[Velomobile] Velomobile design

[Giles Puckett]

On 4/01/2012 5:02 AM, David M. Eggleston wrote:
[lots of interesting stuff snipped]

Thanks David, I concur with all your points. There's one other that 
might not be uppermost in the minds of people in the USA, but probably 
more so in Europe and Australia: inconsistency of laws relating to 
power-assist. Here in Australia we have a lot of hilly country, coupled 
with brain-snappingly stupid power restrictions (now 200W peak - with 
the possibility of 250W plus pedelec and speed limits soon!)

Any velo is so much heavier than a bicycle that it needs all the help it 
can get uphill - that's where the average speed of any bicycle trip is 
determined, so how much more so for a velo. My own homebuilt attempts at 
streamlining certainly got me to the bottom of the next hill much 
faster, which was fun as long as it lasted, but took me twice as long to 
get up to the top again!

So lobbying for reasonable power limits and restrictions of these things 
is paramount in places that limit them unreasonably. The present laws in 
Oz seem to be specifically designed to prevent practical 
car-alternatives from ever being built.

G.