Might sound like a high grade of plastic, but in fact the acronym for the Human Powered Vehicle Club who were racing their unusual machines at Darley Moor Racetrack today.
Most of them were recumbents, with a variety of streamlining, and two, three, or four wheels.
Daddy of them all was the fully streamlined no.2 who was lapping at about 40 mph.
A useful benchmark was a pretty fit looking guy on a normal road racing bike who was just about to keep up with the middle running recumbents.
Lots of ingenious engineering on display, some only visible inside the casings.
See still photos.
The centre one is powered by both leg and arm power, but not such an advantage as might be thought. The owner told our reporter (me) that the limitations were governed by the riders heart and lungs rather than by his muscles.
The top one looks very futuristic, being built mostly of plastic.
Although there were many different designs on show, the basic common factor is a reduction of drag by reducing the frontal area and streamling the machine at front and/or rear. The extreme solutions do not make practical road machines but do show how much power we waste on a sit-up-and-beg bike in overcoming wind resistance. We do experience this when cycling with a tailwind, of course.
1 comment:
Does demonstrate the benefits of reduced resistance. A steel rail in a Perspex tube would be even faster and could probably be constructed for a fraction of the cost of a conventional cycleway. A simple electric motor/regenerative braking/capacitor storage system could be used to assist cyclists up elevated sections over road junctions etc.
First published here. 24 August 2010.
Martin Aldred
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