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Biking @ 80 MPH
sadclown writes "Saturday marked the conclusion of the World Human Powered Speed Challenge in Battle Mountain Nevada. Canadian Sam Wittingham now holds the world record for human powered speed on land, 80.55 mph, on the Varna Diablo, a fully enclosed 60 pound recumbent bicycle. Other competitors included Matt Weaver, with his video-camera-navigated bike (no windows)the Kyle Edge, World (conventional bike) Sprint Champion Jason Queally, with his bike the Blue Yonder Challenge, designed by the formula one race car designer Reynard, and the UC Berkeley team, The Bearacuda, in which two riders pedal back to back. Wittingham's new record is nearly 8 mph more than his record last year. Hopefully some of the aerodynamic technology can be applied to commercially available vehicles (cars, maybe?)."
No! Don't do it!
Please, slashdotters, post everything in metric, except when dealing with nautical measurements (there's a good reason for a nautical mile!). Only America is still stuck with an archaic measurement system that requires more conversion factors than positive aspects to it..
Think about it: the SI system is even used by American scientists! It pains me to see how everyhting is turned into pounds and ounces and how you have to grab a calculator to calculate how many inches in a mile.
CowboyNeal, just think, at more than 2cm per inch, you'd be THAT MUCH TALLER and LONGER!
Boycott Imperialist sites! Post in metric!
Given open ground, I do not doubt that the speed record will eventually go much higher if you had a sufficient distance to ramp up to speed.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
top speed: 129.7 km/h
weight of bike: 27.3 kg
A word can paint a thousand pictures
Have you ever stuck your face out the window of a car at 60 MPH? Now, add 15 MPH and think about trying to pedal a bicycle while breathing in that sort of wind. It's not that you need much of a filter.. You just need somethin that will keep breating easy and comfortable.
OS Software is like love: The best way to make it grow is to give it away.
I'm really impressed with Matt Weaver who built his own cycle, the Kyle Edge, and hence didn't have the same time for physical training that winner Sam Whittinghham had.
.18 second slower than the winning time, and his time of 46.78 in the mile is only 1 second slower than the winning time of 45.78. No one else came close.
His time of 5.73 in the 200M is only
Next year, my money's on Weaver to win!
... but some guy from germany resently patented a bike with an additional front drive (see picture)
This should bring the next speed improve. You can reed more about it here (in german).
Here is a translation - I leave it like this because its sounds so funny -):
- Translation Results by SDL International --
That patented is "Tigerbike" especially smart conceived bicycle. In front and back wheel drive leave in this construction independently from one another make use of. A tip speed can be reached of 50 km/h by the additional front wheel drive. This drive functioned over a step warehouse appropriate in addition over the Lenker. This be connected over a chain with a Ritzel mounted at the Vorderrad. A hubs control provides also at the Vorderrad for the suitable translation. In the manual actuating of the front wheel drive can nevertheless problem-free directed become. With this practicable fitness machine, one trains the entire body during a drive.
...damnit, that's just the coolest fucking name for a bike that I've ever seen.
Who would honestly buy a freaking 'Schwinn' or 'Mongoose' when they could get a....VARNA DIABLO.
These auto paced records aren't really human powered. The current world record holder is Fred Rompleberg with 166.94 mph. If you look at the photo at his site, you can see how the bike is partway covered by a fairing behind the dragster that's pacing him. The force of the air rushing in to fill the vacuum behind the fairing creates a suction effect that pulls the bike along. Almost all of the power is comming from the dragster's engine, not the rider. He might as well just use a rope.
It takes a lot of oxygen to produce the power needed for a world record attempt. He is sealed inside a carbon fiber shell with no holes. If there was an open window for the air to blow in, that would ruin the aerodynamics. He uses the breathing mask with air tube to help get air inside without compromising the aerodynamics.
Isn't that fast enough to travel on a motorway/freeway......
yeah.
also.. what if the police get you with a radar gun... can you get a speeding fine ?
in my state you get a several tickets, speeding and also operating a non moterized cycle on the moterway/freeway/tollway/highway
lets see you maintain at least 60MPH on the tollways and highways around Chicago. this is what would happen: you could/wound not and we would kill you. or some jackass would die trying to avoid killing you (he would probably be from Wisonsin, they are very sweet people there)
so don't
Reynard actually design cars for the American 'Champ Car' series, afaik they don't design any of the Forumla One cars.
