After some struggles at getting the sides of the Wildcat fairing built, I turned it over to a pair of French interns at he Leitra workshop, located just outside Copenhagen. Under the guiding hand of Carl Georg Rasmussen, the young engineering students came up with a light skeleton covered with camping isolation mat material.
Now I enjoy a fully faired warm interior which protects my arms and upper body from the wet Danish weather. And it should help a bit with the aerodynamics, but I haven't had a chance to test that. I'll need to get a larger front cog wheel so that I can get above the 42kph limit the current one gives me.
Also contemplating upgrading the front end of the Nomad. As I understand it, I could swap it out with the front end of the full-suspension SteinTrike MadMax, since the rear swingarm is supposed to be the same between both models. Will have to write SteinTrike for info on this possibility. It would be great if that works because it would give me the full-suspension I've been missing. The Nomad is a great trike, but as a velomobile it just jars and shakes over the smallest of bumps. My experience with the MadMax and it's known use as the base of the Thunderstorm velomobile just makes it the right choice for the Wildcat fairing, in my opinion. I may just have to put it to the test.
All the upgrades and improvements lead me towards the EuroTour2013 (
http://eurotour2013.com/) - a three week tour through five countries by a group of velomobile riders. Now that the Wildcat Nomad is ready (ok, I still need to rebuild one wheel and get a bigger front cog), I've been slowly working on endurance training. My goal is to get myself up to a level of fitness where I can hold 30 kph (18 mph) for a couple of hours, then stretch that to four hours at 25-30 kph.
After the New Year begins my plan is to start daily rides of a couple hours at a time, working my speed up each week.
Wildcat Nomad gallery
the Wildcat Nomad - old photo without side panels:
