Yet Another Cycling Forum
General Category => Freewheeling => The Dark Side => Topic started by: ElyDave on 18 September, 2018, 07:15:50 am
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http://www.cyclist.co.uk/news/5326/gallery-rider-hits-world-record-speed-of-183mph?_mout=1&utm_campaign=cyclist_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter (http://www.cyclist.co.uk/news/5326/gallery-rider-hits-world-record-speed-of-183mph?_mout=1&utm_campaign=cyclist_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter)
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:o
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Naturally, I'm wondering about tyres...
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"Something going on at the Salt Flats", noted Mr Larrington as he came over the hill at West Wendover on Sunday. "Shall I stop and see what's occurring? Nah..."
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They use 17" motorcycle tyres. Not much else is rated for 300kph.
John Howard had the highest speed bicycle flat in history during one of his early runs but didn't have a puncture. The Schraeder valve on his back wheel was opened by centrifugal force. Luckily his front wheel had a valve cap, so didn't lose pressure. After that, the wheels were balanced with valve caps in place.
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Naturally, I'm wondering about tyres...
This says motorbike wheels and has a few decent of pictures of the bike.
https://www.bikeradar.com/road/news/article/cycling-land-speed-record-52942/
The gearing arrangement is interesting...
I'm not convinced by being towed up to 50mph before you can turn the gear over, but I guess it's within the rules...
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Getting towed up to a decent speed has been standard since the '70s at least. Once riders are past 150kph, von Karman vortices off the back of the pace vehicle provide the main motive power for the rider. It is mostly a case of the rider trying to avoid too-violent a cycle of 'thrust forward', bounce off bumper on the back of pace car, thrust forward, repeat. The fixed wheel transmission helps with that.
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Naturally, I'm wondering about tyres...
This says motorbike wheels and has a few decent of pictures of the bike.
https://www.bikeradar.com/road/news/article/cycling-land-speed-record-52942/
The gearing arrangement is interesting...
I'm not convinced by being towed up to 50mph before you can turn the gear over, but I guess it's within the rules...
Did you not watch mr Guy Martin's attempt on Pendine Sands? similar arrangement, he got towed behind a truck
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I love the idea of the early attempts round about 1900, when they did it by laying boards between the rails and following a railway train. One guy touched a wheel and had to be seized and dragged on board the train to save him from a very fatal crash.
The definition of "love" in this case is "You wouldn't catch me doing that in a million years."
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The previous supposed record I heard about (a UK one I think) got towed to the speed they wanted, and then tried to claim a record for maintaining that speed for a very short time.
I think most people will accept that accelerating to well over three times your towed speed and then maintaining that for over a mile is both impressive and record worthy.
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Err, this is a mostly useless motor-paced speed record, not a "absolute speed record" and definitely not a "cycling speed record".
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Does anyone know what the top speed those idiots that cycle down very steep mountains have archived. To my mind, gravity is every bit as acceptable as being dragged along by vortecies behind a motor vehicle.
Of course, the dark siders that Mr L was plying with last week are doing it properly from a standing start, but the general cycling community (present company excepted) tend to dismiss those of a laidback disposition as being somehow not really cyclists.
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Err, by definition at the moment it is an "absolute cycling speed record" - unless you know of better.
Meanwhile in the none-absolute records, there probably more angels than pinheads on which to dance - UCI approved bike, non-UCI, faired, unfaired, towed, untowed, downhill, 1 mile, 100 metres, ...
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Does anyone know what the top speed those idiots that cycle down very steep mountains have archived.
This one (https://www.bikeradar.com/mtb/news/article/eric-barone-record-49423/) claims 141 mph.
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If you are dropped out of an aeroplane with a bicycle, does that count? What if you pedal? ;)
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Probably not, normal free-fall maxes at 122mph. Now if Felix Baumgartner had taken a bike with him then we could debate whether 834mph was a record or not.
There is no singular definition of cycling speed record. But at this moment 183mph is the fastest of all the current records - unless you know better.*
(*is an astronaut on an exercise bike on the International Space Station not moving a 5 miles per second!
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Err, by definition at the moment it is an "absolute cycling speed record" - unless you know of better.
Meanwhile in the none-absolute records, there probably more angels than pinheads on which to dance - UCI approved bike, non-UCI, faired, unfaired, towed, untowed, downhill, 1 mile, 100 metres, ...
Quite. I think as long as we talking about a bicycle moving with wheels in contact with the ground (not in freefall, which in my mind would make it an aircraft), and no on-board power source other than the rider, it counts. Mostly for pucker-factor, admittedly.
Transferring external power to a bicycle by some means other than aerodynamic drafting left as an exercise for the reader. I'm picturing Project Orion (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsion))... :demon:
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Getting towed up to a decent speed has been standard since the '70s at least.
1962, at least. When Jose Meiffret broke 200 km/h (on a stretch of autobahn that hadn't been opened yet, behind a 300SL Gullwing), he was pushed by a motorcyclist to 50 mph before slotting in behind the Mercedes. I'm impressed with what Ms Mueller-Korenek did, but the sheer primitiveness of Meiffret's equipment makes his his effort all the more impressive.
https://cycling.ahands.org/bicycling/datewithdeath.htmlhttps://www.google.com/search?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8MAqmklHwg
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The Beebs article says she was towed to 100mph before release. The fact that she rode on for 3.5 miles after that would make it a cycling record in my mind. Bloody dangerous idea, playing with flapping tow ropes at 100mph, there must have been some serious thought on that point, managing the release.
The people who ride bikes down snowy mountains look very fast but they are still someway behind the skiers (and also the snowboarders IIRC). I haven't seen the event on the news recently.
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No ropes - the bike is bolted to a special mount on the back of the dragster, and there's a release mechanism.
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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-45572277 (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-45572277)
Video here, doesn't really give much of a sense of the speed. Don't look like motorbike wheels to me, on the front at least
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I’ve never seen motorbike wheels that size either. I struggle to understand how bumpy the surface was (I didn’t see much of a wobble at all), how big a gear she must have been turning, what sort of grimace was going on behind that dark visor, how much of a vortex was pulling her along behind that canopy, how many watts she must have been pumping out, how many shredded wheat she had for breakfast to fuel that lot (or was it spinach to get some Popeye thighs?).
All I can say is rather her than me. Even if she had a full crash helmet on, she definitely wasn’t wearing full leathers, so if she’d come off at those speeds it would have been pretty terminal no matter how smooth the surface.
The daring was impressive, as for the rest of the achievement I’m left not knowing quite what to think.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
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Regardless, it has 17" motorcycle rims and tyres, similarly to all of the other record holders as far back as Abbott.
See www.theprojectspeed.com
Abbott was also the one who took the record to Bonneville Salt Flats. Dried up salt lakes are just about the flattest places on the planet; the reason that most ultimate speed machines go there.