The today's question that I want to address is "Can I buy also a kit to build my own velomobile?"
I have to admit my first velomobile was also a velomobile build from a kit. I have been working as a side job when I was 13 years old at Flevobike and at the age of 14 I was able to buy a velomobile kit called Alleweder because Johan Vrielink made me a very generous offer. Luckily I was able to build this kit with some help from Flevobike, in particularly from Theo van Andel who is now running velomobiel.nl together with Allert Jacobs, but back then then both where working at Flevobike.
*in picture Jan with his Alleweder velomobile
I was super proud that I built my own velomobile and for this reason I fully understand why people want to build their velomobile with their own hands. Another reason why I think it's a good idea for people to build a velomobile themselves is that they will know how to fix something when things break. If we would offer only building kits we would make directly a natural selection of people who know how to do things with their hands.
But there are also some good reasons why we don't offer building kits anymore ...
Transport volume
Back in the days a velomobile body or shell was build from aluminum sheets. You could make a relatively small package which you could send to the client to start building. Now because the velomobile shell is made from carbon fiber if we would send a building package it will be exactly the same volume as we send a complete velomobile.
Work reduction
As I said already the velomobiles where made from sheets, there was still a week work to make from this sheet a velomobile shell. Then the assembly was not so much work because it was a simple version of what we build now. This work week reduction is not there anymore because the velomobile body is ready.
Training
Making a kit is not easy, to make a manual with a training how to build a velomobile is a lot of work and because the benefits are not so big anymore, we decided that we are not making velomobile kits, we don't offer the option to build your own velomobile.
I hope this clarified why we don't make building kits. If you want to see the rest of our website click here.
We also have a Youtube Channel with a lot of useful videos.
Have fun and we keep in touch.
Jan
