What are the advantages and disadvantages of a Velomobile?
A velomobile is generally defined as those funny looking recumbent bikes with shells around them. Shells can provide a measure of protection from the weather and can make the vehicle much more aerodynamic. Effectively, this allows you to go faster with less effort than with a conventional bicycle.
The advantage of using a velomobile is that you don’t need to burn fossil fuels to get around. You can even get electric motors to help you up the hills that are powered by your pedaling actions.
Velomobiles tend to be heavier than bicycles, but due to aerodynamics they are often easier to ride fast. They provide much better protection from the weather and are much more stable.
It’s much harder to roll a three-wheeled velomobile than it is to fall off a bike, and you’re highly unlikely to be thrown over the handlebars and land on your head. If you somehow fall off your bike, you have a much shorter distance to go before you hit the ground from the seat of any recumbent bike.
Apparently, they are much more popular in Europe than here in the United States. I’ve seen them before from a distance, but until recent years I rarely saw one up close unless a friend who owned one drove it to meet us for a run.
They can come in many different shapes and sizes, from completely homemade, to using a commercially produced recumbent bike that has been fitted with a custom shell, to a unit that you buy straight off the shelf. Well, straight from a store, in any case.
However, velomobiles have some drawbacks.
First of all, they are generally lower to the ground than bikes and are not something the average rider will go looking for. Many cyclists try to get around this by having a flag on a pole extend into the driver’s field of vision, but this is still a poor substitute for always being visible.
Second, your head is at the same level as a car tailpipe, so you will absorb all the pollution from traffic passing near you. In the short term, that’s probably not much of a problem unless the traffic is heavy, but it can have some serious long-term consequences if you regularly ride one of these.