John Tetz - Velomobiles and Sustainability

John Tetz held a Q&A session at the RBR recumbent rally on June 10, 2011. In it, he discussed his philosophy on bringing velomobiles to the masses and how trike manufacturers can help the process along. Featured is his design of the Zotefoam velomobile.

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• john tetz
• velomobile
• zotefoam
• rbr
• rally
• recumbent
• session

[triketrek11]

go to the journals section of triketrek11(dot)com and go to i think the third page, that shows a bit of the process of making them. that link above won't work. Or, the current video on my page has pics of our coroplast velomobiles if you skip foreward a bit

[triketrek11]

@persebra if you want a lightweight, strong and somewhat shiny cover - corrugated plastic is what you want. Check out my website: triketrek11(dot)com/the-machin­es

My friend Adam and I threw a shell on my homemade trike in 16 total work hours. Worked great and the way I set it up, had a TON of storage space, most of it easily accessible right behind my head!

[persebra]

a really cool old "new school" gentleman. for me, however tapole trikes sit too low and as he said, not enough cargo space. also i want a shiny cover. i really do. frankly the foam looks too amateurish. "100 watts is all you need" really? i wonder that a very skinny dude with very little cargo really understands how much power fat folks needs. the whole point of having a electric assist to to help get you up the hill, if you cant get up the hill then you need a more powerful motor.

[grrnyc]

Just a great lesson - John is amazing!

[Agrippabaca]

I would be interested in what the drag coefficient is for his bike. How about it John, have you measured it? I'm sure the zote degrades it a bit, but the shape of the body must make it around 0.3 or so.

[KrunchyJD]

"3000 pound cars in a parking lot full of them, we can't continue to do that, we just cant do it", here here, well said.

As for the long distance infrastructure, why not, in the future?

[MaciejDlugosz]

I am inspired by John Tetz but I know that most people will chase shiny things. And zotefoam velomobile is not a very shiny thing. The reason to for folks to buy something is simple - they look at something and it has to be nice. Otherwise most people will ignore it. I use myself not attractive bodywork (coroplast) on my bicycles so I know how people react to "not-shiny-things". Think about coating zotefoeam and people will buy it. One more step!

[twilwel]

Thanks for putting this online.