Recently a photo of me riding my DF velomobile was posted on a local news web site called Ed Hat. There were a few comments and questions about the velomobile. I posted a pretty long response that tried to explain what a velomobile is all about.

After spending a fair bit of time composing this response, I thought that I might as well capture it for this site as an FAQ. You can see my Velomobile FAQ here.

I also get a lot of questions about my velomobiles while stopped at an intersection or while taking a rest stop. I wanted a quick way to point the curious person to more information. So I’ve added a QR code sticker to the side of my velomobiles. I generated the QR code that points to my FAQ on a free site at http://qrcode-monkey.com and then laser printed that code on sticker paper. Anyone who’s curious and knows what a QR code is can use their smart phone to snap a photo of the side of my velomobile and let the QR code navigate them to my Velomobile FAQ page.

If you are interested in pointing to a velomobile FAQ, I’d suggest pointing to The Velomobile Knowledge Base. This is a much more comprehensive source of information than my bare-bones page.

A word of caution… Some people are rightly reluctant to use a QR code to navigate to a website. There are stories out there of phishing scams that involve QR codes. I’ve looked into http://qrcode-monkey.com (which I used to generate my QR code) and it seems to be a popular and safe QR code generator. Do your own research.

With the addition of the NACA duct and fans, I seem to be getting enough air flowing through the cockpit that I can leave my Lexan visor installed during a ride without overheating. Up until recently, I still left my side windows open so there was an easy path for air to exit the cockpit. Then I decided to install some Lexan lenses over the side windows to improve the aerodynamics (at least in my head). This seemed to choke off the flow of air coming from the fans and the NACA duct.

Then I remembered the small exit vent that I constructed for the aero hood that I made for Peter B’s DF. That hood had no side windows so it needed to provide a way for air to exit the cockpit. Here is that vent under construction…

Fortunately, I made a small mold from that vent so that I could reproduce it easily. So I thought it was worth a shot to try installing a copy of that vent on my own homegrown hood. Here, you can see the progression of grafting the vent into the hood.

It seems to noticeably increase the air flow through the cockpit. However, without proper testing, I don’t know if it has any negative effect on the aerodynamics. My list of features to test continues to grow.

One of the features of my Milan GT that I really liked was the LED lights in the mirror covers. These acted individually as turn indicators and together as emergency flashers. I’ve been meaning to get around to adding LEDs to my Snoek-inspired mirror covers. There were a couple of small electrical issues to overcome but I think I’ve got them figured out.

Without going into a lot of detail, I came up with these 12V LEDs from Amazon that worked out well. I had to add a little structure to the interior of the cover to mount them. I 3D printed these covers using clear PETG, then painted the blue on all but the point. I also had to deal with the fact that the DF electrical system is based on a 7V battery. These LEDs require 12V. So I had to do some funny business to bring in 12V for these LEDs and the ones in the hood side markers.

I used hollow Sturmey Archer brake cable adjusting screws to mount the mirrors. This allowed me to pass the wiring to the LEDs through the screw without having to drill any more holes in the body.

Here are some photos of a mirror cover

I use the same LEDs in the hood side markers.