Velomobile across the continent, twice

I stumbled upon this in a YouTube video; a guy named Mark, who rode his velomobile from Perth to Sydney, across the Australian continent, a distance over 5,000km. The video is an episode of the Laid Back Bike Report:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiJ8q5pvUEU

He did it the first time about 9 years ago. He rode a green velomobile, made in Australia by a company called Trisled. He gave it a name; "Jelly Bean". He has also referred to it as his "mk1".

His velomobile is a tadpole recumbent trike, with a plastic shell to make it very streamlined.

I posted about a guy who was riding a tadpole trike around the world, including down the Munda Biddi Trail and across Australia:

https://bkhome.org/news/202311/recumbent-trike-on-the-munda-biddi-trail.html

And there was a young couple who rode tadpole recumbent trikes, one of them full-suspension electric solar-powered, 11,000km around Australia, finishing early in 2023:

https://bkhome.org/news/202305/outback-adventure-solar-powered-recumbent-trike.html

When Mark started riding his green velomobile, he became addicted, rode it regularly, then got interested in crossing the continent. He had it shipped to Perth, then rode it to Sydney, about 45 days. He bought it secondhand, and after owning it for 9 years it was getting worn out, mostly the frame was rusting. So he bought another from Trisled, his orange "Jaffa", and then had to do the entire continent crossing again. Same thing, Perth to Sydney. Here is a photo:

...he said it took 20 minutes in the morning to pack everything into the Jaffa and be ready to go.

The second trip was early in 2023 and Mark has posted about it here:

http://rvvelonaut.blogspot.com/

He also has a YouTube channel; most videos are of the first trip:

https://www.youtube.com/@rotovelo_naut/videos

These velomobiles are legal on Australian roads. However, on these cross-continent trips he got stopped by the police about 20 times. In some cases, people had phoned the police, reporting that there is an "illegal unregistered vehicle" on the road.

He didn't bother with visibility flags, which maybe would have been a good idea. His attitude was that his bright-orange velomobile is highly visible, in spite of being very low. But I think that it would allay people's fears if they see it has high flags waving. This question about flags is discussed here:

https://www.bicycles.net.au/forums/viewtopic.php?t=46056&start=1700

...as someone commented, flags are good for "Keeping away people who insist on telling you that you need a flag".

What would be the downsides of being encased in a plastic shell? First thing that comes to mind, is the temperature in the Australian Outback in summer can reach 45 degrees Celsius, even higher. Maybe if the shell had a flap in the front, that could be opened to allow air to flow through.

Regarding legality, Mark's Jaffa is about a metre wide, which is illegal in Western Australia. In theory, anyway, as the police have ignored that rule, given that all recumbent trikes and many mobility vehicles are wider than the 660mm limit. But, in mid-2022, the limit in WA was increased to 800mm, and it is now more likely that the police will pay attention to this limit. Most trikes are over 800mm, so still technically illegal.   

Tags: nomad