If you have the inclination, building a velomobile can be a fun and rewarding project. A variety of approaches of varying difficulty are possible from buying a commercially offered cycle and surrounding it with a full fairing, to designing and building it from the ground up.
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.
Follow this link for more Fairing Construction information is built around a Greenspeed SLR and he was able to attain some very high speeds with it, even beating John Williams in his Quest Velomobile in a race in 2004. It occurs to me that if the middle section that runs horizontally and defines the overall foil shape were shortened, the bottom could be made as a mirror image of the top and then you would have a really nice looking shape which approximates the Quest and would perhaps be more streetable. Maybe this would only work on a higher, less racing oriented trike such as many of the other Greenspeed models.
David Lawson has constructed his velomobile by building a full fairing around a WizWheelz Terratrike.
Brad Teubner has been riding a coroplast faired trice for a good number of years now in colder weather than most of us are likely to experience. Click Here to check out pictures and descriptions of his creation
Steve Schleicher of Nimbus Kayaks based in Maple Ridge, BC, Canada a delta trike format VM. His initial work is based around a Hase Kettwiesel trike.
Building a frame based on one of the commercially available plans or kits (and then enclosing it in a fairing) is an intermediate approach to building your velomobile that offers some advantages over designing and building from scratch. Going with such a tubeset 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.
The Alleweder
The Alleweder design is a monococque (load bearing shell) velomobile which may still be the most prevalent of all VM's to date. Of the 500 Flevobike Alleweders that were built in the 10+ years that it was offered by that company, somewhere in the neighborhood of 450 of them were homebuilt from kits. The Alleweder is made from pop-riveted aircraft aluminum sheet metal in the same fashion as many airplanes.
At present two versions of the Alleweder are available - the Dutch produced Alligt Alleweder, and the Flevobike Alleweder, for which production has been resumed by the Texas based Velomobile USA. Both versions of alleweder are available from VelomobileUSA. Velomobile USA is now offering an updated version of the Flevobike Alleweder in kit form.
Visit my Alleweder page for my own experiences with the Flevo Alleweder.
Here are 2 of the best Alleweder building sites that I've found:
Gerrit Polders Alleweder page
Jan Puchelts Alleweder page
. Email Jan
Greenspeed offers plans, parts, and tubesets for their proven designs. They offer their tubesets for about $360.00 US. Greenspeed offers a special front fairing attachment extension which fits under the front boom tube.
Velomobile presence could be significantly boosted by holding a workshop in which several Alleweders or Greenspeeds were built from kits during the course of a week.
Please email me if you think you'd like to take part in such an event.
Tom Traylor's moving BB FWD webpage ...plans available
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.
Click here to visit his website
An Idea!
Wolfgang Bion Built a fairing around a Forelle Trike based on plans by Werner Stiffel
The number of people who design and build their own recumbent bike or trike frames is and then add fairings is always growing. Here are just a few general useful webpages that I've found. The Velomobile list archives
Fleettrikes - Timothy Hicks of Barrie, Ontario is a prolific (mostly trike) builder who has a great website up with a large amount of useful information.
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!
Blue Sky Design manufactures steering spindles, canopies, body shells etc useful to VM builders Power On Cycling A supplier of parts
Gaerlan Another 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
It was with much surprise that I learned that Gardner Martin of Easy Racers passed away in late 2004. Gardner has been called the "Godfather of the Recumbent" and did more to advance the cause of human powered vehicles than I could ever hope to. Many people are familiar with his tried and true Toureasy long wheel base design.
I am honored to write that back in 2000, My Wife and I spent a few hours with Gardner at the Easy Racer shop in Freedom California while on our honeymoon. Based on the plans that Gardner had earlier made available to the public and on the websites below, I built several TourEasy clones. Prior to acquiring my Alleweder, the my homebuilt Toureasy clone was the main bike that I rode.
A Homebuilt Toureasy with coroplast fairing information
A.D. Carson of Glendale WI has a very helpful website that describes how to build variations on the Toureasy Theme. You can view it at: http://www.recycledrecumbent.com/.
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
A leaning delta trike offers an intriquing possibility around which to base a 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.
Below are a number of links to webpages describing trikes of this type.
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.
Building a front and/or rear fairing are fun and useful projects that can be accomplished by many homebuilders.
This list of practical fairing design considerations came from a thread on the velomobile mailing list and is in no particular order
Other homebuilders who have chronicled their fairing building activities on the web. Thanks guys!.
Lexan
Rick Wasserman's $25.00 flat wrap lexan fairing
Coroplast is built around a Greenspeed SLR.
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!
I think that Tailboxes are incredibly useful, so here are some coroplast tailbox links:
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.
Tom and Chris Spollen of Mars have built the Wizzer - a fuelless buggy
A zote-foam faired delta.
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.
Although the following two websites are in Dutch, these fellows took the very costly and time consuming approach of building a full composite fairing. If you are interested, it is possible to use Freetranslation.com to get some sense of what they wrote by copying and pasting the text on their webpages.
If you think of any others please email me.
production (composites aren't easily recycled)