Editing Recumbent bicycle (section)

===The Mochet 'Vélo-Velocar' and 'Vélorizontal'===
[[File:1945MochetVelocar.jpg|thumb|1945 Mochet Velocar]]

A four-wheeled, two-seater, pedal-propelled car called the '[[Velocar]]' was built in the 1930s by [[France|French]] inventor and light car builder [[Charles Mochet]]. Velocars sold well to French buyers who could not afford a motor car, possibly because of a poor [[economy]] during the [[Great Depression]]. The four-wheeled Velocars were fast but didn't corner well at high speed. Mochet then experimented with a three-wheel design and finally a mould-breaking two-wheel design based on the Vélocar technology.

The early models of Mochet's 'La bicyclette de l'Avenir' (The bicycle of the Future), the 'Vélo-Vélocar', or 'V-V' as the factory referred to them, used a 40mm steel-tube, single-beam frame and 450 x 55 wheels with handlebars over the rider and steering torque transmitted by [[bevel gear]]s. Various types of Mochet-designed derailleur gears were fitted, with a single gear for the track models. Gears were mid-mounted using primary and secondary chains. The back-rest was adjustable on more sporting models.

To demonstrate the speed of his recumbent bicycle, Mochet had the design ratified by the UCI and UVF and enlisted cyclist [[Francis Faure]], a Category 2 racer, to ride it in races. Faure was highly successful, defeating many of Europe's top cyclists both on the track and in road races, and setting new world records at short distances. Another cyclist, Paul Morand, won the Paris-Limoges race in 1933 on one of Mochet's recumbents.

On 7 July 1933, at a Paris [[velodrome]], Faure rode a modified Vélo-Velocar {{convert|45.055|km|mi|abbr=on}} in one hour, beating an almost 20-year-old [[hour record]] held by [[Oscar Egg]], and attracting a great deal of attention.

When the [[Union Cycliste Internationale]] (UCI) met in February 1934, manufacturers of 'upright' bicycles lobbied to have Faure's one-hour record declared invalid. On 1 April 1934, the UCI published a new definition of a racing bicycle that specified how high the bottom bracket could be above the ground, how far it could be in front of the seat and how close it could be to the front wheel. The new definition effectively banned recumbents from UCI events for a combination of tradition, safety, and economic reasons.<ref name="nelson">{{cite web |title=The History of the Recumbent Bicycle: Winning Forbidden |url=http://www.helsinki.fi/~tlinden/winforb.html |access-date=28 August 2008}}</ref>

Charles Mochet died a short time after the ban was enacted, still protesting against the UCI decision, and the firm continued to make recumbents under his widow and, later, Georges Mochet until at least 1941 for a limited number of customers. Their final versions were a single-chain design named the 'Vélorizontal', the final model using a 'Cyclo' four-speed gear.
[[File:Francis Faure dans son Vélocar caréné, en 1938 (record du monde de l'heure masculin IHPVA, 50,537 kilomètres).jpg|thumb|right|upright=1.0|Francis Faure in his record-setting Velocar in 1938]]

After the UCI decision, Faure continued to race, and consistently beat upright bicycles with the Velocar. In 1938, Faure and Mochet's son, Georges, began adding fairings to the Velocar in hopes of bettering the world record of one hour for a bicycle with aerodynamic components. On 5 March 1938, Faure rode a faired Velocar 50.537 kilometers in an hour and became the first cyclist to travel more than 50 kilometers in an hour without the aid of a [[derny|pace vehicle]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://bikeroute.com/NationalBicycleGreenwayNews/2013/06/30/best-history-of-the-recumbent-why-its-faster-how-it-came-to-be-banned/|title=Best History of the Recumbent – Why it's Faster & How it Came to be Banned|date=June 30, 2013|publisher=National Bicycle Greenway|access-date=June 2, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190915173947/https://bikeroute.com/NationalBicycleGreenwayNews/2013/06/30/best-history-of-the-recumbent-why-its-faster-how-it-came-to-be-banned/|archive-date=September 15, 2019|url-status=live}}</ref>

The UCI ban on recumbent bicycles and other aerodynamic improvements virtually stopped development of recumbents for four decades and remains in force.{{Citation needed|date=January 2011}} Although recumbent designs continued to crop up over the years they were mainly the work of lone enthusiasts and numbers remained insignificant until the 1970s.{{Citation needed|date=June 2009}} Georges Mochet died in 2008.