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Ben Godall of australian Trisled trikes and velomobiles has announced on his Facebook page he plan to fight in the World Human Powered Speed Championships in Battle Mountain, Nevada, USA in autumn 2012. Here is what he writes there just yeasterday:
“Ever since I was a boy I have loved going fast, especially under my own steam in a human powdered vehicle! I’ve always loved exploring this limit and there has always been little voice in my head asking “how fast can you go Ben?”

Half a lifetime of experiences, relationships and building my business of building HPV’s for others have prevented me from answering this question. Until now!
I’ve decided to spend most of my free time and funds in 2012 training and custom building a Speed bike HPV to enter the World Human Powered Speed Championships in Nerada desert USA.

I’m not treating this as a land speed record attempt, but rather a well being exercise. To achieve my highest speed I’ll need to tap into all the knowledge and resources of my community, all of my experience of HPV building and prepare both my body and mind.
I don’t think I can set a new land speed record and simply aim to be within reach of the elite few…But who knows! All I do know is I’ve got to have a go at this before I get to old ”

There was a race of four wheel pedal vehicles in Hradec Kralove, Czech Republic in the middle of July 2011. Such race is the only one in the Czech Republic and is organised just once a year, but there are more of them mainly in France. Also most of the racers came from France. You can see that not only speed is important but also a look of the vehicle. We do not have more info so if you know something more, just post a comment.

You can find a video under the link here under. Unfornatenuly only in Czech, but with nice shots and good atmosphere.

Source: TV Hradec

This post is little bit out to date, but I still think it is pretty interesting. First Ukrainean Recumbent Meeting was organised at the end of September 2010. In the video you can see a pretty wide range of different recumbents and cargo bikes and also some velomobiles. All seems to be homebuilds.

In last year one could see many velomobiles to change from only pedal powered to electric assisted. Well, if you look at it from the “eco” point of view,  it is a good step and the vision of greener transportation is even nicer with such velomobiles in use. Pannonrider is a new and much longer step ahead because it is a velomobile with integrated solar panels in its body and from what I know it is the first velomobile with such advantage.

It is obviously designed to be used in cities and in the traffic so it has pretty big ground clearance, most probably very good turning circle, full cover etc.The solar panels are integrated in the roof and on the rear side which gives it a very special look. Maybe not so aerodynamic, but this velomobile is not supposed to be a racing machine but more to be a practical vehicle for everyday use.

I was pretty much surprised by their modern web page, unfornatenuly only in Hungarian. It seems that Hungary starts to be pretty important part of the recumbent world because they have shown quite some interesting machines in last months.

More pictures can be fund on http://picasaweb.google.com/pannonrider.II/PannonriderIIMegvalosulas#

Official web on: www.pannonrider.com

Thanks to the reason that Velomobiel.nl produce the shell for Strada in Slovakia now, they need to transport big amount of shells from there to Netherland. Because of that they have built a special trailer for 18 Stradas plus they can put two of them on the roof of their car. I think that it must be a real surprise for all those drivers on european highways who pass this super long set up.

Tripod looks as a new velomobile on the velomobile scene. At least I have not seen it yet. The producer is Columbia Cycle Works and here is what they have written on their web page:

“Columbia Cycle Works, LLC is the manufacturer and seller of the Tripod, a fully enclosed commuter tricycle. The Tripod was developed as a sporty, economical and ecologically sustainable alternative to fossil fuel based commuter vehicles. Columbia Cycle Works is located in Portland, Oregon. We invite you to explore our website and learn more about an exciting new way to commute to work or just get around town.”