One Tough Velomobile? No! Two Whole Teams.

In typical Ozzy style Trisled performed the following good humoured stunt to effectively demonstrate the durability of their robust and practical Rotovelo velomobile.  Perhaps the beginnings of a new sport – Velomobile Ice Hockey.

The video clip was produced and edited by Lochlan Gay, a Year 11 student from Mt Eliza Secondary College. Working with six cameramen across 26 cameras, Lochie was then charged with poring over 20 hours of footage to produce the final five minute cut.

The players are evidently enjoying themselves immensely, and the resilience of the roto-moulded shell to the repeated impacts is clear.  As one commentator has remarked, “don’t try this in your Quest.”  Perhaps not so obvious is the clear stability of the trike compared to a bike in icy conditions.  Another feather in the velomobiles all-weather cap.

The opposite extreme to Trisled’s practical velomobile are the high end racing machines that they produce for Australia’s flourishing sport of HPV racing (See the Australian HPV Super Series Pedal Prix and RACV Energy Breakthrough pages).  Trisled took these machines a step further in 2012, when they entered one bike and one trike, in the World Human Powered Speed Challenge at Battle Mountain.  The Trisled machines performed well with the trike, with Gareth Hanks in Completely Overzealous, setting a new world record in the three wheel category and stimulating interest in further trike development.

The following video gives a mostly cockpit eye view of the record setting run.

Trisled are expected back at Battle Mountain this year with an all new trike, All Overzealous, no doubt with expectation to push the trike record further still.  The results should be available by the end of next week.

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Battle Mountain 2014 Coming Up

WHPSC Battle Mountain 2014med The 2014 World Human Powered Speed Challenge, organised by the IHPVA and held annually outside the town of Battle Mountain in the US State of Nevada, starts on Monday 8th, and promises a week of interest as several International teams of engineers, technicians and athletes compete to set records and push the speed boundary achievable by human power alone.

It has been two years since we last reported on Battle Mountain and the last two occasions set new records in several categories and served to raise the public profile of the event.  The 2013 WHPSC was significant as a new top speed world record was set by Sebastiaan Bowier of Human Power Team Delft, in the Velox 3, with a speed of 83.13 mph, displacing long time record holder Sam Whittingham.  A depiction of the Velox 3 is featured on this years WHPSC poster.  Human Power Team Delft and Sebastiaan are back this year with a new machine, the Velox 4, and two new riders.  Sam Whittingham has suffer a couple of injuries recently and will not be competing this year, however Varna builder Georgi Georgiev will be there with female world speed record holder Barbara Buatois, to defend and/or extend her title.  After pulling out of the 2012 WHPSC, Graeme Obree did compete in 2013.  While not achieving his stated aim of 100 mph, he was successful in setting a new prone rider world speed record as well as drawing media attention to the event as a whole.

Additional teams include: Team Cygnus, also from the Netherlands; a Canadian partnership between the HPV development lab AeroVelo and the University of Toronto with their ETA which used Kickstarter to raise funds for the build; a team from Russia; and several other teams and individuals from the US, Europe and the UK.  Not wishing to jump ahead too far but a couple of similar university teams/partnerships to AeroVelo have plans to compete in 2015, but more of that when the time comes.

Lastly and by no means least, Australian velomobile manufacturer Trisled, who set a tricycle world record in Completely Overzealous in 2012, are back with a new and more advanced trike, All Overzealous, and the old trike has been passed on to a US team so it should be interesting to compare how each perform.

Results should be posted as usual on the WHPSC 2014 Results Page.

For any unfamiliar with the WHPSC, the following News clip provides a good, albeit dated, introduction.

Battle Mountain a week to go!

World Human Powered Speed Challenge 2012 PosterIn a weeks time an elite collection of racers, engineers and their supporters will be assembled in Battle Mountain, Nevada, USA.  Each will be attempting to break various current human powered speed records, even if only their own personal best from previous years.

This year is set to be of more interest than usual.  Not only will Sam Whittingham be defending his current 2009 record of 82.819 mph.  There is a very serious contender in the Dutch Universities of Deft and Amsterdam and their Human Power Team with VeloX 2, a significantly revised design of the the original VeloX they raced last year, and packed full of technology.  To round off the competition, outsider and celebrity Scotsman, Graeme Obree is attempting to not only break the current record but aspires to smash it!  In an echo of his 1993/94 hour records on an upright bike he is attempting to pass 100 mph on a prone, head first, bike he has designed and built himself.  It should be obvious that it is Graeme and his Beastie who are featured on this year’s Battle Mountain Poster.

There are some who are quite skeptical that 100 mph will be passed, especially on a first attempt, but none-the-less there are many who are rooting for the “Flying Scotsman” to do well.  A couple of articles give more detail, one from the Daily Telegraph and one from Road.CC.

A short video showing Sam’s record setting run from 2008 is shown below.

Below is a montage of clips from 2009 which should give an idea what SR305 will be like next week.

There is also a documentary being produced based covering the last three years at Battle Mountain called Human Power.  Production is expected to be finished sometime in 2013.  Mean time there are more videos available on Georgi Georgiev’s Varna Website, the designer and builder of the record breaking bikes.

The current list of race entrants is given on this page. And result will be published here.