agreed! although it's road-legal in the uk and netherlands, it seems like something i'd want to be using on dirt roads and the like.
maybe on the main roads once we get rid of cars and trucks (one can dream).
You can forget about wooded areas, and the wind inside a city is going to be all twisty. Probably great for road trips though.
that's when i'd want to use it: cross-continental trips and similar high-mileage trips. would be really fun to test it on the argentina -> alaska route.
thinking about a post-carbon future, how might we like to travel long distances without planes and cars? the sail trike seems like it could be easily outfitted with bags / panniers to carry a good amount of gear. if the sail can be made of flexible photovoltaic material, even better :)
As for post carbon long distance travel, I'd say high-speed train :P But yeah, for individual travel that looks like an option, I wonder whether the sail is worth the hastle it probably is ^^
@glyph What looks hella fun.
@glyph this reminds of some custom R/C cars I saw once when I was a kid... they basically looked like miniature versions of this and didn't have any way to propel them except for wind. A simple battery powered a steering servo for the front wheel. I've always wanted to build one of my own since then lol.
The sail seems to be pretty small when compared to what you can find on a regular sand yatch though. I'm not sure if it provide that much traction in reality.
@glyph Ah, it has pedals, too!
i'm too much of a landlubber to ever join the sailboat gang but i'll rip a sail trike any day :)