On Friday, April 14, 2017 at 3:32:19 PM UTC-4, Doug Cimperman wrote:
On 4/14/2017 2:22 PM, Sir Ridesalot wrote:


I'm surprised that noone makes a streamliner with a sliding rear part of the body. Slidethe body rerarward to get in and then pull it forward when ready to pedal away. It'd be much like the sliding canopy on a WW2 fighter plane Such as the P-40, the Hurrican or the Yak-3.

Cheers


Many home-builders have tried, but it ends up being too heavy. Also,
having big airplane-style canopy windows means you boil in sunny/warm
weather.

There is also occasionally, a commercial builder offering tadpole trike
(2-wheels in front) bodies where the whole thing flips up (on either a
front-end or rear-end hinge) to enter and exit. These body shells end up
being very flimsy compared to a good velomobile, and much heavier besides..

When trying to build bicycle bodies--especially for practical use--the
main enemy is weight. All the main velomobile manufacturers now have an
all-carbon-fiber monocoque model as their top offering, because despite
being expensive it ends up being less weight than any other method.

I did NOT mean for the entire thing to be enclosed. I was thinking that the body shell would be in two halves a fixed forward area and a sliding rear area. the seat would be fixed to the front portion of the frame and the shell behind the seat and at the side would be able to be slid rearwards for entry and then easily slid forward to close it. That'd ba a heck of a lot easier to do than whatthe video showed of fixing a fabric cover. With a sliding shell you could even start pedalling and THEN pull the rear part of the shell forward. Plus the shell would add protection to the person inside in the event of a fall or crash.

Cheers