Recumbents - Rear Fairing!
As you can see, the rear fairing makes me quite fast. Here I can be seen overtaking a van. It's easy because the van is stationary. It also helps if the photo is taken with a small aperture / long exposure time.
I did not think that I would ever get into fairings.
Be like those crazy folks at WISIL and Chicagoland?
Not likely.
Then one day, my neighbour bought a 60 inch projection TV. He kindly left the empty large cardboard box it came in at the lift lobby, and I pinched it before the trashman came to cart it away. Now I had some paper coroplast! I cut out the two flat sides of a rear fairing and taped it to my seat. The rear edges were then taped together. Then I just trimmed some bits of cardboard to put on top and on the bottom and - viola! - a very nice aerodynamic rear tailbox / fairing. I covered the brown cardboard with yellow duct tape to waterproof it as well as for cosmetic effect. This is what it looks like, with the seat removed from the bike:
The red-lidded box is actually an air/water-tight tupperware container with an O-ring seal, which is taped into a hole cut in the top of the tailbox. I figured that if I ever got caught in the rain, I would not trust the fairing to keep my handphone and wallet dry. It's lined inside with a sponge to deaden the noise of its contents clattering around. The tail-light is strapped on through a tiny slit cut into the rear edge of the tailbox.
Here is another photo of the bike in action:
The water bottle holder is simply taped onto the front derailleur post with duct tape. Wonderful stuff, this duct tape. The water bottle is actually a disguised micro front fairing. Doesn't help much, though. Really.
How does the tailbox perform? I would say very well. There is definitely a noticeable improvement in top speed or, more to the point, less effort is required to maintain my cruising speed. I hate bike computers, so I can't give any hard numbers to substantiate my claims, but I would say from a seat-of-the-pants impression that there is a 10-20% improvement. I went riding with a friend on an upright the other day, and he could not draft me.
I belong to that school of thought which believes rear fairings are more important for aerodynamics than front fairings, because it reduces the turbulence drag from behind. You know, golf balls and all that. There an excellent page on bicycle aerodynamics here. Of course, one day I may build a front fairing and change my mind. But more likely it will be a full fairing. Who knows? Then it'll be human powered aircraft after that... It's a disease, I tell ya!
The box has come in very useful for carrying along all the knick-knacks like handphone, money and tools.The bright yellow tailbox also gets me a lot of attention, and cars steer very wide when they're passing me. I was thinking of putting up a sign saying "This space for rent" or something like that.
By the way, if it looks vaguely familiar, I'll tell you why. My daughter was browsing through The Complete Book of Bicycling (or some such book I borrowed from the library), when she saw the Kingcycle and exclaimed excitedly: "It's Daddy's recumbent!"