Wheel Covers

4mm Coroplast wheel covers

In my search for aerodynamics I wanted to look into wheel covers. I found this cool thread on BROL that talked about various commercial and homebuilt options. This page on recumbents.com also covers the process of building, measuring and attaching wheel covers.

The design that caught my eye was the one used by the Rbent guys in Texas at the last 24h Texas Time Trials. They took black 4mm coroplast sheets, split in two lengthwise resulting in 2 sheets. Then they cut the sheets into disks with a split to adjust for the dish of the wheels. To fasten they used black electrical tape, which apparently holds as long as the temperature is below 95F, past that and you need to use some glue.

I think I will get some black coroplast once I get the raptobike for this purpose. Should be fun, and the result will be both atheistic and aerodynamic. I may just get enough coroplast to make a tailbox as well, which would give me some nice storage for the raptobike as well. There is a very nice mounting bracket available for the rear wheel on the raptobike. It is shaped like a large inverted U that goes over the rear wheel. I think it would be very easy to use that as a mount for a nice tailbox. Add some of that nice black 3M reflective tape and you have a stylish but safe design.

Update: This site has excellent coroplast instructions for wheel covers. Just use Bud_bent's technique of splitting 4mm Coro into 2mm sheets first.