your thoughts via the comment form below.
The Twike is one of those vehicles that really pushes the definition of velomobile to it’s limits. A two seater sociable delta trike it relies heavily (pun not intended) on a large lithium battery pack to augment the mechanical power provided by the two riders. First displayed at the World Expo in Vancouver in 1986. In production since 1992 the 1000th machine recently left the factory in Germany.
Christine Lepisto visited the manufacturer and has written an article on Treehugger, covering the history and giving an overview of the technology used in the Twike. In this article she attempts to ask the questions:
What value does pedal-power add to a vehicle that must compete with traffic and over typical commuting distances?
Is an HPV/EV hybrid the world’s best citycar?
What are the challenges when you take a TWIKE on tour?
What is the lowest cost per mile that can be hyper-miled out of a TWIKE?
Can people improve their fitness with an HPV/EV Hybrid?
Is there still a place for a 20-year old human-powered EV design in a world where Teslas command the “EV sportscar” headlines and most major car manufacturers have an EV on or coming to the market? And closely related, is the EV trend killing human-powered vehicles (HPVs)?
Christine writes from a “Green Motorist’s” perspective, comparing the Twike favourably to the Tesla electic car. However she concludes pessimistically that the Twike will remain a niche product while the rest of the world will turn to vehicles that reflect what they have always used.
While the perspective and the product are not fully aligned with the machines we usually look at, the article is none-the-less well worth reading. The writing is somewhat terse and there are areas where one would like to know more detail but as an overview it is helpful.
Christine concludes with a reference to the TW4XP (TWIKE 4 the X-Prize) which took 3rd place in the Progressive Automotive X Prize and asks if this is a preview of thenext generation.
From a post on Ligfiets.net we learn that Sinner Bikes, makers of the Mango velomobile, and Drymer, manufacturer of the eAssist Drymer tilting trike, which comes with an optional fairing, have entered into a partnership. One of the first outcomes of this partnership is that the manufacture of the Mango is to be moved from Groningen to Stadskanaal, where the Drymer is currently produced.
We mentioned the relaunch and commencement of commercial manufacture of the Drymer last summer, after WITEC bought out Drymer which had been suffering from financial difficulties. That Sinner has entered into this partnership should not come as much of a surprise as they were involved in the original consortium that first developed the Drymer concept. It would also seem to be consistent with the recent news that Sinner are dropping their line of recumbent bikes focusing instead on the Comfort delta trike and the Mango velomobile. It would seem very reasonable to expect that this co-location would bring benefits to both businesses which will translate into the current products of both, but more than that, one can begin to imagine what new and improved machines might be developed and brought to market.
In the same ligfiets article we also learn that Sinner are continuing to develop the Mango and are now offering an alternative upper body. Called an Aero-top it features a “viewing-slot” down the centre, comparable to the upper body shape of the WAW, Evo-K and Alligt A8. This is touted as giving not only improved road vision for the rider but also providing some improve aerodynamics. Ligfiets however observe that the new shape will likely impact on the usability of the interior space. An example of the new upper is seen here mounted on the wall.
Returning to the Drymer we are refered to a blog by Philip Smits, Dagboek van een Drymerrijder. Philip now has a Drymer Leisure, the trike without the fairing, and has been blogging his experiences over the last few weeks. He has also produced a few videos. Below is one which gives a good overview with commentary in Dutch.
The following give a short, and cheerful, rider’s view in the snow.
Minor personal niggles aside Philips report of the performance is very positive.
Organic Transit’s Kickstarter project has been a huge success. “Roll out the ELF to your City,” finished this weekend $225,789 was raised from 547 backers against a goal of $100,000. That is a stagering 225% and almost double the amount pledged when we mentioned the project 3 weeks ago.
A new Velomobile design, the Road HAWK, is currently being developed by WEJKAMA, a company in Poland. The company is well established, currently serving the automotive world with a number of fiberglass products products, principally a sleeping compartment that can be installed on a number of delivery vehicles for long distance freight haulage.
As an existing company with all the skills needed to produce velomobile bodies the potential looks good. However the information on their website, while interesting, is rather scanty when it come to technical detail. The image featured above is evidently a photo-mock-up, but it does appear to be based on a body prototype to which some wheels have been attached. The hard part will be in getting the details right including successfully developing the mechanical side.
A short report on Ligfiets.net adds details about price (€4,500+) and weight. They also make an interesting comparison with the Flevobike Orca and the Sunrider, currently under development with Alligt. This is interesting since Alligt source their fibreglass bodies from a Polish supplier and WEJKAMA are also advertising body-building services to other velomobile producers. Whether WEJKAMA supply Alligt is not known but it does seem likely that they already have experience with some existing velomobile body construction.
