Here's something I hadn't seen before, but it makes a lot of sense. He calls it the Shweeb. Basically it's an enclosed recumbent cycle hanging under a monorail. So you can only go where the monorail goes (apparently there's a method for merging & splitting off). They have a test setup they use for racing, but if you could set up a monorail system over downtown streets, then people could just hop in one and pedal to wherever they wanted to go with no emissions. Because it's permanently attached to the monorail, you don't need to worry about rentals and returns. Saves on space and emissions and improves safety, I'm surprised it hasn't been thought of before. (We were too busy thinking about electric vehicles on monorails & enclosed roads, I guess).
That looks like fun. It could work in dense urban areas. Another similar idea is to hang tubes from existing structures, including the underside of bridges, to extend surface bike paths.
Time's a wasting. This is a winner. 1) You can bring along a lot a baggage if necessary 2) You can use it in bad weather 3) It's safe, if done right 4) With simple electronics you can program you destination and pedal 5) At the destination, you can just leave and walk, no worries. 6) You can make bad hand gestures to the cars below, create road rage, and pedal off laughing....wait, may want to rethink doing that.
I wonder if they can come up with a better acronym than HPV - which is the medical name for genital warts.
'Human Powered Vehicle' doesn't sound so bad, but, yes, HPV is an unfortunate acronym. Speedbike or streamliner seems to work for the faster variants, and velomobile for the more practical. They're still bicycles. Or tricycles, but most people's mental image of those is a little outdated.
