So I have recently been riding in the appalling rain we have been having , well between the showers if possible !
I have been getting VERY muddy/dirty much worse than any of the last 4 years I have ridden the route due to a huge Amazon warehouse being built along side my path.
Then I came across this :-
he calls it a modular velomobile ? is can be ridden as trike - rear fairing only - rear & front fairing and maybe front fairing only ?
This is his spec :-
About 4 km / h faster than unclad. If it gets warmer now, I take off the front fairing and the bottom plate and ride only with the rear fairing.
The front fairing weighs 6.5kg the rear fairing 5kg and the trike a GTI 13.5kg. So a very impressive 25kg and 100 litres of storage.
If I tried to carry the same with Ortleib Back Roller City panniers
Capacity 5 x 20 litre = 100 litres
Cost 5 x £45 = £225
Weight 5 x 0.76kg = 3.8 kg
So lets say the Python is my base can I do the same ? as wheel arches are much preferable to mud guards and his rear fairing is much easier to clean than panniers & more water proof etc ...
Now the Python is considerable shorter behind the seat than his trike so can you see that a mudguard about 1" bigger than the tyre will over lap the seat , shame as I had a use for that curved area on his fairing.
However the rear fairing needs to be removable to get the trike in the car so it can actually be a little longer than the existing trike frame and I will get more luggage volume by it being considerably higher that current pannier rails ?
The outer rails will have to come off to allow access for new rear fairing ....
So I will make to new rails and weld them inside the frame [ white ] that will allow me to still carry 3 panniers 2 outside the rails and one in-between them.
Then the outer rails will be trimmed off at the red cut marks , an added bonus is it will actually leave the rear outer rail long enough to carry a 4th pannier if needed.[ over reflectors ]
One the rails are sorted I will build the wheel arches from some cheap/scrap plywood join them with a small floor and see if they work.
If the mudguards pass muster I need to plan the rest of the fairing and when nearing completion the whole pannier frame/water bottle holders/tent load area will have to be remove to allow it to slide in.
Exciting stuff......