Quote:
Originally Posted by Grant-53
As fascinating as the high speed recumbents and Shell mileage vehicles are they have limitations in urban traffic situations. The cost of such vehicles is considerable as well. For us po' folk who commute we are dealing with bikes in the $300-400 USD range. In traffic a rear camera might be worthwhile.
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If you frame the purchase as "personal transportation" and compare it to the price of cars, it's easier to put down $600+ for a good bicycle, then add a couple hundred for mods to make it more usable and reliable. After all, I doubt few even on this forum would consider car shopping with a price cutoff of $400. That's not to say you can't do it inexpensively, but if it's going to be main transportation for a year or more, I strongly recommend spending enough to get a solid rig. Used is a great option, but you'd have to have more know-how to get things set up well. Rim brakes in particular can be a real pain.
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As for the "universal" upright fairings, I personally doubt that would ever truly work. On an upright you shift around a lot without realizing it, especially when "floating" your body over bumps, which is a good practice for wheel and butt longevity. There aren't many mounting points on the average bike, either. The best you could probably do would be to build fairings off front and rear racks, but then you need to have rack mounts or
spend a lot of money. And you still couldn't really fair your legs or arms. Look at the picture below, and consider how much you can't even fair! (Unless you go Full Crazy for the 70's IHPVA seed pod look)
I think our best bet for efficient carbon-zero transportation is to build low-cost faired recumbent velomobiles. With a recumbent of course you don't have the issue of the rider moving around, since they're sitting down. With three wheels, you don't have the issue of staying upright at stoplights, or having escape hatches to put your feet or landing gear down. I imagine if recumbent trikes were put on one of the standard Taiwanese production lines and they found a more economical way to produce fairings, you could buy a faired bent for $1500. That price, considering you don't pay insurance or gas or parking, competes with a car in urban areas no matter how you slice it.
Until then, we make do. There's a reason the HPV scene migrated to 'bents...