Daily Archives: January 3, 2013

Oliebollentocht – Record Number of Velomobiles

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Oliebollentocht Logo157 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.

Cobra Linear Inner Tube – From BMX to Velomobile?

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photo of cobra Inner-tube

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″.Photo showing cobra Inner-tube join

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.