Velomobiles

[shootingstar]

http://www.bluevelo.com/Order_from_Europe.html Has anyone tried riding one of these enclosed things?

Just curious. It has always looked abit claustrophic to me..and hot in summer??

[Fredwina]

I've thougt about, as my bent shop has one and fairly liberal test ride policy. But I 'm more afraird I'd clash it on the test ride
My understanding is that they are some what open on the bottom for ventalation

[TsPoet]

I've got one on order
http://www.greenspeed.com.au/Glyde.htm
will pick it up memorial day weekend.
I've ridden the one you linked to - the quest is probably the most popular (fastish) version. It has a really small cockpit and my shoulders pushed up on the top of the velo. But, it was set for a man with much shorter legs than me, so I was crunched a little in order to pedal the thing.
It was not as difficult as I expected, moved OK from a stop despite it's weight and ran fairly quickly. I did not put the canopy on - most people don't use the canopy except when racing. So, it wasn't all that claustrophobic, but I was worried the whole ride about how I was going to get out of it! I had to crunch up my shoulders, figure out where to stand (not on the fiberglass bottom), stand, twist...I was not graceful in doing so.
My friend who owns the quest says it's very hot in the summer and wonderfully comfortable in the winter. When we ride together in the winter, he's wearing shorts while I have thick sweats over long johns.
The Glyde that I have ordered supposedly has a better ventilation system and will (supposedly) be cooler in the summer. They are not so much open on the bottom as they have "flinstone" holes - there are foot holes in most of them so you can back up. Mick Sims has lots of pictures of the glyde on his Facebook page, if you want to look for and "friend" him.

[TsPoet]

Oh, and if you are interested in trying one, you can come down to Portland Memorial Day weekend and find someone (like me) willing to let you try one out. That whole weekend is an HPV mecca and there are expected to be over 20 velos there of different designs, as well as every other form of recumbent you can think of. It's also on an enclosed track, so not so much danger of damaging someone's velo.
http://lcvmg.com/
http://www.ohpv.org/HPC/index.html

[Fredwina]

you can also peruse the BROL velomoblie forums: http://www.bentrideronline.com/messa...splay.php?f=15