Know Your Madisonian: Velomobile owner embraces his power

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Know Your Madisonian: Velomobile owner embraces his power Madison.com

Madison, WI - Nick Hein is accustomed to getting looks while tooling around Madison in what to the uninitiated — meaning, just about everyone but him — looks like a very small submarine or a very large multivitamin. Is it a car? Does it have a motor? Is it legal?

The answers when it comes to Hein’s two velomobiles (short “e” in “velo,” accent on the first syllable) are no, no and yes.

Velomobiles are essentially three-wheeled recumbent bicycles with fiberglass or carbon fiber shells, and while they have a long history, they are still rare enough for Hein to estimate he owns either one-third or 40% of all velomobiles currently in the state.

Hein, 62, works as a consultant for a solar energy cooperative and parks his velomobiles in the driveway of the home he shares with his fiancée near Olbrich Park — a home that, coincidentally, his grandparents owned from 1931 until the early 1970s.

“In 2011 my fiancée bought it and in 2016 we met and fell in love,” he explained.

Where does your interest in velomobiles come from?

I’ve been interested in them since high school when I first came across the International Human Powered Vehicle Association. In the 1970s there were people who were trying to bring recumbents back to riding and racing, and the established racing organizations had outlawed them in the ‘30s. Since they couldn’t get into their races, they started their own organizations for rallies and racing. And I read about this in high school in a Bicycling magazine issue in about 1975, and so I was interested in them because they are faster, safer and more comfortable. You’re sitting down lower so if ...

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