Blaming GW Bush for the Iraq war is like blaming Ronald McDonald for the poor quality of food.
7.95MPH faster and a bolt of lightning, and we'll see the world's first time-travelling bicycle!
Years ago, when recumbent cycle 'technology' wasn't as well known as it is now, I had the opportunity to ride both recumbent bicyles and tricycles created by a company called Greenspeed here in Melbourne, Australia.
My experience with the bicycles was less than perfect - it takes a slightly different balancing technique to ride with your centre of gravity lower than the centre of the wheels. The handlebars are also beneath the seat, rather than up in front. I'm told a couple of weeks experience would be plenty to feel at home though.
On the other hand, the trike is a joy to ride. Not quite as fast (if you're going for the speed record) but fantastic for cornering. I hit a corner a lot faster than I'd dare on a 2 wheel device, and it swung around without even lifting a wheel. Truly a fantastic piece of machinery.
At AU$ 3,750 for the economy model, these things aren't cheap - but hey, I can drool.
Well, some of the riders participate in boring old slow 'safety' bicycle races at world standard, and there's drug testing a-plenty for The Tour de France!
There was a little bike shop near Bethesda that had my speeding ticket on its wall for a long time - I was pulled over doing 65mph on the highway up to Frederick, MD on a bicycle. (2:00 am, no lights...)
Of course, I had been drafting a truck, though, ala 'Breaking Away'...
That was about 1986 or so, back when 65 was the (unassisted, no-fairings) target speed of that race. (I was a bike messenger then, in *much* better shape, too...)
Possibly the scariest/stupidest thing I ever did in my life. (Next to getting married, that is.)
Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo
-- My Weblog.
Plenty of owners of recumbent bicycles in Cambridge (I was going to say "recumbent bicycle owners", but that's usually only after a few drinks ;-). Strangely, they never actually seem to go fast at all - they go slower than your typical mountain-bike rider. It's probably cos they're so damn heavy and need quite fat tyres - they may be more aerodynamic but they'll have a sky-high rolling resistance.
Grab.
Battery weight and cost.
The real problem is trying to convince designers and the John Q. Public that aerodynamics are "cool", not the body styles with extraneous bulges, scoops and corners.
science is a religion
i seem to recall reading about some bike with some crazy gear ratio that got somewhere around 250 mph, but it had to be towed up to at least 70 or 80 mph to overcome the bike and rider's inertia
i think i read about it in popular science or scientific american a couple years ago
anyone know what I'm talking about?
"I would say that 99 per cent of what my father has written about his own life is false." - L. Ron Hubbard Jr.
And you can't smile for pictures, or you'd be picking your teeth for days to remove all the little flies.
I intend to live forever, so far so good.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I honestly don't think that there are tremendous gains in automobile aerodynamics on the horizon. Automobile manufacturers can already greatly increase the aerodynamics of their product, but only at a sacrifice to ergodynamics and practicality. The future for more efficient automobiles lies mostly in the development of smaller and more efficient power conversion (IE the engines) and the development of alternative fuel sources. Besides, the featured cycle looked to have the same lines as a Ford Probe concept car from over a decade ago, so I don't think there's much to be learned here. On the other hand, I think it's absolutely cool that cycle riders can achieve true highway speeds, even if they have to be in incredible shape and practically dislocate their shoulders to fit into the vehicles.
GreyPoopon
--
Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?
A stable tricycle with this technology is commercially available in europe from a dutch company, "Velomobiel". Their "Quest" costs Dfl 12,500, approx. $5000,-
Sig (appended to the end of comments I post, 54 chars)
I've known for years that you can go really fast on a bike, when you are in good health and in shape and have a short distance.
