[Velomobile] Paths to future velos

[David M. Eggleston]

Hi John,

Thanks for your detailed reply. It is good to be back in contact with you. In view of your long experience and accomplishments I place a high value on what you say. And we old farts need to stick together!

David

From: JOHN TETZ 
Sent: Wednesday, January 04, 2012 8:04 PM
To: David M. Eggleston 
Subject: Re: [Velomobile] Velomobile design

David Eggleston

Thank you for giving your experienced and wide ranging overview on various VM issues. Very valuable information. 
I agree we have a lot yet to learn but we have accomplished a lot in these last 10 years of VM development.

>An all-around velo has a better chance of commercial success than one that is only good for a few things.
......Too much of a range is asking a lot of a design, given the power source is so weak. Seems to me that honing a design for a specific area of need is more apt to be accomplished. Cars range from small to large with few to many features to accomplish various needs.

>I didn’t mean to denigrate designs focused on narrower goals. Taylor Wilhour and Patrick Kirchem used Velocity Velos bodies on trikes, but also used PA systems on ROAM. They were constantly trying to find receptacles for charging their batteries during lunchtime, etc. They also had mechanical problems. But they did both make it to D.C., and only missed out on a few days of riding. While their aerodynamics is not up to that of the very streamlined velos, their motors and big batteries made up for that.
   I admit to being a fan of VM.nl and their design and manufacturing work. In the Quest and Mango (and now Strada) they have all-around velos that do well in many uses. Good aerodynamics blesses you every time you push on the pedals, and I can see why so many find that specification so important. Also your safety is enhanced by going fast, so the relative velocity differences with respect to traffic are smaller and the reaction time after detecting you is in your favor, at least for city riding.
   I used to use a PA system we developed, and thought I was getting full exercise anyway. Not so. When I visited the NL in 2008, a bit sick and jet-lagged and riding a borrowed velo, I was unable to keep up with a fast velo group. Marjolein, a 60-year-old very fit lady, drifted back to push me so I could keep up. Then I realized that I needed every scrap of exercise I could get to approach their level of fitness. I would never have been able to train and complete ROAM if I had been relying on a PA system previously, unless of course I had a reliable such PA system in my Quest. But I am the sailing type that disdains power assist for personal use, so have to be content with what my body can do. Also I refuse to carry around the extra weight of motor and batteries that I don’t really need. I go for a lightweight velo.

What I have set my sights on is a practical suburban human powered alternate transportation vehicle to be used by average folks to do their shopping and running errands in the 2 to 5 mile radius. Average speed 14 mph. These design limits give the opportunity to come up with a viable vehicle.

> Go for it!

> You can fairly easily put an aero body on an existing unsuspended trike, but you are likely to end up with many difficulties, including body attachments to the trike, noise of thin shells vibrating, and many others.

........How true this is. But I look at the fact that the bare trike business is booming. Although adding a shell of some kind may not be ideal it does change a trike into a vehicle, a vehicle that is first of all not seasonably limited, has weather protection, some crash protection, more visible to cars etc. This will change the consciousness of the trike rider into using the vehicle more as local alternate transportation rather than just recreation

.> The covered trike needs a lot of cargo space. I’m not sure how much the Velocity Velo body has. Maybe it is adequate. One can hope that it will change the consciousness.

Second, by being seen by the public these vehicles will affect their awareness. I see and hear a change in the publics response to my VM over a 7 year period. They more often comment now - it doesn't use gas, its good for the environment, and its good for the health of the rider, etc. 
I am hearing more and more happy - I like what you are doing horn honks - from drivers. 
The publics environmental awareness is changing. We need a viable practical vehicle. 
It doesn't need all the wish list of advanced features.

> I get the same reactions, but nobody local orders a velo, not even my bike club friends. We are getting a few bike people riding trikes around here, whereas two years ago there were none. Nobody locally has gotten so far as to notice or want the features on your list. It is a struggle. I could have died before such a thing happens. I greatly underestimated the trouble of getting people out of their cars to exercise.

I designed my present VM 8 years ago coming from a long background with streamliners and the thrill of speed.
What's important to me now is weather protection (head in), light weight, quiet, ease of access to decent cargo space, some amount of suspension, small physical size for parking reasons. Aerodynamics is there but further down the list. 
This is accomplishable given what we know. 
In another 10 years more viable vehicles will be developed. 

