Last week was the Human Powered Vehicle (HPV) Bikefest in Burlington, and because it was in City Hall Park next to the farmer's market, we managed to get to the Bike Expo on Saturday and see some velomobiles up close, and they are coooool, especially the Go-One.
Unfortunately, while a velomobile might have made a lot of sense for me 10 years ago, especially while I was living in Evanston and commuting in to Chicago, it's a harder sell now that I have two kids and am telecommuting. Most of my biking is to take Finn to school, and so what I really need is a "family" velomobile, and the multiperson velomobiles I've seen are not really ready for family use in VT. Oh, I could probably hook up the trailer to the velomobile, but doesn't that defeat the cool factor? :-) And... it doesn't help when the Go-One costs $8000+. They have a lot of great ideas for how to ameliorate that cost, but they don't really apply to our situation.
So... the kids will be out of college when I'm 57, so maybe I can look forward to settling my veloenvy then... but actually, maybe Connor would be interested in a velomobile as a car** alternative when he's 15 -- neither he nor his friends will have driver's licenses, and a velomobile will be almost as fast around town. And maybe in 10 years the cost of a good all-weather velomobile will have come down to $2000.
** A Vespa might be another acceptable around-town car alternative. We'll see.
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