Bicycle pics - post them up

[Bicycle Bob]

Originally Posted by arcosine

35 mph is pretty fast for flat ground and no wind. Yes a suspension is good. I rode on a bumpy bike trail, with cracks across, and it was like being inside and someone kicking the sides of a cardboard box. I put zote foam between the frame and coroplast.


Yes the nose it from Warrens Barracuda mold, and it is too long, I tried it out 20 mph down hill into a 25 mph wind and 23F and was buffeted quit a bit, I want to make a new nose. I find the noses are the hardest to get right. I should just bite the bullet and carve up some Styrofoam make one from fiberglass.

John Tetz makes whole velomobile bodies from Zote foam, and after riding inside a Coroplast drum, I'd do the same. I have excellent suspension, but the body also needs isolation from road rumble, a far higher frequency. That's why car sub-frames are rubber mounted, as well as all the suspension bits.

Bikes need that long nose for stability, but it works against a trike. I try to design everything so that if it hit a patch of wet ice in a bad crosswind, it would only move over, not yaw.

For one-off molds, I stack and glue a hollow shape of styrofoam to carve, and then finish it with wall spackle. Sometimes, I even make a mix of spackle, latex paint, and microballoons which sands just as readily as the foam. Once it is sanded to the perfect shape, a coat of shellac or other paint gives it a glossy finish, ready to be very lightly sanded, waxed and used once as a mold. A fairly shallow nose cone can be draped with a single unwrinkled sheet of fiberglass cloth. Satin gives extra compliance. Or, you can pull a mold, and make really light parts that are semi - disposable.

If you would like to try something faster, you can clamp some thermoplastic to a surface, using a cutout the shape of a cross section of your fairing. Then, add a bit of constant-fed air pressure behind the plastic, and soften it with a heat gun, controlling the shape with your aim. I'd buy enough plastic for one test piece, and have a cutoff handy on the pressure.

[The Toecutter]

Originally Posted by Bicycle Bob

John Tetz makes whole velomobile bodies from Zote foam, and after riding inside a Coroplast drum, I'd do the same. I have excellent suspension, but the body also needs isolation from road rumble, a far higher frequency. That's why car sub-frames are rubber mounted, as well as all the suspension bits.

I used packing foam sheet, gorilla tape, coroplast, c-clips, and zip ties to mount mine. The foam sheet went around the steel frame and steel seat mounting posts in 8 locations and had gorilla tape wrapped around them, with coroplast wrapped around the foam with holes in the coroplast to fit c-clips and mil-spec 75-lb zip-ties.

It made for a very quiet and pleasant ride even going downhill at 45-50 mph over small road imperfections. This lasted for over 10,000 miles until I took the body off last month.

[arcosine]

Bob you make it sound so easy.

First, a long nose on a two wheeler is just as bad if not worse than a trike, Ive been making and riding faired bikes for the past 18 years. I know how to make fiberglass noses, one is on the bike. It just takes time, especially in an unheated garage.

This is my 40 mph bike, the Carp, from 10 years ago. I was afraid of getting around the traffic, I should have went for it. I rode this bike 278 miles in 12 hours. :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NjRy1E38F0

If the fairing is shock mounted , like my SWB is, bike then it is less noisy. I rode this last on a tour last spring from Natchez, MS to Chicago loaded with camping gear:

SWB FWD:

[The Toecutter]

Originally Posted by arcosine

Hi,

Do you know Jerry .., use to live in Mo now Dallas?

I've spoken to him online on bentrider and recumbents.com and have seen his youtube videos and followed his builds. I don't know him personally. He seems very strong and would be fun to ride with.

35 mph is pretty fast for flat ground and no wind. Yes a suspension is good. I rode on a bumpy bike trail, with cracks across, and it was like being inside and someone kicking the sides of a cardboard box. I put zote foam between the frame and coroplast.

It's absolutely necessary for maintaining control at car-like speeds when going over poor condition roads, plus is nice to have for comfort. I would be very reluctant to go fast without it.

I take it you built the bike from scratch, do you have a write up?

I used a KMX frame kit for this build. I have a notebook detailing all of my design decisions but I never posted it online. I have made topics of this build on bentrideronline and recumbents.com.

Yes 40mph would be great. I had one bike 10 years ago that hit 40 mph one the flat ,well the one in the video, but it had a full enclosed top on it. The top made a big difference.

I have an aluminum version similar to my current coroplast shell in progress as a training exercise on learning how to work with aluminum(a friend and I want to build ultra-efficient lightweight streamlined high performance cars in his shop out of it, one idea which includes a 50+ mpg mid-engined 502ci V8 lightweight sports car, another which includes an all-wheel-drive electric race car with at least 1 horsepower per lb of laden weight). A friend who can weld aluminum wanted to get started on it right away and I didn't have the chance to take my time with the design so I'm probably not going to be happy with it as it will have worse aerodynamics and practical considerations as well as more weight than I would like, but I will probably use it for a bit when it is ready. Its aerodynamics should be slightly improved over the current plastic shell, but the extra weight may end up more than making up for it and slowing it down, and it will probably be less practical than even my first plastic shell in the pics/video above. He prizes aesthetics above performance, cost, ease of ingress/egress, and practical concerns when it comes to this velomobile for some reason, and that's not a good thing when it comes to velomobile design as it hampers everything that makes a velomobile better than a normal bicycle.

