I'm an inventor of sorts, and I've just released some of the results of my work into the public domain. You can check it out here (there's just a first draft up, but it should tell you everything):
Basically, my idea is to alter the steering in a recumbent (steering both wheels and using a U-joint to route the power to the front wheel) to allow the device to kick both wheels perpendicularly with respect to the direction of travel so that the rider can lean the bike into the wind (much in the same way a windsurfer keeps his sail up) without changing his direction of travel. That way he or she can make use of the wind instead of having a problem with it. I'm encouraging all interested parties to participate, and am trying to develop a "cookbook" of sorts that will enable anyone to make a fully faired version in their home workshop in a day or two... For those of you who are skeptical, check out my "football" fairing idea and some of the sites on wooden recumbents. I also encourage the professional engineering types to run the numbers: 120mph is not an unreasonable speed to obtain with this setup and a reasonable sidewind.
For those of you that want to participate, the best thing you can do at the moment is to tell your freinds and get other people excited about building and trying out these things. As time goes on I plan to have more and more detailed descriptions of how to build them, so that anyone can get some wood and make their own. I'm trying to set the site up as a sort of collective memory so the things that individuals learn are shared by the group, so if any of you try to build one please keep the rest of us updated on how things go.
I'm an inventor of sorts, and I've just released some of the results of my work into the public domain. You can check it out here (there's just a first draft up, but it should tell you everything):
Basically, my idea is to alter the steering in a recumbent (steering both wheels and using a U-joint to route the power to the front wheel) to allow the device to kick both wheels perpendicularly with respect to the direction of travel so that the rider can lean the bike into the wind (much in the same way a windsurfer keeps his sail up) without changing his direction of travel. That way he or she can make use of the wind instead of having a problem with it. I'm encouraging all interested parties to participate, and am trying to develop a "cookbook" of sorts that will enable anyone to make a fully faired version in their home workshop in a day or two... For those of you who are skeptical, check out my "football" fairing idea and some of the sites on wooden recumbents. I also encourage the professional engineering types to run the numbers: 120mph is not an unreasonable speed to obtain with this setup and a reasonable sidewind.
I'm an inventor of sorts, and I've just released some of the results of my work into the public domain. You can check it out here (there's just a first draft up, but it should tell you everything):
Basically, my idea is to alter the steering in a recumbent (steering both wheels and using a U-joint to route the power to the front wheel) to allow the device to kick both wheels perpendicularly with respect to the direction of travel so that the rider can lean the bike into the wind (much in the same way a windsurfer keeps his sail up) without changing his direction of travel. That way he or she can make use of the wind instead of having a problem with it. I'm encouraging all interested parties to participate, and am trying to develop a "cookbook" of sorts that will enable anyone to make a fully faired version in their home workshop in a day or two... For those of you who are skeptical, check out my "football" fairing idea and some of the sites on wooden recumbents. I also encourage the professional engineering types to run the numbers: 120mph is not an unreasonable speed to obtain with this setup and a reasonable sidewind.
For those of you that want to participate, the best thing you can do at the moment is to tell your freinds and get other people excited about building and trying out these things. As time goes on I plan to have more and more detailed descriptions of how to build them, so that anyone can get some wood and make their own. I'm trying to set the site up as a sort of collective memory so the things that individuals learn are shared by the group, so if any of you try to build one please keep the rest of us updated on how things go.
Speed in the 90's were obtained with one of the rANs (chalkboard & fingernails for TOM) SAILTRIKES. Tom Traylor in CA has got speeds around 60 on an upright sailbike. He raised the balance issue you are trying to address with a recumbent sailbike. He used an interesting ratchetting mechanism to control the mast angle.
I'm going to try sails on my tadpole and quadrabent which don't have the balance issues. I've obtained most of the hardware to test the idea with a small sail on my tadpole. If it goes well I'll add plural sails. I'm going with sails and swings small enough to fit on bike trails and so need keep the sails within the 36" trike and 48" quad width at max swing. If all goes well, will also try this in the Baltimore kinetic sculpture race.
