Friday, November 14, 2008

The Rolling Yurt/Baby Bike Shelter

We are working on developing an insulated rain cover for the Llama. Using some yummy fabrics! Mmmm, makes me drool! eVent and prima loft. :) We managed to get our hands on some lovely slate blue gray eVent. eVent, if you don't know is a highly breathable waterproof/breathable fabric. One of the comparisons we found put it at about as breathable as Schoeller, another one of our favorites. So basically eVent is as breathable as a soft shell, but it's a hard shell. Primaloft has a similar weight to warmth ratio as down, but it does not absorb water. Should be perfect for cold mornings.

Anthony and I were talking about our needs for this winter. I take the older one to preschool early in the morning and some of the mornings have already been about 20 degrees. If I don't want to have to take 20 minutes to bundle the kids, we need to have a bike-mounted warming system. We are trying to design this one so I can just put a coat and a hat on the boys and them be fine in cold morning and snowy weather. That way, when I get somewhere I don't have to unbundle them to go inside. Nor do I have to bundle them up to go outside of the bike shelter. That scenario is possible if we made the yurt/bike shelter too warm for jackets even and then had to bundle them up to walk to the door.

We are working on designing double paned vinyl windows to prevent cold spots and condensation. We are also considering how the shelter will interface with a load vs an empty bike. Currently, the rain shelter just rides up over a load, which is fine as long as most air is sealed out. Another consideration is making sure the sides don't flap in the wind, transferring cold air in and warm air out. This should be an exciting project! We'll post pictures when the project is completed! :)