The Stormcloud This bike was intended to be the next step up from the steel-frame, coroplast Raincloud.  It used moldless composite construction for the frame and was to have a full fairing and be used for year-round commuting in the Seattle climate.  It was built by Dave Cloud, a local practical genius who routinely builds remarkable electric and human-powered vehicles of all types.  Construction came to a screeching halt when it turned out that the front fairing bulkhead wouldn’t clear the pedals and the front wheel.  It had some neat ideas that I wanted to test though so instead of discarding it I finished it up as a test bed and training bike.  It was particularly useful for teaching riders how to handle sidestick steering on a 2-wheeler.  The drivetrain was put together with cannibalized parts, but in the end didn’t shift at all so it is a single-speed.  Still it’s been fun to ride and I’ve made another progression in frame design as a result of it.
 

	Here is a view of the bike in motion.  It is very comfortable to ride with front and rear inner-tube strap suspension.  Because the steering puts your hands at your sides it feels like you’re rolling down the road on a floating lawnchair.  The frame is a box built up from honeycomb-core composite planks.  It is so stiff that all of the bumps and vibration from the road are completely taken up by the suspension and none get to the rider.
	This is a view of the bottom of the bike showing some of the details of the drive train.  Instead of a regular bottom bracket shell, the crank spindle is simply supported in the frame walls a freewheel in the center.  The chain then goes to an identical freewheel in the rear mounted backwards (similar to the way that pulleys are mounted in a drill press head).  As the chain is shifted from left to right the gearing changes but the chain length stays approximately the same.  The chain is also kept in a straight line at all times.  Also, the shifting chain is in a protected environment.  Only the final drive chain is out in the weather, but since it is single-speed it is less sensitive to crud and can be replaced easily when necessary.
	This is a view of the inner tube suspension wrapped on the rear swingarm.  A rigid triangle is bolted to the seatback support.  The rear wheel swingarm pivots (about the same point as the rear freewheel) and is tied to the triangle frame with old inner tube straps.  The front fork has a trailing-link type suspension (not shown).  Also visible in this picture is the Arai drum brake.  This brake was used both front and rear.  It must be mounted on a tandem hub.  Dave made the hub using cheap steel press-flange hubs he found in his parts bin.
	This view shows the sidestick steering arrangement.  Control rods connect to a bellcrank welded onto the stem.  It isn’t certain that this would work with a full fairing, but how was I going to learn anything if I didn’t try it?

My future plans are to eventually complete a refined version of this design, possibly replacing the transmission with a Rohloff hub as an intermediate transmission.  The frame for the new bike was started a few years ago, but hasn't gone any farther due to various personal calamities.