Velomobiling Guide

The Velomobiling site Gallery features Velomobile Albums including Aerorider, Alligt Alleweder, Aurora, Berkut, Birk Butterfly, Cab-Bike, C-Alleweder, Flevo Alleweder (FAW), Go-one, Leiba, Leitra, Limit, Mango, Quest, Sunrider, Versatile, and WAW, with a miscellaneous album for limited-edition and home-built velomobiles, including La Fleche. "Building a Velomobile" showcases velomobile construction projects. Velomobile Circus celebrates wild and colorful velomobile designs.

The quick velomobile overview page is up again in English en in het nederlands.

They're still incomplete, but the Velomobile Comparison Tables are far enough along to mention here.

We've assembled some links to 2-person velomobiles, 2-wheel velomobiles, tandem recumbents, side-by-side and back-to-back tandem bikes and trikes. Whether you want two-person, two-wheel, multi-rider, or some other variation on the human-powered vehicle, we've tried to include it.

From any page on the site, just click the header photo of the velomobile in the tulips to return to the home page. On the "book" pages, it looks like this:

Return to home page

Original site

The original Velomobiling.net site will be closed down and merged with this site some time in 2007. (If that link brings you back here, it's already happened). We are creating archives of the articles and "blocks." Velomobile information, articles, event announcements, and links related to human-powered vehicles will be appearing on this Drupal version of the velomobiling site.

For articles and reviews on velomobiles, velomobile-building, and velomobiling (in English and Dutch), from the original site see the Archives list. paginas in het nederlands

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More than One


More than one rider, two or more wheels...


2, 3, 4, and more!
...two-person, two seat, two rider, two passenger, tandem, multi-rider ...two-wheel, three-wheel, four-wheel...velomobile, pedal-car, enclosed bike, bicycle-car, human-powered vehicle...

Two-person velomobiles  PPV

It's not easy to build a 2-person velomobile.  The drive-train for a tandem velomobile is complex, and the body requires extra stiffening.  Reinhold Schwemmer modified an Alleweder kit into a 2-seater, and Trisled in Australia built a back-to-back tandem version of their Sorcerer.  German Eslava talked an airline into transporting the Alleweder from Germany to Australia, where he and his wife have ridden it.  Photos:  herehereherehere (the best and biggest photos), and here.  In most of these photo pages, you'll have to look hard for the tandem.  

The latest two person velomobile is the Bakmobiel from Fietser.be in Belgium. Currently being built for a foundation that employs disabled workers in a bakery business, this side-by-side 2-person velomobile has electric assist and sports a bakery display case in the rear!

The Twike might be considered a 2-person velomobile, too.  Twikes are manufactured in a pedal-electric and an all-electric version.  

The 2-rider, side-by-side PPV was developed in the 1970's;  many are still in the hands of enthusiastic collectors.  (PPV playlist on YouTube)

Four guys in the Pacific Northwest built and drove a quadracycle through several states. What made it a tandem velomobile? Well, they were in search of snowboarding locales, so they fully enclosed their Bikecar (and hauled their snowboards and luggage behind in a trailer).

Tandem velomobiles from the past included the Mochet velocar, also seen here.   Another early velomobile seating two or more was the Fantom kit from Sweden.  An image search on cykelbil, brought us to this site.  

A new approach comes from Lightfoot with the Stormy Weather velomobile. Two or more of them can be linked via the Tandemizer hitch to make a velomobile train, similar to the Kettwiesel tandem trike system.

Two-wheeled velomobiles  Streamliner
Not all velomobiles have three (or four) wheels.  Some photos of 2-wheeled velomobiles can be seen here.  

Streamliners (video on YouTube) and the "Streetliner" have just two wheels.  

Many of the high-speed faired racing HPV's run on two wheels, such as the Bülk (film clip on YouTube), the 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2006 Battle Mountain contestants, and the world's 24-hour cycling record holder.  

Two-rider, two-wheel human-powered vehicles  Back-to-back tandem

Our tandem photo collection includes back-to-back tandem bikes, tandem recumbents, and a side-by-side 2-wheeled tandem bicycle.  

Two-rider, three-wheel
human-powered vehicles  ICE tandem trike
Tandem trikes can be side-by-side, back-to-back, or front-to-back.  Here's more information.  The best list of trikes, including tandem trikes, is Mike's.  

Bicycle rickshaws  Rickshaw
If you're looking for a human-powered vehicle with one person pedaling and one to three passengers riding, you can search for rickshaw, riksha, riksja, cyclo, becak, pedicab, ricksha, samlo, velotaxi, or trishaw.  There is an interesting separable sidecar rickshaw system called the "Smike" in Switzerland. We have a couple of rickshaw photos posted here and here.  

Multi-rider, multi-wheel human-powered vehicles  Conference bike
Many unusual multi-rider vehicles are listed here.  The ZEM is available in a 4-person version, and the Conference Bike seats seven riders.  The Fietscafe (Bike cafe) carries 16 riders, of whom 10 are pedaling.  

A community art project in the U.S. brought a a pedal bus to many cities in 2006 to 2007.

More HPV bus information: The Fietsliefhebber (bike-lover) page that provided the history of the Fietscafe also tells of several other bike buses. You can rent the TrapTap (pedal tap) 15-rider human-powered beer bus near Valkenswaard, Brabant, NL. They've also been available for purchase since 2002. Roermond NL has 't Trapcafe (pedal cafe). In Helmond, there's the PartyBike. And a link on the PartyFiets site brings us to a collective representing a group of party bus rental and sales opportunities. And someone offers a pedal-powered custom bus with bench seating, but with very little information about it.

Linked bikes and trikes Kettwiesel train
Making a chain of trikes was carried to an extreme by Hase in Germany, when they set a record for tandem riding with a 150-meter snake of 93 linked trikes in the summer of 2007.  Ricksycles in Ontario, Canada now offers this chaining option on a side-by-side tandem trike, and Lightfoot Cycles sells a "Tandemizer" hitch to allow its trikes and velomobiles to be linked. Greenspeed's new new "Anura" delta trike brings this flexible tandem-building option to even more corners of the world, and Sinner in the Netherlands provides a tandem kit for its "Comfort" delta trike. Sun's EZ-3 trikes can be linked behind any of the others, and there is a hitch available that allows them to take the lead position. We now have an Anura and a Kettwiesel that we ride as a tandem, and we have added some photos and videos to this site. Advantages for the riders include independent pedaling, the ability to ride either solo or tandem (even during the same tour), and easier transport of two separate trikes. Bikes can also be linked side-by-side to make two-person, four-wheeled vehicles, such as the Quadribent.  

Multi-person HPV rental options in Minneapolis, Minnesota Pedal Surrey at Minnehaha Park
If you're in Minneapolis (mostly in the spring, summer, and fall, but sometimes in the winter), you can ride a tandem bike around the lakes, drive a Pedal Surrey past Minnehaha Falls, rent the Pedal Pub and party with a dozen or more friends along a scenic city route, or hop on a Conference Bike for a cruise through the city scene.

fietscafe

 Click on the "Pedal Pub" picture for photos of its introduction to Minneapolis, or go to the YouTube Fietscafe playlist.  

                                                                                                                                last update 7 April 2007


Mary Arneson


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