Photos Pics of riding around my city

My city has a lot of abandoned buildings to be explored. I rode my unmotorized Milan SL velomobile around the neighborhood and snapped some pictures. St. Louis is a post-industrial wonderland. Probably not to the extent that Detroit is(never been there, would like to go someday), but it has no shortage of scenery that looks like it belongs in dystopian and/or post apocalyptic science fiction. Nothing quite like flying around at 40 mph with only your legs powering the vehicle.



















































































I'll post more photos later.

Barf said:

@The Toecutter is that green thing/rig your ride? That area looks bleak as fuck. Were you on the east side of St. Louis? That’s the real dilapidated, rundown, wrong side of the river. I can feel the skag through the screen.

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That is one of my rides. I have another similar to it that is in the main thread for the bicycle touring section of this site.

These photos were all taken within roughly a 3 mile radius from where I currently reside. It is near Lambert Airport on the Missouri side of St. Louis. I hear gunshots multiple times a week where I live and have seen some crazy shit go down.

I've also ridden through East St. Louis on the Illinois side.

Forth said:

Hell yes i only spent a couple nights there but I loved the abandondness* of St Louis.

@The Toecutter that is one dope whip. I don't think i've ever seen one of those honestly, or if i did i had no idea what it was. Legit thought you rode that outta the Jetsons cartoon for a second.

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It's an aerodynamic pedal-powered recumbent tricycle called a velomobile. It has no motor. This particular make/model is a Milan SL. It is so aerodynamically slippery that I can pedal it to 50 mph on flat ground in a sprint. But it does take me 2 miles to reach that speed. I've gotten up to 89 mph while careening down a very steep hill heading into East St. Louis, IL. Viable flat-ground cruising speeds are closer to 30-35 mph. Being a bicycle, and heavier than a normal bicycle, it is not nearly as fast going up hill. There are steep inclines that for the same effort it takes to hold 30 mph on flat ground, I'm doing 3-4 mph up that hill.

I've designed/built a vehicle similar to this that is also pedal powered, but with the addition on an electric hub motor. I'm turning that into a car with the legal status of a "bicycle". It will be able to do 110+ mph and out-accelerate the police Dodge Chargers when the motor is in use after I get done with it. And it ill still remain pedalable to faster-than-bicycle speeds when I turn the motor off. It won't be as aerodynamically efficient or as light as the Milan, but I'm using the aerodynamic body of the Milan to guide my next design iteration, and the expectation/hope is that I will be able to reach 40-45 mph in a flat-ground sprint with the motor completely disabled, just pedaling it. With the motor in use, it will have a range-per-charge comparable to most of the medium-tier electric cars you can buy, except it will cost about $0.25 to fully charge from empty.

These vehicles are perfect for inexpensive long-distance travel at high speeds. Might even be comparable in overall speed to train hopping, once you consider all of the waiting around that it entails, but with the ability to go wherever there is a road.

Forth said:

@The Toecutter Whoa! Those speeds are insane. I am a speed fiend, i'd probably end up killing myself bombing down a hill in one of those. If I ever see one now im gonna try and race it to see what it do. Hills do not sound fun. How much does that bad boy weigh? Really cool bike i love it.

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If you race one, in all likelihood, it will be piloted by some feeble old man wealthy enough to afford it, and he will completely smoke your ass, even if you race bicycles professionally for a living and are extremely strong. Sure, you might initially gain tens of feet over some feeble 70-80 year-old man that could barely walk, but he will eventually get up to 30+ mph and overtake you, because he will be able to hold that speed for minutes at a time.

The power required to overcome aerodynamic drag varies as a cubic function of velocity, and aerodynamic drag accounts for most of a ground vehicle's load at anything over about 15 mph. Double the speed, and you require 8 times as much power to overcome wind resistance. On a normal bicycle, this adds up quickly, because it has about as much overall wind resistance vs. speed as a compact car. That Milan has about 1/10th the aerodynamic drag of a normal bicycle. This is how that is possible. I'm probably one of the youngest owners of such a vehicle in the U.S. and I'm in my 30s. I'm not a professional bike rider, but I am fit, and that's enough to hit those speeds. On a normal upright road bike, I can hit about 30 mph in a sprint on flat ground. Do be aware that recumbents work different leg muscles than upright bikes, so it isn't exactly an apples to apples comparison.

The Milan weighs about 70 lbs. I typically carry 12 lbs of tools/spare parts, a 7 lb jug full of water, and 2-3 lbs of food.

My custom-built electric velomobile that I designed from scratch, not pictured in this topic, weighs 91 lbs, batteries, electric motor, and other parts included.

I love riding them high on drugs.

More pics:















Homebum camp:

jome said:

Do you ever go inside the abandoned industrial complexes, or is it good enough for you to see from the outside?

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I do, but I haven't been inside any of the ones I photographed in the last post. There is no shortage of them to explore. Homebums do camp inside of them though.

Joey Garbanzo said:

These are sick!

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Here's some highlights from a sick graffiti mural spanning about 1 mile long along the railroad tracks:

I tested the speed for the rear motor with field weakening enabled, unloaded and unrestricted, with the rear wheel in the air:




132 mph! It was making all kinds of unsettling noises as if the rear wheel was going to explode and send shrapnel into the walls and my face, but it held together for the test.

On the road with wind resistance and rolling resistance, it doesn't come anywhere close to that speed without the body on it. Not only does aerodynamic drag slow me down, my range is cut to roughly 30-50 miles at 30-35 mph, instead of the 150-200 miles it had at the same speed with the shell. Even then, I was able to get it up to 71 mph on the highway, and timed the 0-60 mph acceleration at 7.1 seconds, running 10 kW. It's fucking scary to operate and I'm afraid of this thing. I still need to install the front motors and up that to 25 kW, because I do want to fuck with Corvettes, Ferraris, and Hellcats with my "bicycle". Once the next shell is installed, I suspect it will do over 110 mph. With 25 kW, 0-100 mph acceleration may be under 7 seconds.

It's able to lay down rubber and spin around in circles very nicely a 10kW and just the rear motor:



Anyway, here's more blight while riding around intoxicated: