Future plans

Ok, so 2013 wasn't the most productive year for the team. With my job at SSL keeping me busy with crazy hours I haven't had any time to work on the bike for months. That has now changed. There have been some recent developments that will finally get the team moving forward again.

1) I recently bought a new HP all-in-one computer with a dual monitor set up. I'm currently looking into several free mechanical CAD programs that we can use. Some of these are open source. Powershape-e and DesignSpark Mechanical seem the most promising. But there are many other impressive free mechanical CAD software I will be looking into.

 

2) I also acquired quite a bit of 80/20 tubing from my company for free. We can use the tubing for a frame jig and/or building a recumbent version of the Serotta frame fitting system.

3) We have a workspace that may work for us to do our work. The one drawback is that there is no electrical power. We'll have to work on this drawback.

But I believe 2014 will be our year and we will build on first speed bike. We have much work ahead of us but I look forward to the challenge. Battle Mountain 2014 here we come!

-Adam

 

Muffler Tubing!

So here is the muffler tubing we will use to build our first test frame. It's 2" OD x .067" wall thickness.

We have a sponsor and a workshop!

I'd like to announce our very first official sponsor, Thermal Conductive Bonding, Inc (TCB). TCB is manufacturing company that specializes in sputtering and elastomer bonding and molding.

Due to their generosity the San Jose HPV Club now has a place to do work. This will be our "workshop"!

Our first step is to clean up the area, set up a work bench tooling and storage racks, and move the foam molds in. Now, it's time to get to work! 

We are back!

So after a rather long "summer vacation" the team is back at work. :-) We have finally moved the molds to a wherehouse in Santa Clara which is a good long term spot for them.  So our short term goals are the following:

1) Build a training bike for Meghan. We plan to build a "clone" of the Bacchetta Strada. We took vavious measurements and photos of the Bacchetta that we rented back in May. Meghan liked the ride and feel of this recumbent. It seems a straightforward frame to duplicate. But when building anything there will be problems that will arise.

2) Build a test faring to give the team some practical hands-on experience performing a vacuum bag wet layup.

3) Build a test frame based on this sketch.

This is just a preliminary first design. I'm sure it will change quite a bit as we do subsequent frame design iterations.

More to follow!... 

Hellyer Velodrome 5/19/2012

We had a blast at Hellyer Velodrome. Meghan got some good experience riding the Bacchetta Strada and I got to be silly.

Dialing in the Riding Position

We had a good ream meeting tonight and we worked on Meghan's riding position. I think this looks good so far.

"And so it begins"-- Kosh Naranek

So the real nitty gritty design work begins. Were now working on getting the frame configuration nailed down. Using the measurements of Meghan's limbs we created "stick girl"! And we added a 20" front wheel and a 650C real wheel. It looks like we can possibly move Meghan forward and lower he a bit as well. We'll try out many rider configurations for sure.