The Spearhead, by Rick O'Brien

A number of years ago, Rick was working on a design that was intended to be retrofitted to an ICE Sprint trike that he was calling the Spearhead.  In the end he abandoned the effort to go commercial with it due to the difficulty of securing insurance coverage and still making it financially worthwhile, but lots can be learned by examining what he did.

Here is a great Spearhead flyaround video - if you examine it closely you can probably learn alot!

Here's an exploded shot of all the parts laid out:

And here's a picture of his latest design that goes on an ICE Vortex called the Spearwood - apparently substantially faster and more stable.  It is made with wooden veneer with glassed and filleted joints:

2020 New England Human Powered Vehicle Rally - Sat. July 18, 2020

Now in its 16th year, the New England Human Powered Vehicle Rally, is a celebration of the fun and excitement of moving around by pedal power! Previous Rallies have featured a wide variety of recumbents, velomobiles (enclosed recumbent cycles), electric assisted bicycles, homebuilt and store-bought versions of each of these, and more.

When: On Saturday, July 18, 2020, from 9:30 AM-4 PM

Where: Rain or shine, Portsmouth, NH (final location TBA)

Cost: also TBA

RSPV by email , phone or text (207 423-7360).

Schedule: Saturday, July 18, 2020

9:00-12:00: Ride, with stop to purchase lunch

12:00-3:00: Afternoon Expo (show and tell)

Expo portions of the event consists of show and tell presentations and the chance to interact one-on-one with the owners. Test rides may be had at the discretion of the owners.

The Expo sessions will offer newbies and old hands alike the opportunity to experience the diversity of human powered vehicles. This is the perfect chance to interact with owners, ask them questions about their ride and check out the machines first hand. All sorts of rigs are expected; everything from fully enclosed velomobiles to load carrying machines to electric assisted cycles.

Wildfire HPV will be there with a variety of recumbent bikes, trikes and a velomobile or two.

The ride will be approximately 20 miles at a moderate pace through the beautifully scenic Portsmouth area.

There are no restrictions on the types of human powered vehicles that may participate in the rally – except that they must have at least partially human powered drive mechanisms and must be roadworthy to participate in the on-road ride.

FMI call Ethan at (207) 423-7360 or PM via the contact page on this website

Below are some images from previous rallies:

Merrill Gay's photos from the '05 Rally in N. Hatfield, MA

Merrill Gay's photos from the '06 Rally at the Pioneer Valley Cohousing in Amherst, MA.

Corogami Guru Dan Runyan

Dan Runyan has created some very nice coroplast fairings around his Catrike, until he was given a WAW.  He has a presence on Facebook, where photos of his creations can be found, but for those who don't do FB, here are some photos of his work.  His previous fairings were based on PVC frames, which worked well in the warmer climate where he lives, although he did mention a frame failure at one point which led to him retiring that fairing (I'm guessing the need was less once he got the WAW).

Collection of Builder's Links

Over the years, I've spoken with a fair number of people who were excited about the velomobile concept, and set out to build their own.  On the commercial side,  most such efforts were unsuccessful,  although  on the homebuilder side the success level has been higher.  I think the success level could be improved with careful study of successful efforts that came before.  With that in mind, where people have documented their own  velomobile builds, I'm putting up a collection of such links for others to check out:

Coroplast
Here's a blog with a series of at least 11 very well documented builds
Video of Ken Stadden's fabulous build around an ICE Q (QNT?) that he modified.

Other

• John Tetz's Foamshell Velomobile 
• John Tetz's Zotefoam Manual  - great info on creating a plug!
• Rick Wianecki's Velomobile
• Dan Kildea's Velomobile (composite) on BROL 
• and Dan's blog
• The Tinker's Workshop (info about his velomobile project seems to be concentrated in Sept 2103 entries, but can also be found after that for the next half year or so.)

Leitra Wildcat fairing on ICE QNT + Coroplast tailbox

A few years ago I was running a Leitra Wildcat fairing on an ICE QNT trike and build a coroplast belly pan and tailbox as part of that.  It took several versions until I got it so that it was working fairly well, and then I got a great deal on an FAW+ (Flevo Alleweder) and didn't need two velomobiles so I sold the fairing and all the parts I had made.

I was on a program called All Things Bike with the Wildcat and the resulting video shows the machine off pretty well.

2019 New England Human Powered Vehicle Rally - Saturday, July 13, 2019

Now in its 15th year, the New England Human Powered Vehicle Rally, is a celebration of the fun and excitement of moving around by pedal power! Previous Rallies have featured a wide variety of recumbents, velomobiles (enclosed recumbent cycles), electric assisted bicycles, homebuilt and store-bought versions of each of these, and more.

When: On Saturday, July 13, 2019, from 9 AM-4 PM

Where: Rain or shine at Peirce Island, Portsmouth, NH

Cost: Registration is free, but donations to help with insurance are welcome on a sliding scale, from $5.00 to $15.00 and can be taken care of either at the the Odds and Ends page of at wildfirehpv.com, or in person on the day of the event.

RSPV by email , phone or text (207 423-7360).

Schedule: Saturday, July 13, 2019

9:00-12:00: Ride, with stop to purchase lunch

12:00-3:00: Afternoon Expo (show and tell)

Expo portions of the event consists of show and tell presentations and the chance to interact one-on-one with the owners. Test rides may be had at the discretion of the owners.

The Expo sessions will offer newbies and old hands alike the opportunity to experience the diversity of human powered vehicles. This is the perfect chance to interact with owners, ask them questions about their ride and check out the machines first hand. All sorts of pedal powered machines are expected; everything from fully enclosed velomobiles to load carrying machines to electric assisted cycles.

Wildfire HPV will be there with a recumbent trike and a velomobile.

The ride will be approximately 20 miles at a moderate pace through the beautifully scenic Portsmouth area.

There are no restrictions on the types of human powered vehicles that may participate in the rally – except that they must have at least partially human powered drive mechanisms and must be roadworthy to participate in the on-road ride.

FMI call Ethan at (207) 423-7360 or PM via the contact page on this website

Below are some images from previous rallies:

Merrill Gay's photos from the '05 Rally in N. Hatfield, MA

Merrill Gay's photos from the '06 Rally at the Pioneer Valley Cohousing in Amherst, MA.

My Steintrikes Nomad Coroplast Fairing

I don't claim to be a Coro-Guru myself, but  here are a few pictures of my most extensive coro project to-date - a full fairing that was designed to go around a Steintrikes Nomad trike.  Merrill Gay took these photos at ElectroVelo in Scarborough, ME back in the mid-2000's.

The nose fairing shape follows an ellipse -  that way you can set the nose length to anything you want, and set the side to side width to the track width of the trike and get a much more aero shape. There are lots of instructions on how to draw an ellipse on line. I made a front fairing that followed an ellipse by cutting one out of rigid foam insulation to help me form the coro and then also bending a piece of 1/8" x 1" aluminum bar stock to the same shape. You can then drill holes in the bar and pop rivet the coro to it to force the coro to hold that shape. Lee Wakefield was able to get his Red Zeppelin (https://thevelonaut.blogspot.com/.../lee-wakefields-red...) fairing to hold an ellipse shape by using a horizontal coro profile (a belly band?).

On some of the inside shots, you can see the aluminum dashboard that I made, which also helps hold upper deck's shape just inside the cockpit opening.