Here are a few pictures of some of the most commonly found commercially manufactured velomobiles. Click on the picture for a link to the velomobile's homepage
This past Summer I got to test ride the new Mango VM by Velomobiel.nl - good stuff! (photo courtesy Erik Wannee)
Feel free to Email me with comments or suggestions regarding this website.
David has obtained the rights to build the Flevobike Alleweder in the US and is beginning some initial prototypes.
Although several different commercially produced velomobiles are available, obtaining one involves importing the velomobile in one way or another, since they are currently all manufactured overseas.
The Aerolope is a velomobile manufactured in Refugio Texas.
Birkenstock Bicycles - The Butterfly Translated using Google
The Velomobile page provides additional information about commercially available Velomobiles
Joseph Muller of Hamilton, Ontario recently acquired a Russian Velomobile made by Berkut
If anyone has information regarding other velomobiles on the road in North America, I would encourage you to let me know.
David Lawson has constructed his velomobile by building a full fairing around a WizWheelz Terratrike .
Commercial Recumbent manufacturers.........................[ top]
Others have compiled excellent lists of current manufacturers of recumbent bikes and trikes. Here are some links to their pages:
Manufacturers list at Recumbents.com Mark Matarella's website
The IHPVA/HPVA website Sourceguide Maintained by Brian Wilson
Chris Broome's Trike and Quad links
Building a front and/or rear fairing are fun and useful projects that can be accomplished by many homebuilders.
Fairing Design Considerations.........................................[ top]
This list of practical fairing design considerations came from a thread on the velomobile mailing list and is in no particular order
Front and Full Fairing Homebuilders......................
[top]
Lexan
Rick Wasserman's $25.00 flat wrap lexan fairing
Coroplast
Warren Beauchamps practical and inexpensive full fairing page (Good Stuff!)
John Foltz's coroplast fairings
Bill Volk's Coroplast (TM) Craziness Page A Website for the coroplast fairing enthusiast!
Jacks Recumbent Website Fairing Page How to make a coroplast fairing, a la Ed Gin
Bill's Coroplast Tailbox and Fairing on a Bike E
Russell Dwarshuis' Coroplast fairing page
Zotefoam
Kentucky Manufacturer of Zotefoam: 800-362-8358 (provided by John Tetz)
John Tetz's Zotefoam Fairing page
of MARS. The MARS website includes others in that group who have built fairings using Zotefoam. These fairings look quite nice!
Tailboxes.................................[ top]
I think that Tailboxes are incredibly useful, so here are some coroplast tailbox links:
Mark E. Mueller's Tailbox page
There are numerous decisions to be made when designing your velomobile. Some of these decisions can be circumvented by using one of the commercially available kits or sets of plans.
If you choose to completely design and build your velomobile, though, the community of people who have built their own bikes and are willing to share their experience is inspiring! Much can be learned by visiting the web sites of these generous people.
Several people working together as a group to create a velomobile for each group member could provide mutual motivation and encouragement, and pool ideas and resources . With this idea in mind, I've created the Velomobile Homebuilders Network (VHN) Webpage to make it easier for builders to find each other.
If there aren't any VHN participants in your area, I've compiled a list of groups organized by region with homebuilding members that might be contacted through the website of that group.
David Eggleston, of Midland Texas has started a program called Pedal Yourself Healthy which will focus on promoting the use of velomobiles as a way to a healthy lifestyle.
The Versatile
The official Leitra page
Purchasing a commercially available recumbent bike or trike and then building a fairing using the recumbent as a chassis would reduce the amount of time to usability in comparison with designing and building the entire vehicle.
If you think of any others please email me.
production (composites aren't easily recycled)
Plans and Frame Kits
Building a frame based on one of the commercially available plans or kits is an intermediate approach to building your velomobile that offers some advantages over designing and building from scratch. Going with a frame kit avoids the difficulty of having to cut, miter and bend the tubing and also circumvents having to anticipate design problems (assuming the kit manufacturer has already addressed these issues). Plans eliminate the need to design the frame the but still require the labor to cut and shape the tubing prior to welding or brazing.
Greenspeed offers plans, parts, and tubesets for their proven designs. They offer their tubesets for about $360.00 US.