> I will be 87 then, if I make it that far. That is a long time to wait.
As regards head-in, Frans van der Merwe’s Pterovelo used a breathing tube to minimize inside condensation on ROAM. Others have done the same thing. Mary Arneson and her Cab-Bikes didn’t have this setup, AFAIK. It would not be a big deal to add it. One of my customers living in northern Idaho came up with it on his own. The Dutch aversion to it is to some extent justified by the dangers of limiting your visual field in any way. If the big vehicles I share the roads with misjudge my intentions or fail to see me they could crush me and hardly notice it. I’m quite sure they wouldn’t even get a citation for doing it. Just a hint of a shadow or an unexpected light beam crossing my peripheral vision can scare the hell out of me. It is one of the problems of the reclined position combined with age that I can’t turn my head far enough to see backwards. Even now I sometimes pull out not knowing for sure, but estimating from the lack of vehicle noise that it must be safe. Mirrors have limitations too. Sometimes my mirrors show nothing, but somebody pulls out and accelerates fast and passes me when I had no idea they were there until I hear them. So limiting sound cues by enclosing the cockpit is also a worry. Maybe I need a rear-view camera and dash-mounted screen for safety.

> I guess we will have to rely on our own ideas and resources for low-budget design and development paths. 
.....Yes, but some method of sharing ideas is very important. Look at the advancements made after the birth of the IHPVA in 1975 - which eventually lead to present day Velomobiles

. >Yes, but John Abbey states an obvious worry, why should I share my ideas so somebody else can profit from them instead of me. At the current level of awareness on the hupi list, this is probably not a problem, but it is a worry.

In some ways its less a technology issue than a change in consciousness as to why and how we use these vehicles. Requiring the wish list of advanced features hints of 19th and 20th century thinking where the Earths energy and resources were thought to be limitless. Efficiency - doing more with less - is the 21st century password. HPVs are up with the efficiency of railroad trains and super tankers.

>You must have been reading the same stuff that I have. I ran across the transport efficiency and payload efficiency dimensionless parameters in the 1960’s or so. They are still valid, a great advantage of dimensionless parameters. 
There is indeed a great discrepancy between the 142 velo crowd of mostly Quests and Mangos (and Stradas) at the 2011 Olliebollentocht a few days ago, and the local bike scene. I am still in the “watch that roadie recede in the rear-view mirror” crowd. Even as old and slow as I am, I now have a carbon fiber Quest that I ordered for ROAM. The original was crushed in shipment and I only got a replacement in November. Going fast is still important to me. Also, since my friend John Abbey is living with us, working for VMUSA, and riding his velo with me, and is much younger and faster, I need to have some chance of keeping up with him, or at least not getting so far behind that he gives up on me. 
   Ymte uses a cargo trailer on a Quest for bulky packages. That way he still has the advantage of a fast vehicle when he drops the trailer. I tend to use our car for that, even though I have a cargo trailer, since I rarely need it and sometimes the car is necessary for the trip anyway. My body fat content was 18.7% according to my Tanita sports scale before ROAM, but dropped to 5% afterwards. It is now up to 10%, and unless I ride a lot more will keep going up. I am fighting to retain my fitness but seem to be losing the battle. I just don’t have time to ride enough to stabilize it anymore.

Notice for one how I have skirted the issue of funding.

> Yes, I noticed. The people that require cheap velos may be thinking of car production, such as 100,000 vehicles per year, with all the careful design, production, and marketing to sell that many velos. That would require millions, or maybe billions, as my financial predictions are notoriously inaccurate. If a great, inexpensive velo could exist, how many people would buy one? There is lots of room for ingenuity in design, but whether improvements in consciousness will take place fast enough is tough to predict. We keep muddling on anyway.

We had a chance to visit Chet Kyle on our way up to Portland for ROAM. He had a crash due to a fawn jumping in front of him a year ago or so, and is recovered but not quite the same. He has cleaned out his office and cut down or cut out his consulting on bicycle speed. I guess we both have to look forward to that sort of thing, unfortunately. I will keep at it as long as possible.

John Tetz 

David Eggleston