At present there is one other known Polish velomobile producer, Car-Bike who used to supply the original Cab-Bike with their bodies, and then took over the production when Cab-bike ceased trading at the start of 2012. Car-bike’s website is similarly short on information and, after restyling the original Cab-bike and demonstrating a two-seater (sociable) velomobile at SPEZI in 2011, not much has been heard from them. However there is word that this may be about to change. There is also talk that they may revert to the original Cab-bike name as the Car-bike name is already owned in Germany by the developers of a human-electric hybrid multi-seater vehicle.
The above drawings, from Wejkama’s site, also indicate plans to offer the Road HAWK in multiple configurations with both a head-in, “Cabin,” as well as a head-out, “Cabrio,” model. Similar to Wejkama, Car-bike/Cab-bike also offer(ed) a Cabin and a Cabrio model and one cannot help making a connection. We await with interest to see how the Road HAWK continues to develop this year.
The European sequel to ROAM, planned to take place this coming summer, has been cancelled. Unlike the US event of 2011, which essentially involved one country and one language, the EuroTour planners have been faced with the challenge formed by: not only a route crossing multiple countries, with diverse legal requirements; but also with language barriers, and a lack of on the ground volunteers to support the planning effort. The sheer scale of the event, with the number of registered participants well over 100, has also added to the difficulties.
Sean Havins made the following announcement in the EuroTour forum:
It is the middle of January 2013 and we still do not have routes defined for Belgium, much of France or Switzerland. This makes it impossible to know many basic things that we must know to make the tour happen. It is too late.
Also, we must have help in France to register with the local districts if we are to ride together as a tour. Several ideas have been put forward to try and circumvent the French laws. I will not do this. Several ideas have been put forward to split the tour or skip France entirely. If this was the only major problem, I would consider one of these ideas and continue the tour.
To those of you who have invested your time in this tour; Thank you. I am sorry that your work will not be used for this year. I firmly believe that EuroTour WILL happen. When it does, your work will be of great value.
After volunteering to fill the for the 2013 event Sean also announced that he would be stepping down from any organizing role for a possible 2014:
When I first volunteered to lead the organization of the tour, I knew that I was not qualified. I assumed the role because at the time, I felt that someone had to. I hoped that someone more qualified would volunteer. Here is a link to my original post where I volunteered for this job. http://www.bentrideronline.com/messageboard/showpost.php?p=849292&postcount=82
Since the tour is in Europe, it needs leadership who is familiar with the countries involved and can communicate well. I have never been to Europe and I only speak one language.
I am not a manager. I am a technician. The management skills that are needed for a project of this type do not come naturally to me. I had hoped I could learn by doing and become the manager this tour needed. I did not.
For these reasons, I must step down and hand control to someone more qualified. If no one volunteers to take the role of organizational leader, this tour will not happen.
It is my hope that someone will pick this up and make it happen in 2014. Much of the work has been done and much still needs doing. I believe this tour can happen and and that when it does, it will be wonderful.
I will continue to manage this forum as long as there is interest in the EuroTour or as long as the new organizers, whoever they are, want it to exist. If someone takes over the organizational role, and would like an internet presence and a place for files and calendars of the daily rides, I will happily help with that.
So there is some prospect for a tour ride in 2014, if some capable organisers will step up to the plate.
But that is not all. Based on comments in the forum, it also seems quite likely that a much reduced group may still attempt a 2013 tour on an ad-hoc basis. The suggestion is to start immediately after the 2013 HPV World Championships which are to be held in Germany. So … watch this space.
Trisled have brought out a new variant of the Rotovelo, their robust budget priced velomobile. The Rotovelo Carbon is, as it’s name suggests, is made in the same shape as the original Rotovelo but with a body of carbon fibre instead of the original roto-molded HDPE. We briefly mentioned the body material advantage of the original design in a post regarding the sale of the machine reviewed by Velovision Magazine (Issue 41 Jun 2011).
What was not mentioned was the bare-bones spec, which includes no installed suspension system and simple cruciform frame, since the body is not sufficiently capable of carrying load. The specification is justified as part of a design whose objective is robust simplicity and low cost. That this bare-bones spec has been translated directly to a machine with a costly and relatively fragile body has raised a lot of comment and questions along the lines of, “what are they thinking!?”
The following short video by Trisled illustrates the Rotovelo Carbon in action.
A typical velomobile can be expected to weight upward of 30 kg with the sporty machines weighing in the mid 20s. Perhaps the lightest of these is the Go-one Evo-Ks at 21.5 kg for the bare model. What Trisled have achieved with the Rotovelo Carbon is a low weight – obviously depending on component choice, as low as 19.5 kg (the same weight as my Claude Butler run-about bike!) Given the attractive weight there are some saying, if the Rotovelo Carbon came with suspension they would have one, and it is claimed to be the most asked for feature for the original Rotovelo, so what gives?