Form should follow function, not the other way around... The looks can come into their own, and a lot of people just don't get it. I would rather have a fast and usable machine than a beautiful but unpleasant to ride garage ornament. We'll see how this first aluminum shell turns out before I complain any further.

My next coroplast design is also under construction and is intended to have a top with NACA ducts pointed at my neck/head, hands, and armpits. It will be fully enclosed and should be much faster than my current plastic body, hopefully getting me to 40+ mph on the flat. It is THIS design I really wanted to do in aluminum, but given the time/expense involved, that may not happen. If only my friend would have been willing to wait an extra two or three weeks for me to get this one ready... as we started the first aluminum one June of last year and are still working on it...

Do you do any touring in you coro faired trike?

Not yet. I plan to when it is ready. The most I've ridden thus far is 150 miles in a 24 hour period.

[Bicycle Bob]

Originally Posted by arcosine

Bob you make it sound so easy.

First, a long nose on a two wheeler is just as bad if not worse than a trike, Ive been making and riding faired bikes for the past 18 years. I know how to make fiberglass noses, one is on the bike. It just takes time.

If the fairing is shock mounted , like my SWB is, bike then it is less noisy.

I was at the event where Matt Weaver finally showed the way to crosswind stability in a streamlined bicycle. The long nose generates extra side force, which reacts on the trail of the front wheel, steering it away from the wind. This sets up the lean necessary to counter the wind when the rider reacts to steer straight again.
It may still be dynamically unstable, but at least it is rideable in normal weather if you can reserve a bit of extra lane width.

[arcosine]

Aluminum fairings are really noisy, makes coroplast seem tame by comparison.

[Bicycle Bob]

Kevlar is quieter than Carbon fiber. It lacks the compression strength, but in a crash, it turns into a bag, not a collection of chips.

[arcosine]

Originally Posted by Bicycle Bob

I was at the event where Matt Weaver finally showed the way to crosswind stability in a streamlined bicycle. The long nose generates extra side force, which reacts on the trail of the front wheel, steering it away from the wind. This sets up the lean necessary to counter the wind when the rider reacts to steer straight again.
It may still be dynamically unstable, but at least it is rideable in normal weather if you can reserve a bit of extra lane width.

Its exactly the opposite of what you describe. A long nose coupled with a lot of trial is not good. Maybe Matt Weaver never rode in gusty 20 mph cross winds, but I can tell you from experience that the side forces are coupled directly into the steering and the more trail, the more torque has to be input to the steering to correct. The smallest nose in the front is best for side wind stability. I once tried 12 inches of trail, and when I put the fairing on it was almost unridable. The wind pushes and trail turns the steering away from the wind, not into it. Negative trail would do what you are saying.

[arcosine]

I've spoken to him online on bentrider and recumbents.com and have seen his youtube videos and followed his builds. I don't know him personally. He seems very strong and would be fun to ride with

Jerry and I were going to ride the ACA Texas Hill Country loop in our coroplast faired trikes in February, near Austin, but Jerry got sick, so its been postponed or canceled. Maybe you could ride with us, its about 320 miles around.

[The Toecutter]

Originally Posted by arcosine

Its exactly the opposite of what you describe. A long nose coupled with a lot of trial is not good. Maybe Matt Weaver never rode in gusty 20 mph cross winds, but I can tell you from experience that the side forces are coupled directly into the steering and the more trail, the more torque has to be input to the steering to correct. The smallest nose in the front is best for side wind stability. I once tried 12 inches of trail, and when I put the fairing on it was almost unridable. The wind pushes and trail turns the steering away from the wind, not into it. Negative trail would do what you are saying.

I went with a short nose for this vary reason. My first coroplast design had a nose that only went 932mm fore of the front axle line and the tail tapered back fully. This proved to be very stable even when the wind was gusting at 40 mph in Corpus Christi, TX. The 39" front track also helped, and the camber allows car-like levels of G-forces during turns.

My next coroplast design has a slightly longer nose, the tip now being 990mm in fore of the front axle line. From the top down view this new shell approximates perfectly a NACA0020 airfoil with a 600mm width. From the side view, it is a NACA0020 with a 630mm width. Both have the same focal point relative to the axle line, however the 630mm width NACA0020 side profile is beveled/flat at very the front, but otherwise staying true to form. This is about as close to a perfect teardrop as I will be able to get with flat coroplast pieces while keeping the design simple(the front cross section is 6-sided, keeping the number of pieces down and allowing easy/fast construction).

The goal is under 300W to do 30 mph, while retaining open wheels, which should make it come close to a commercial velomobile like a Mango, Strada, or a Quest.

It won't be no Milan SL, but once I put a motor in it, it will be the most energy efficient highway-capable vehicle around for hundreds of miles of radius by a wide margin, and able to be operated purely under pedal power if desired, as well as useful for committing random acts of jackassery; activities like drag racing cars, disturbing shopping malls, and doing donuts in a church parking lot while blaring Dimmu Borgir's "The Sacrilegious Scorn" or Ghost's "Year Zero" could be all kinds of fun. AND it will be carried into a home or an apartment building for quick hiding if need be(don't worry, I'm half joking here...).

They call BMW "the ultimate driving machine" in the commercials, but what I'm after is "the ultimate hooning machine". It doesn't get any lighter than a human powered vehicle as a basis point. Beef everything up for reliability and put as much power as can be fit and it will be interesting to see what happens.