Saturday, 17 October 2009

Biomotion tour

The Biomotion tour came to Assen yesterday. Yesterday's event was at the TT circuit, and today we were in the city centre.

There were many alternative fuel cars, but to me other things were more interesting. There were a few electric vehicles of one type or another, but I don't need to write about those. Large car companies are quite capable of dealing with their own publicity (however there are details at the organiser's website). There were also a few small electric vehicles of one type or another and ours were the only purely human powered vehicles. We took along a selection of Sinner recumbents. Our new black demo Mango attracted a lot of looks.

It was a novelty to get to ride on the famous TT track. Someone there told me he'd ridden a bike around it before and found it hard going, and he was right. The surface does seem a little odd. Presumably it's designed for maximum grip for motorbikes cornering rather quickly. Also, the total lack of protection from sidewinds made corners quite "interesting" even at my speed.

The last time I was there was during the prologue of the Vuelta, but we were sitting in those seats that time around, not on the track.

The vehicles next to my Mango are Drymer electric assisted tricycles. It's a leaning tricycle with optional cover. Really quite good.

This vehicle isn't human powered at all, but I liked it. It's  a local school's entry in the Shell eco-marathon. 270 km on one litre of petrol is pretty good. I wish I'd had the opportunity to get involved with something like this when I was at school.



In other news, I've now had my Mango for one week and one day. It has 311 km on the clock. The total would have been higher, but yesterday it covered only the distance to the TT track and back, and today just the 4 km round trip to the city centre.
Read my review of the Sinner Mango Velomobile.

3 comments:

  1. Brent18 October 2009 at 02:27

    Do you find that the mango's shell prevents airflow such that you perspire more? (Or maybe this is more a summertime issue?)

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  2. dr2chase18 October 2009 at 23:06

    Perhaps you've answered this elsewhere, but how warm does it get inside a Mango on a warm day? Or, how warm can it be outside, before it is too warm inside? I can see that the enclosed cockpit would be a wonderful thing on a day like today (near Boston, bizarrely, it has decided to snow, and some of it is even sticking, though most of the leaves are still on the trees, and some have not even turned).

    And snow tires? Or is a tricycle stable enough?

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  3. David Hembrow18 October 2009 at 23:20

    Brent, David: Earlier in the year I borrowed a Mango in the middle of the summer. When racing I did get rather warm, but not too warm for comfort. Ease off a bit and of course you're a lot cooler.

    This week when I left on my commute on Wednesday and Thursday it was before sun rise and -4 C. Nevertheless, with the rubber cover on, I still got warm enough that I didn't need a fleece.

    I've ridden trikes before, and of course a trike is a lot better on ice than a bike. I am not considering snow tyres. Mind you, around here the snow doesn't stay on the cycle paths for very long.

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