Early September update
Around here this is the Labor day weekend,
a long weekend and this year the weather is very nice. Unfortunately I have not been able to ride in
the past few weeks since my 600k brevet.
This is unfortunate for me as the weather has been excellent in the past
few weeks. As I had mentioned in my
previous post, I damaged the DF during the brevet and had to perform some
carbon fiber repairs to the rear idler housing.
I performed the repairs and I’m waiting for a new idler from ICB to
replace the rear idler I have. The sides
of the Ginko have been damaged and will be replaced with the Alligt idler. Looking
at the front idler, I can see it should also be changed but it is not as
critical as the rear.
In addition, due to
the difficult riding conditions caused by the drivetrain issues, I injured my
ankle; since I did not have access to the large chainring. I had to spin the
pedals at more than 130RPM to keep the speed up especially in descents and not
having access to the lowest gears during climb put too much strain on my
ankle. I am just starting to walk
without pain. I hope to be able to start
riding in a few days if I don’t have any setbacks.
Raderwerk
This is an item that went almost
unnoticed. A new Milan has been
produced; it is the Milan RS. The RS is
even smaller than the SL but has larger “humps” to accommodate knees and
feet. The news appeared on the German
Forum and you would not know looking at the company’s website that has not
changed yet. Is this velomobile going to
be produced on a large scale? I do not
know at this time. The company was
supposed to launch the new website in time for SPEZI and make an exciting
announcement… I guess we have a new velomobile but only limited info on
it. The new velomobile has apparently
been designed for breaking new records and not necessarily for riding on the
roads but I bet some riders will not heed to this advice.
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| From L to R Milan GT, SL and RS |
Wejkama
A new hybrid velomobile could be introduced
to the market soon; a Polish company Wejkama has developed the Cab-Bike
Hawk. This is not a new project, Kenneth
reported on the project in 2013 here http://www.velomobiles.co.uk/tag/cab-bike/
While the project appear to have made some progress with a prototype on the
road, there are still few details available but several pictures and an e-mail
address to find out more about the velomobile and price. From the pictures we can see that the
Cab-Bike has been completely redesigned with a new top that is more
aerodynamic. The Cab Bike Hawk resembles the Sunrider, Orca or Versatile that
are also hybrid velomobiles. The big
question is if there a market for another velomobile that is similar to 3
others that are only moderately successful? It is not clear where the molds came from but
for the past several months, someone was looking to sell a set of molds for the
Cab-Bike… maybe they found an interested party. wejkama.com/en/cab-bike-hawk-en
Paris Brest Paris
Last week I mentioned that Ymte was the first
to finish in a velomobile but in fact it was Hajo
Eckstein riding a Milan SL that finished first, however he finished 36th
overall.
Marvelo
More pictures of the first production SKR have
been posted pictures this week on the Marvelo Blog . You can see the large cockpit access hatch
and the front service hatch open.
Byess
There are still no news on the Evo–Kx. The prototype was to be unveiled in the
spring at SPEZI but no information, or pictures have surfaced yet. One would think that the company would be
eager to inform potential customers of this exciting event but unfortunately
like Raderwerk, Byess does not make communication a priority, there is no
mention of the Kx on the company’s website. While we do not know the reason why this
project is so far behind schedule, hopefully we’ll see the Kx by the end of the
year.
Velomobiel
Velomobiel.nl received 9 orders for
velomobiles in August and 6 velomobiles were delivered. Two of those were delivered to Velomobiel. There were 2 Quest, 1 Carbon Quest and 3
Strada delivered. August is normally a
slow month with many people on holidays and this may be reflected in the number
of deliveries. At the end of August
there were 47 velomobiles on order at Velomobiel.nl.
Someone pointed out that the new Carbon
Quest now come with a carbon swingarm instead of the aluminum swingarm. The carbon swingarm was an option previously
but it is now available on all new Carbon Quest. This will help address some of the stiffness
issues that the old Carbon Quest had.
IntercityBike
Well deliveries of velomobiles were not
affected by the holidays at ICB. There
were 16 velomobiles delivered in August 4 DF and 12 DF-XL. This may be explained in part due to the
issues with the unavailability of the original DT Swiss shock that stopped all
deliveries for several weeks earlier this season. On the order side, only a single DF was
ordered in August. At the end of August
there were 47 velomobiles on order at ICB.
Drivetrain issues may force ICB to change
supplier for the idlers. Several riders
have reported issues where the chain jumping the idlers when the drivetrain is
under strain like when riders are climbing a steep hill in the lowest
gear. The chain appears to push on the
sides of the idler. The Ginko idlers
have soft metal sides that deform and cannot hold the chain in place. Ymte and Daniel have been testing idlers from
a few manufacturers some with teeth some without. Daniel posted pictures of the Next Generation
DF with a double idler at the front. It
appears that he modified two Alligt idlers, one with teeth and one without to
make this double idler.
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| Twin front idler in DF Next Generation prototype |
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