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This is not a concept, not a picture made in Photoshop. This is a real working pedal vehicle. A red velomobile built in Italy around a steel construction with 700c wheels. An amazing machine with aggressive design which would masses like. Simply something the velomobile world needs.

It is hard to find more information about this velomobile on internet. I mean more information about properties, advantages and disadvantages, turning radius, weigh, etc. etc. All those things we would like to know, but anyway, nice bike!

A bit more info and more pictures here.

It seems that still more and more posts will be informing about velomobiles and trikes, or trike fairings. There are not that many news in the classic two-wheel-recumbent world, but a lot of invention and work  have been done in the three-wheel part of the recumbent world.

VeloTilt is one of the good examples. A tilting velomobile can be a good solution to many velomobile problems. Especially if one want to use them in the city. They are usually too low, have usually huge turning radius and are mainly design with focus on speed than with focus on practical use in every day. Well, it is truth that using a standard velomobile can be quite easy in Holland, but in the rest of the world which is not flat and which has no smooth cycling paths everywhere, it is usualy a problem.

VeloTilt is definitely a nice machine with inspiration in Velox2, but still, there are some problems I see. Mainly that people want to use velomobiles in the bad weather and want to be fully covered inside. As you can see on the picture the window is pretty small especially on sides so your view is limited which is a big problem in the traffic. Also when it rains and it is dark, the drops stay on the window and you can hardly see anything. Especially when some lights come from opposite direction. You need to have a wiper. To have a wiper, you need a flat window made out of glass. It think this is a key factor.

Well, you can read a long article about the VeloTilt on BicycleDesign.net.

This Softshell concept of velomobile has been made by Czech designer Martin Miklica. The idea is similar to BMW Gina (see video here under) with the main structure potentialy produced from steel and the fairing from fabric. Better to say from Softshell which is mainly fabric for outdoor products like jackets or pants.

It has four wheels, two seats and it is 1,5 meters wide what would require using it only on standard roads and streets, not on cycle paths. For that, it would probably need to have also kind of electric motor as a support.

Usualy designers forget to think about pedaling and it is the case also here. There is no pedal box which would allow to use a crankset so the only one solution would be a linear pedaling like in the amphibian velombile which was made in Czech.

It seems that also AZUB is working on a project of fabric velomobile, or better to say a full fabric fairing for their trikes. The only one information can be found in their catalog now.

An australian velomobile and trike producer Trisled has published an amazing pictures of their velomobile concept on their Facebook page. Here is what they write about it:

This is the latest concept vehicle to come out of the ‘Sled Cave’. It’s a 4 seat velomobile we have build for a client who plans to ride it across Australia for charity. We’re sure they’re going to get plenty of attention in this bad boy! It’s been a fun but testing build and a great chance to experiment with the concept. Keen followers of the Trisled page would have already seen the rolling chassis in action but here it is with its Coreflute body on.

Here is a link to more pictures on Facebook.

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.

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.