What I want is a bike that I can ride at some [fast] speed all day on my own power. Assume my exercise is only riding the bike to work (which if areoboic is enough to keep me in shape, but I'm still not pro level)
Remember that I'm only getting older. 7 years ago my body was at about the peak of its ability. I've got a long way to 40 and my body is already in decline. I'm looking for something I can use when I retire and still make good time.
WTF is the point of this story? The current cycling speed record is already 166.9mph so 80mph is peanuts.
spork
Actually, the technology used in these bikes is more akin to that used in the space and aerospace industries, (or sometimes in Formula 1) than in conventional car making.
The materials are all cutting edge - aluminium is now in mainstream bikes, the top end machines are using titanium and carbon fibre.
Weaver is looking at running air pumps off the rear wheel to give the machine active aerodynamics - air pumped out at strategic locations to encourage laminar flow. This is cutting edge even in aerospace, and is unlikely ever to make it into cars.
Basically a car has so much power that a lot of these cutting edge techniques would have no measurable benfit. For both bikes and spacecraft, every last gram of weight and thousandth of drag coefficient is critical.
Which makes me think a bit... Why not try and build the ultimate hamster-powered vehicle?
spork
I think a better way to say it would be "This bike is more aerodynamic and therefore lets you attain a higher speed with the same energy input from the rider."
In the slower (but lighter) bike, more of the rider's (driver's?) energy is consumed by drag.
The energy the rider supplies should be viewed as nearly constant, and then you can compare different bikes by looking at how much performance you can get for the energy the rider has to invest.
At speeds that these guys ride on even after taking due cautions What magnitute of injury can rider suffer in a crash? Also i rememember reading somewhere that in the Tour De France while riding downhill riders approach 100++kms and they have at that speed nothing but their skills to count on for brakes at that speeds tend to Jam.Can anybody enlighten.... PLEASE:Moderators dont sleep....The mods are downright stupid and idiotic!!!!!
Wanted : A Signature.
Some cool pics from last year's contest can be found at the same site:/ wo rlds-fastest-bicycle-2000.htm
http://wisil.recumbents.com/wisil/speedruns2000
They're worth looking at because they show more interior details of the bikes, including small video display units and breathing masks.
If you want to see an almost-recumbent car, check out this prototype from Corbin Motors:
http://www.corbinmotors.com/
It's the closest implementation I've seen of the faired recumbent style. Of course it'll go 110 mph using dead dinosaurs, and it is amazing looking.
If you really want to make a "__speed__" record on a bike, you should jump out of an airplane while holding onto one.
Free unix account: freeshell.org
If human running speed is 20 mph and human biking speed is 80 mph, then horse running speed is 45 mph and horse biking speed is 180 mph. It runs on oats and hay! This will change the world!
For sure the majority of spoilers on consumer cars are absurdly useless. Indeed I remember in the mid/late 80s when you could get the Mustang 5L (did Americans call this the Mustang 1.32G? :-}) in two variants: The plain jane version, and the "GT" version chocked full of ground effects and spoilers. In actual tests the GT version was somewhat slower than the plain version because of the added 40lbs+ of ground effects, plus the fact that they were aerodynamically horrendous and thwarted rather than helped the car.
The coolest thing about F1 cars is that most of the ground force is caused by air going under the car and sucking the car into the ground. Indeed they banned things like Venturi tunnels under there because the ground force was getting too extreme.
You just need to go.
My landlady is 81 years old and rides her bike every day - A single-speed upright bike, with a basket in the front for her groceries. She's healthier than me.
The Chinese restaurant near my old office has a man of at least that age who delivers lunches on a bike - 5 or 6 bowls on a tray balanced on his shoulder, held by just a corner.
Here, I see mothers with 2 or even 3 children on their bike, out running errands - Hard to imagine a mother of 3 in the US who doesn't feel she needs a minivan to take the kids somewhere.
You don't need some $2,500 custom mountain bike - Get yourself a solid used Raleigh 3 speed with a basket and USE the damn thing. I see business men riding to work on their bikes in a suit and dress shoes in traffic on a 90 degree morning, or riding along in torrential rain, carrying an umbrella. If you live within a few miles of your work and your supermarket, you will use your bike and stay in shape. If you live way out in the suburbs, yes, you will probably have a nice trophy bike decorating your garage, that you will occasionally load on the back of your car to drive to the bike trail.
