After a long break, I am getting excited about another try at a velomobile

[Carl?]

I was a member on Atomic Zombie years ago, and attempted to build a trike from scratch (shockingly, it did not work very well Anyway, after a long break to work on other projects, including building an electric truck, I am coming back around to the idea of a electric powered velomobile. I found a used trike for a good price, and put a 750w bafang middrive motor on it, which makes it a hill-climbing machine. My plan is to ride it around this summer and then start working on a full shell when the weather starts to turn. I have been reading a bit about skin-on-frame designs, which seems like it might be a pretty simple place to start. I am going to poke around the new forum and see what other people have been up to, and would love to hear of any projects along these lines that anyone else could point me towards. Anyway, I am excited to be back to the hobby; and look forward to see what people have been up.

 

[Radical Brad]

Greets, and welcome back!
Looks like a good base for a velo. I wonder if you might consider cutting it behind the seat to add a pivot and rear suspension?
The body will take a lot of vibration from the road with no suspension at all.

Brad

 

[Carl?]

Yes, the lack of suspension was something I really worried about on my original build (which must have been like 10 years ago now). And while the trike is a bit of a bone-shaker, it is not as bad as I feared it would be, even on some pretty rough back-roads. I do like how simple the powertrain and frame is on it with the current setup. I have read about people using rubber grommets to add a bit of vibration dampening between the frame mounts and the actual shell. Also, I would assume that shell vibration is going to be somewhat impacted by shell weight and stiffness; which I would think might be a good reason to pursue a geodetic design. My current thinking is to try and build a lattice-work out of aluminum laths, like 1/2" x 1/16" possibly with some sort of dacron/kevlar strings on the diagonals and then skin it with some sort of synthetic cloth. Should be possible to get the weight down quite low, and maintain good flexability. I am not really envisioning riding much faster than 20 to 25mph, so it doesnt need to be designed to survive atmospheric reentry or anything! I still have a lot of details to work out, but there will be time enough to mull all that over.