The Alligt Alleweder Velomobile kit is available from the Netherlands for about 1850 dollars US (as of 1-31-02, kit price not including shipping, taxes, etc.)
An Alleweder built from a kit No welding or brazing is required to build this kit - it uses an aluminum monococque construction and is fastened together with pop rivets
Wolfgang Bion Built a fairing around a Forelle Trike based on plans by Werner Stiffel
Tom Traylor's moving BB FWD webpage ...plans available
General Useful Homebuilders links
Timothy Smith's homebuilder pageTim has tried out many different approaches to buiding an HPV. He also has put together this excellent website with huge amounts of homebuilding information.
Carey Chen's recumbent homebuilder page.Carey has also tried a large number of different approaches to building an HPV. Some good homebuilding information here.
Steve Robson's recumbent homebuilder page
Roger Gilmore's Unusual Human Powered Vehicles links pageThis is the gateway to a huge amount of useful information!
Chris Broome's Websitealso offers a very large amount of information that could be useful to the homebuilder.
The Wisil Website If you want to be inspired, check these guys out!
Recumbent Bicycle Homebuilder links.......................................[ top]
Long Wheel Base RWD
I built a TourEasy clone based in part on the information contained in these webpages, and have had fairly good success with it.
A Homebuilt Toureasy with coroplast fairing information
Front wheel Drive Homebuilts with two wheels
Izzy Urieli has built a number of FWD two wheelers.
Tom Traylor's moving BB FWD webpage tells how to get plans (moving BB FWD single) and offers information about his projects including his back to back tandem.
Chris Broome also has a Tom Traylor FWD webpage.
Niels Geerts' Homebuilt flevobike racer page
Recumbent Tricycle Homebuilders links.......................................[ top]
I am currently focussed on designing a leaning delta trike as the basis for my velomobile. This type of trike should allow you to sit higher up, with a narrower track than non-leaning trikes. When locked in trike mode it would provide additional stability to help deal with slippery conditions and would allow coming to a stop without having to put ones feet down. I plan to use a disk brake concentric with the head tube pivot mechanism to lock the leaning action.
Here are the links I have discovered in researching this project. As I get time I will be adding additional links to homebuilt trikes of other formats (if you know of any good ones, let me know)
Thom Lester's leaning delta trike
Robert Wood's Leaning Delta Trike
You can learn about the leaning delta race trike that Greenspeed experimented with in these two articles found in HUFF (Head Up Feet First) the newsletter of Oz HPV.
Chameleon Leaning Delta Trike designed by Bill Stites of Stites Design, and soon to be commercially available. Parts for the non twisting chain fixed BB FWD should be available separately.
Triad Leaning Delta Trike designed by Roy Bird.
Erik Wannee's Flevotrike/bike Page
Rick Allnutt's' homebuilt trikes are based on the Thunderbolt plans.
Paul Walters' trike is also based on the Thunderbolt plans.
Fred Lenk's Thunderbolt Site Has alot of interesting and useful information on his experiences with the Thunderbolt - including creating a 3/4 fairing for it.
Sam Q's homepage .....Good line drawings of some common tadpole trike designs. Pics and description of his tadpole building activities.
Completed Homebuilt Velomobiles .......................................[ top]
Bob Stuarts Car-Cycle is constructed using coroplast and fiberglass in a monococque type construction
Reg Rodaro has been working on a number of different approaches based around his fiberglass fairings.
Homebuilding Supplies
..............................................................[ top]
Power On CyclingA supplier of parts
Gaerlan A supplier of parts
The IHPVA Source Guide A useful collection of links and info, including some sources of supplies for the homebuilder.
Mark Matarella's links to parts suppliers
Miscellaneous cycle related links..............................................................[ top]
Center for Appropriate Transport (CAT)
Human Powered Machines The HPV producing branch of CAT
The Bicycle Coalition of Maine
The Human Powered Vehicle Association
Kathy Bilton's extensive list of
recumbent riders
EMAIL
last modified 3-13-03
Wouldn't a workshop in which several Networkers got together to braze together their Greenspeed Tubesets be great? Please email me if you think you'd like to take part in such an event.
Paul Sims leaning trike article 2.
Here are some links to other portions of my website:
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Velomobile Homebuilders Network | Bikes I've known
folks have visited this page since 4-1-03