Too many people think of exercise like it's some kind of pill you take occasionally to feel better - It's a lifestyle choice. A choice that is too easily dismissed for the sake of convenience. Convenience of living in the 'burbs and driving those two blocks to the mailbox. Sure, there are reasons that people do these things, but they really don't help you when you're feeling old at 40.
For me, 40 is less than 5 years away and I look and feel 25 - I bike every day. I'm no health nut either - I smoke more than a pack of cigarettes a day and can drink obscene quantities of beer. I believe it is due to the excercise that has become part of how I live my life. Last week's health checkup confirmed that I am in great physical shape and I know that's not due to my diet...
You don't need to go fast - You just need to go.
Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo
-- My Weblog.
Is there a rule that prevents recumbent bicycles from running in road races? Or is there a technical reason (maybe they're not so great for hill climbing ??) that makes them not the best choice.
In terms of practical application to scooting down highways, keep in mind that these were designed for short runs and hardly idea for commuting, unless you have a large supply of bagels (cyclists can go through 10,000 Calories in one day, on a 120+ mile ride) and a shower at work. Where I work a number of people do commute on cycles, due to their job being under 5 miles from home.
There were 3 wheel autos made several years ago, powered by motorcycle engines, which were fairly sophisticated areodymanically, however, as anyone who regularly drives in a crosswind can tell you, you have to consider lateral stability and drag as well, something these vehicles were somewhat weak on. Most cars handle headwinds and crosswinds pretty well. Jeeps are terrible for crosswinds (what do you get when you put a square box on wheels?) and I can only imagine what it must be like driving one of those goofy jacked-up four wheelers.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Didi Senft, known as The Devil who cajoles riders in the Grand Tours of european cycling builds some very unusual bicycles, including world record holding largest bicycle
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Too true. Unfortunately, this contest seems to be as much a test of athletic ability as it is a test of engineering ability. Not that there's anything wrong with athletic competition, but for a contest like this where the designs are what are supposed to be competing, there should be some method of handicapping the riders so they perform at a fairly constant level.
Perhaps a more fair way to test the design would be to have a pool of neutral riders. Each bike would be driven by several (3+) different riders, chosen at random from the pool. The winner would be the design with the highest average time across all the runs. This would help determine which team has the best design, and not the one that could hire the best rider. Another alternative would be to put in a system to monitor the rider's power output (like on the lifecycles at the gym), and require the riders to keep their output within a given range (95 - 105 watts, for example)
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
I've heard this over and over again.. and having travelled around the world a bit, I've come to two conclusions.
The first, is factual. There is no such continent as 'America'. Canada, the US, Mexico, Nicaragua, Costa Rica... are all in 'North America'. Brazil, Argentina, Chile, etc... are in 'South America'. So saying 'America' must mean something ELSE....
The second is observational. When anyone in the world says 'American', they mean someone from 'The United States of America'. I even hear my fellow Canadians refer to them as 'Americans' all the time, you probably do it too. How else do you refer to our neighbors? United Statsians? Get real.
'American' is a term, the world over, that refers to those citizens of the United States. Get used to it.
I do not consider myself part of 'America'. I am from 'Canada'.
Aside from the ultra-conservative rules governing the Tour de France, there are some practical problems.
In the early 20th century the Tour was comprised only of simple bikes with "fixed/free" rear wheels. Rear wheels had two cogs--one on each side. One side had a freewheel, the other was fixed. To change their gear ratios the riders had to stop and flip their wheels around.
Derailleurs were common in touring bikes well before it was accepted in professional racing. Let me quote an excerpt from http://chainguard.org/jfderail.html:
"derailleurs were not generally allowed in road races because derailleurs required freewheeling, and mixing riders with fixed and free wheels produced problems on the turns, when fixed-gear riders were limited by pedal scrape on the turns while free-wheeled riders were not. However, there was also a series of special races for derailleur-equipped bicycles, typically hill climbs, that were sponsored, at least in part, by the derailleur manufacturers."
