The Recumbent Bicycle and Human Powered Vehicle Information Center

MARS projects

What's New

About

Rides

It's all about the monster in the basement...

This page is about the various design, homebuilding and modification projects undertaken by our members. They're listed several different ways to make it easy to find what you're looking for.

NOTE: The Builder's Resources links have been moved to this page. Click HERE to jump to them.

Foamshell page - Links to all of the MARS foam pages in one place.

Listing by bike (homebuilts and major mods)

John Tetz's Low weight, low power E-Assist and Current Limiter for the Low weight, low power E-Assist (5/08)
John Tetz's Trike Foamshell Velomobile (9/05)
John Tetz's Zotefoam Manual (9/05)
Tom Spollen's Rosebud Bike & T-Bucket Trike (5/05)
Chris & Tom Spollen's Wizzer Trike (7/04); fairing added in 10/04
Tom Spollen's Tiki Bike, a "recycled recumbent", a recumbent made from old bike parts (12/03)
Chris & Tom Spollen's V-Bee streamliner, built from the same mold as John Tetz's Vacuum Foamshell (8/4/03).
Chris & Tom Spollen's V-1 streamliner shell was built using John Tetz's original foam molding technique. This page includes excellent, clear photos of how to mold the foam. Eight new photos were added in a 5/1/03 update.
John Tetz's orange foamshell page describes the basic hand-formed, male-mold technique for making foamshells. Must-read... start here.
John Tetz's vacuum foamshell is the latest project, built around the LFWD bike and made using molds originally created by Bruce Boone. Work in progress.
John Tetz's Laid Back Bike is a carbon fiber monocoque. This project write-up includes 110 photos, divided into two albums, on the MARS Club Photo site, see Part 1 and Part 2.
Rich Sadler's foamshell streamliner is a LWB lowracer design encased in a very swoopy orange fairing. Rich also used Plastazote, but came up with a different method for forming it, using heat and air pressure to blow-mold it.
Andy Douglas' streamlined Pharobike lowracer project A lot of random stuff here... many mods to the bike (all that's left of the original is the frame, boom and seat), some interesting stuff about design, and an alternate method for making male molds for Zote foam shells.

Misc. projects (small-scale mods and special projects)

John Tetz's Crr vs temperature test results (1/05), updated (9/05)
Rich Sadler's electric power assist
Andy Douglas' Wishbone tailbox and headrest
John Tetz's bomb-bay doors for a streamliner
John Tetz's high-density foam stiffeners for foamshell fairings
John Tetz's foam wheel discs (revised 8/03)
WISIL wheel disc page
Tri-County Recumbents wheel disc page
John Tetz's carbon-framed mesh seat
John Tetz's left-hand-drive freewheel
Paul John's Challenge Jester luggage rack
Paul John's Optima Tailbox mounting
Turning a cycle computer into a cadence counter
Joe Keenan's RANS seat drink bladder holder
Joel Waxman's RANS seat neckrest mod
Making a power-side idler sprocket
How to glue Coroplast

Listing by individual

- John Tetz - Vacuum molded Zote fairing/LFWD, Orange foamshell, Laid Back Bike, Carbon seat, foam wheel discs, bomb bay doors, foam stiffeners, rolling resistance vs temperature testing, trike foamshell velomobile, Zotefoam manual.
- Rich Sadler - Blow-molded Zote fairing, electric power assist
- Spollen brothers - Homebuilt lowracers, Zote streamliner shell, trikes
- Andrew Douglas - Pharobike modifications and fairing projects, plus headreast and tailbox mount fabrication.
- Paul John - Mods for the Challenge Jester, including a rack and tailbox mounting.
- Joe Keenan - RANS seat hydration bladder holder.
- Joel Waxman - RANS seat neckrest mod

Builders' resources
- Building info
Damon Rinards' carbon fiber bike site - Must-read stuff about how to build using carbon fiber, including a full writeup on building a carbon fiber bicycle.
Scot Nicol's "Metallurgy for Cyclists" articles - More must-read stuff, covering in very informative detail everything you would want to make a bicycle frame out of (except wood or bamboo)... steel, titanium, aluminum, carbon... Great stuff.
Tubing selection theoretical considerations, by John Zabrieski of the Minnesota HPV club.
Tubing selection practical considerations, by Mark Stonich of the Minnesota HPV club.
Brazing notes by Mark Stonich, MnHPVA
Aerodynamics of Bicycles - site from Princeton U.
IHPVA - The leading non-profit HPV organization. They have an active email list that is an excellent source of information. Info can be found at http://www.ihpva.org/mailman/listinfo
WHIRL - Washington DC-based recumbent group, home of Mark Matarella, our gracious web host.
WISIL - When this site grows up, it wants to be just like the WISIL site. Lots of good stuff here.
Chicagoland - A large and active club, with a lot of tinkering going on. Good site.
MnHPVA - Run my prolific builder Mark Stonich. Lots of good info here, including articles of interest to homebuilders, info on tires, and such.
Tri-County Recumbent Riders homepage, with some good Coroplast project information... tailboxes and front fairings.
Recumbent Bicycle Component Design and Construction - A page of links and articles... some good stuff here.
Advanced Topics in Aerodynamics - Aerodynamics info from the U. of Manchester (UK) engineering department. Good reference site.
U. of Illinois Applied Aerodynamics Group - More aerodynamics info, airfoil coordinates, Web-based airfoil design tools. Site run by Michael Selig, who is the aerodynamicist who worked on the Cheetah (holder of the 200m flying-start HPV record until the new record was set by the Varna in October, 2000)
Cheetah design page - About the design and construction of the former record holding bike. Includes a VERY cool Java-based wireframe model.

- Parts/supplies
McMaster-Carr - General industrial supplies, including good large-diameter idler pulleys (item 6234K45 - Nylon V-Belt Idler Pulley 3/8" Bore, 4" OD, .70" Wide, $6.45 ea)
Gaerlan Custom Cycles - Source of parts and framebuilding supplies, including a very handy tubing notcher jig thing that works with a hand drill. Also some good links.
Prairie Designs HPV supply - Another good parts source.
Poweroncycling.com - Yet another source for parts. These folks also make a copy of the RANS seat.
Rocketry.org suppliers list - Rockets? Yes, rockets. A good set of links to suppliers of all sorts of interesting stuff, in particular composites and such.
Jeng Sheng Enterprises - Makers of Power Savers as used on the Pharobike. Sorry, don't know who if anyone imports these.
Schlumpf.ch - Makers of the Mountain Drive gear-reduction crank.
Rohloff.de - Makers of the Rohloff Speedhub internally-geared hub, which can completely replace derailleurs and freehubs.
CCI, makers of vortex generators.
Action-Tec, makers of headshock suspension units.
Pantour, makers of suspension front hubs.
Restomotive, makers of POR15, a very tough paint that Tetz has used with good results on his new FWD streamliner.
Airware America, makers of excellent positive-pressure breathing systems... just the thing for dealing with carbon dust and epoxy fumes. Thanks, Dick L!
Aerospace Composites, source for vacuum bagging supplies and all things carbon fiber
Fibre Glast Developments, good place to buy epoxy and other composite fabrication supplies
Aircraft Spruce & Specialty, the one and only... source for high-grade hardware, steel tubing, bearings, composite supplies... the catalog is a must-have.
Wicks Aircraft, competitor to Aircraft Spruce, similar but not quite as cool. They actually market recumbent bike and trike kits.