Firstly there is a weight saving by excluding active suspension, so the record low would not be possible otherwise. Secondly there is a helpful and fairly extensive rider report on the Rotovelo on the Bentrider Online forum by mikeatlbch which gives a more balanced perspective and argues that for most practical cases active suspension is not needed. One thing he highlights from his own experience is the passive suspension provided by the Rotovelo frame. While he still prefers the HDPE body for its ability to take the knocks he appreciates the value low weight would offer in a stop-and-go urban environment where ease of acceleration and therefore low weight is important.
So while the armchair velonaut, accustomed to ever increasing technical complexity, may be puzzled: what Trisled have produced is, from their perspective, a logical compromise; satisfied with the ride performance of the original Rotovelo, they have traded a robust body for easier acceleration. It remains to be seen whether there are buyers who agree with them.
157 velomobiles participated in the 2012 Oliebollentocht, upping the record from 149 in 2011. The day was clear and relatively warm for the time of year, which made for some good photography, and photos and videos from riders and others, are now appearing online. Several are linked to from the Ligfiets page.
The ride commenced in Zwolle and, after counting for the record, the velomobiles left in groups of about 50. Looking at the videos it is fair to say that the Quest and Strada velomobiles represented the largest group. However there is a surprisingly large selection of machines to be seen, these included: Flevobike Orca/Versatile; various iterations of Alligt and Flevo Alleweders; WAW; Milan; a couple of Go-One Evo Ks; Velayo; and even a Leiba Classic. The following video takes you on a wander round the parked velomobiles assembling for the ride. The Duo Quest with a trailer also participated and is featured early in the video. It is clear from what is shown, that at least three children could be transported in this way, though I read a report on the Strada 112 A blog that there were four children carried!
The following video also takes you around the assembling velomobiles but also includes some of the ride itself with a mixture of cockpit views and stills which all help to give a flavour of the day.
The next video is quite long at 24 minutes, but features an extensive cockpit eye view taken from a Quest equipped with a carbon race-cap. The view is not all from the cockpit as the rider gets out several times including after rolling onto the ferry at Genemuiden. It is amusing to see the small ferry overwhelmed by the number of velomobiles all trying to cross at the same time. I believe Andre Vrielink can be seen on the ferry with a similar, if not the same, Orca that I test-rode last September.
The following is a much shorter video but with rather flashy production including quite a number of shots in fast-play, which create their own effect and impression.
To conclude there follows a compilation of well-shot video of one group en-route and obviously enjoying themselves. David Hembrow of A View From the Cycle Path is featured smiling at the camera as he passes in his Mango.
A rather ingenious product that came to my attention while reading up on the ELF velomobile was the Cobra Linear Inner-tube by flybikes.
Rather than having a full anulus as in a normal inner-tube the Cobra is a stright length of tubing sealed at both ends with a small loop allowing the both ends to be joined into a circle at the valve point. I was not aware of the product before, but in hind sight it is really obvious and goes to show how one’s thinking can easily be limited by just doing things the way they have always been done.
This has several advantages. Besides the claimed improvement in the speed of changing a flat tyre, flats can also be easily changed without the need to remove the wheel. This obviously is of very significant use to most velomobiles. While velomobile wheels are often cantilever mounted allowing access for a traditional inner-tube there is usually at least one wheel which is more difficult to access. For example the the rear wheel in a tadpole based velomobile is usually mounted in a fork with the added complexity of a rear drive train and often partially or completely hidden within the body. In such a case the Cobra would be a life saver.
The following video on Vimeo demonstrates the tube changing process.
While designed for BMX, Flybikes supply many BMX components, it is not clear in what sizes the tube is available besides the 20″ 406 standard BMX wheel size however, since many velomobiles use this size, it should be possible to fit the tube to several models. It is interesting that Organic Transit explicitly recommend the use of a “Cobra or similar” tube for the ELF rear wheels which appear to be 26″.
Some questions remain as to how the tube performs both in the short and long term but assuming you can source a tube in your wheel size it would still be a good idea to keep one and a pair of scissors in your velomobile emergency kit.
If any readers have any experience with this or similar inner-tubes please let us know via the comments below.
Trailcart, website now defunct, and production in limbo due to conflicting business priorities, produced a number of these all-terrain HP quads, one of which is shown above, fitted with an impressive snow plow. It would be great to see these back in production!
Finally there is the tow-plow created by Dave Peterson. A design reminiscent of the old horse-drawn plows of the past, it is fitted behind a regular bike like a bike-trailer, and used to maintain a clear path through the snow. There is more about the plow and how it developed over on a wiki site Appropedia.
Above the plow in action. Below the results.
