That's brilliant - I'd seen there had been modern reconstructions, but have never seen one in the metal. How does it handle?
The bike arrived the morning of the day I had to fly to Turkey, so I didn't get to try it properly for a while.
Once you get it moving, it's great fun. The gearing is low and the cranks are small (105mm), so it's a "last mile or so" commuter or a local shopping bike (a shopping basket on the front only increases the stability
). I haven't tried it up anything but the gentlest hills yet (but will be more adventurous because it's huge fun coming back down the hill). Turns on a dime, as you would think, and the closeness of the handlebars to your thighs is less of an issue than turning on a regular bike with slight toe overlap.
Pedalling is *different*. You need to sit back a little so your knees aren't hitting the handlebars. This, with the small cranks, means that your legs are moving in a different way to a normal upright, somewhere between riding a recumbent and a trike with the cranks fixed on the front hub.
Getting started is the biggest challenge for most people (had a bunch of friends round for a party at the weekend and they all had a go). The small gearing and small cranks make it hard to get momentum from the off. Until you've learned a way to get started with confidence, there's a few moments of wobbliness before suddenly everything is stable and sedate. One of my mates said "It's like being a 5 year old again, learning to ride a bike. Everything is unfamiliar and unsure and then suddenly it all works."
It's a difficult bike for anybody much below or above average height or with short/long legs. The seat tube moves like the slide of a trombone, if you see what I mean, so mostly serves to adjust your position relative to the cranks, rather than to the ground. The stem is very adjustable, so can accommodate long legs, but a short person is going to find themselves perched very precariously on the saddle until they're in motion. I'm 5'8.5" with slightly short legs for my height and I had to rotate the saddle mount 180 degrees around the seat tube to bring the saddle an inch and a half closer to the ground (f that doesn't seem to make sense, remember that the seat tube is shaped like the central cylinder and grip of a traditional umbrella, with the saddle mounted on the end of the grip). Even then, I'm on tip-toes when the bike is stationary and I have to put a foot down.
So I'm still getting used to it and haven't pushed its limits yet but it's a huge amount of fun. There was one grump at the party who said "Why would you want to ride that?" and everybody else yelled "Why would you not?"
That's utterly marvelous. No hinges to fail or creak.
Yes, I do consider it a Brompton alternative - where the non-train part of the trip isn't too challenging ;-)
Making it road legal is going to be a challenge, especially when I replace the handle bars and reverse the stem so that the steering is more like the 30s version.
On our version, we used a hub brake (we built it into a stripped-out dyno-hub shell)
This one does have a coaster brake in the hub (Shimano CB-E110). I'm just not sure about the legal status of the front wheel. I'm not sure the law allows for this particular bike design.
Riding a velocino feels a very civilised riding position.
Yes! Very genteel.