Perhaps if the racing sponsors and cycle manufacturers sponsored recumbent-only races, recumbent cycling would become more widely accepted.
Wow. That's pretty impressive. Especially when at the beginning of this year, I took a ride on a recumbent bike with a microjet on the back, and didn't get nearly that fast.
Yah, some bike freaks in North Seattle put a real engineer-designed jet engine onto one of their bikes as a marketing stunt, and I was stupid enough to take it for a ride on city streets. But I only got up to about 45mph with a jet engine, fercrissakes! (Of course, I weigh ~275#, and the turbine had an output of under 20ft/lbs at 150,000rpm...)
Jon
I think not...(*poof*)
Or, even more likely, you'd run into the person from Wisconsin, because they're driving 10 mph below the speed limit.
those who have driven in Wisconsin understand. Police there will decide to get you, and sit on your tail until you exceede the limit. With all the hills there you are bound to not get off the gas fast enough coming over one, so they will get you. Your only chance is to maintain 10 under which is enough margin.
Yes I have seen the above happen. More than once. I avoid Wisconsin if there is any other choice.
The big problem with Metric is that changing our mental concept of our time system is way too hard to get people to accept, so the MKS system has this weird bag on the side - seconds/minutes/hours, which are NOT expressed in 10's even though everything ELSE is.
When the Metric system was first proposed, it came with a new way to recon time: 1 day = 10 decidays (2.4 imperial hours) = 100 centidays (14.4 imperial minutes) = 1000 millidays (1.44 imperial minutes), and so on. This went nowhere, not because it's bad, but because it was just too alien for people to accept it. (Our current 24 hours per day system is purely made up and arbitrary, unlike the other aspects of the system that are based loosely on celestial events we can't control - length of a day, length of a year, length of a month (although our calender is way off on that one). )
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
You can buy recumbent HPVs for road use, but down there the trucks aint gonna see you. keeping out the way should give you an extra speed boost even if nothing else does. Some models have things like flags on long poles to give you a chance of being seen.
:)
Have you actually riden a recumbent? My RANS Rocket has an aerodynamic advantage over an upright, and I ride it safely on the street. Instead of looking at my front wheel, I am in a upright position looks at drivers directly in the eye at their eye level. I am far from invisible. I also can ride 100 miles in a day without sore arms, neck, and wrists and without feeling like I just got a prostate exam with a weed eater.
Please learn just a little about the subject before making ignorant flippant remarks. You sould like one of the upright riders I recently toasted...
To get rid of the flat front grill of cars you have to first design a different style of radiator, one that doesn't require air to funnel through its fins. I'm not sure how to go about doing that.
Besides, airflow only becomes an issue at higher speeds. Most of the gas wastage comes from commuters going at speeds less than freeway speeds, either on heavily traffic-lighted roads where there is a lot of idling, or on jammed highways that are supposed to go faster, but don't during the mis-named "rush hour". The times of greatest gas wastage are times when airflow doesn't matter at all.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
Don't forget the ever popular dolphin bike. Talk about streamlined. Whew. People look kind of silly flopping down the road, though.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Funny - they don't even sell deodorant here. (I buy at least a half-dosen sticks each trip to the states.) Add these super lightweight summer suits and the guys do fine. BO is probably less acceptable here than in the states, too. Foreigners often have a tough time with that.
When I wore a suit to work on my bike, I had to carefully plan what I would wear. (Dress shirt folded with my jacket in the front basket - no backpack.) Small towel for drying off. (See the other reply...) And if that didn't work, a shower at the healthclub at lunchtime would. You also had to remember which intersections didn't have a shady spot in which to wait for the light to change or find a better place to wait.
Still it was *way* better than being crammed into a Tokyo train with your jacket and tie on. They are just as crowded as you've probably heard.
It's fall here now and much cooler - Biking to work now is a joy.
Plus, you will thank yourself when you are 40...
Cheers,
Jim
-- My Weblog.
It was 270, believe it or not - 2:00 am, with no lights on the bike, either.
Of course I used to be a DC bike messenger, so I was a bit nuts to begin with -
Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo
-- My Weblog.