This was my very first velomobile back in 2002. And it has been a first velomobile for many a happy cyclist ever since. Not all FAWs were created equal, and this was a particularly good one.
I bought it from a Dutch retired electrical engineer who stripped her back completely to the last rivet, and reassembled her carefully. After spending his first year of retirement restoring his FAW, he rode about an hour in it, found it too slow and scary all the same, and sold it.
The
Alleweders wandered notoriously in corners. One of my first cycle
engineering feats was improving roadability by swapping the single rear
suspension arm for a good two-sided fork. The rear suspension was
further stiffened by adding a second suspension unit on the other side.
This improved roadholding tremendously.
I enlarged the
cockpit as well by folding back the rear bulkhead. A Rohloff was added
when I got knee pain, this resolved the knee problem but it reduced my
cruising speed under the psychological threshold of 40 km/h. A few years
ago we had a déjà-vu experience as she belonged to a Brussels'
architect, who upgraded and bought my WAW.
For the
current owner we installed a new Rohloff, a Bafang bracket motor and a
comfortable ICE mesh seat. Surely this must be the world's most
luxurious Alleweder now.
In this picture: custom Rohloff shifter, brushed aluminium LCD display for pedelec-operated bracket motor, ICE mesh seat, removable lithium-ion battery.