New Human-Powered World Hour Record

jesterpilot writes "Last weekend, the limit of human propulsion was pushed another kilometer. At the 2006 Dempsey-MacCready One Hour Record Attempts on the Nissan track in Arizona, Fred Markham set a new World Hour Record by cranking 85,4 km in a fully faired recumbent bicycle. This is about 1 km more than Sam Whittinghams 2004 record. Noting Fred's age of fifty years, it seems the boundaries of human propulsion are not even close yet. Read a report of the decisive runs on Rob English' diary."

as alwasy...bikes are still faster than cars..

[Anonymous Coward]

As I point out to my wife, unless you live more than 12 miles from work or are in tremendously horrible shape... cycling smokes all other forms of transpo...

12 miles seems to be the magic traffic versus bike # from my casual watching...

but when they finally get the aero recombant marketable... maybe that will change to 20.

Cars are wierd... not usre why people use them so much...they make you fat...

For us using the english system.

[rmadmin]

For those of us that are used to the english system: 85.4 kph = 53.0650998 mph

I don't think I average that on my drive to work.

Re:Wow!

[rolfwind]

Your talking about human power vehicle. It's not like we humans are updated with new engines with a few more horsepower every year:/

Recumbent bikes are cool and faster than regular bikes because the legs are set up near the chest if you look at it horizontally (the long way) and cut down on wind resistance dramatically even without wind flairs and all that.

And they have been setting records for years but unfortunately they have been banned by the UIC (they define the standard bike as a bike). It is said a mediocre (professional) cyclist could beat someone like Armstrong in a normal one day race due to the inherent advantages of the recumbent.

According to the wiki:

Then on 7 July 1933 at a Paris velodrome, Faure rode a Velocar 45.055 km (27.9 miles) in one hour, smashing an almost 20-year-old hour record held by Oscar Egg. Since the one hour record was one of the most important in all of cycling, that accomplishment attracted a great deal of attention. Less than two months later, on 29 August 1933, Maurice Richard, riding an upright bicycle, also bettered Egg's one hour record.

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 and guaranteed that upright bicycles would not have to compete against recumbents. For all intents and purposes, the ban is still in effect.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recumbent_bicycle [wikipedia.org]

I wanted a recumbent for years (long wheel base) but because of their low production, they tend to be more expensive, are also heavier, and most look funny.

There are some damn fine looking ones but they cost $$$$, like the Calfee Stiletto, which incidently was codesigned by Calfee and the guy in the article Freddy Markham before the two had a falling out:

http://www.rbr.info/calfee.html [rbr.info]

BTW, Markham is known as the Armstrong of recumbents. Getting a record at his age is a surprise, but will add to his legend.

You mean the American/Imperial system

[jpardey]

The English use SI, as far as I know.

Re:What?

[TheDreadSlashdotterD]

World Hour Record. That's how far he went in one hour. Divide the distance by the time and you get the rate (85.4km/h).

And if that's not the answer to your question, could you provide more information next time?

Re:You mean the American/Imperial system

[jonbryce]

We use imperial for some things. Mainly speed and distance on the road, which makes the grandparent post very relevant, and the sale of beer and milk. Pretty much everything else is metric, though a lot of older people still prefer imperial measurements.

Re:For us using the english system.

[Anonymous Coward]

English System? You yanks are about the only people left who use miles..

For more information about recumbents.

[B5_geek]

I am a bent (short for recumbent) rider. I ride a longbikes Slipstream. (IMHO the most comfortable long-distance touring bikes on the planet) I would like to clear up some possible misunderstandings that might exist.

Not all Bents are fast, just as all uprights are not fast. The speed you can get on a bent is largely dependant on your engine.
After riding 100+km (62+miles) on a bent nothing hurts. Compare that to an upright.
If you suffer from wrist, neck, bum, or genital pain after spending ANY amount of time on an upright, I strongly suggest you investigate recumbents.
I strongly recommend browsing http://bentrideronline.com/ [bentrideronline.com] It is a goldmine of information.

Bring the joy back to cycling, get bent.

Re:Wow!

[smellsofbikes]

I don't know how handy you are, but you could consider making a 'bent.
Take a look at Atomic Zombie's [atomiczombie.com] webpages: everything from reasonable recumbents to front-wheel-drive pure-racing designs, all made from scrap bikes and electrical conduit, welded with a cheap arcwelder. If you're willing to invest more time and energy you can build some superb designs. With my projects, I buy reasonable low-end bikes (shimano exage-level components) from local thrift stores, usually for under $40 for a complete bike, and use those partskits to outfit frames. (You do have to buy lots and lots of bike chain, usually new, since splicing used chain rarely works very well.)

Anyway, Atomic Zombie also has a book [amazon.co.uk] in which he goes into considerable detail about the design/construction of thirty or so different bikes. I have friends that have built most of them, and several of the people had never welded before building their first strange bikes. You can get a cheap AC welder from the likes of Harbor Freight & Salvage for way under $100.

OT: Words

[belg4mit]

The pieces are fairings.
The adjective fair means unincumbered.
The verb fair, from ship building, is to make smooth and flowing. ...in a fully fairinged recumbent bicycle. (verbing) ...in a fully fair recumbent bicycle. ...in a fully faired recumbent bicycle. (original)

Re:Weird Phrasing

[Distinguished Hero]

i wonder if this one is standing start or flying start.

"The world's fastest bicycles, known as "Speedbikes" will converge at the Nissan Technical Center North America outside Casa Grande, Arizona June 30 and July 1-2, 2006 to compete for the $25,000 Dempsey-MacCready Prize, for the first Speedbike to travel 56 miles (90 K) in one hour from a standing start." from http://www.recumbents.com/wisil/racing2006/dempsey 2006.htm [recumbents.com] :)

Re:What?

[Emetophobe]

Some countries use a comma instead of a period to represent a decimal point. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_point [wikipedia.org]

Dot countries

Countries where a dot is used to mark the radix point include:

        Australia, Botswana, Canada (English-speaking), China, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Hong Kong of the People's Republic of China, India, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Korea (both North and South), Malaysia, Mexico, Nicaragua, Nigeria, New Zealand, Pakistan, Panama, Philippines, Perú, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, United Kingdom, United States (including insular area of Puerto Rico)

Comma countries

Countries where a comma is used to mark the radix point include:

        Albania, Andorra, Argentina, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Cameroon, Canada (French-speaking), Costa Rica, Croatia, Cuba, Chile, Colombia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Ecuador, Estonia, Faroes, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Greenland, Hungary, Indonesia, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg (uses both separators officially), Macedonia, Moldova, Netherlands, Norway, Paraguay, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, Uruguay, Venezuela, Zimbabwe

Re:as alwasy...bikes are still faster than cars..

[Espectr0]

Cars are wierd... not usre why people use them so much...they make you fat...

Because:

*You sweat (not good for dating/going to work)
*No place to store your groceries (or for the slashdot crowd, taking your rig to a lan party)
*No place for the girlfriend to sit
*No air conditioning
*Sun
*Rain

Need i say more?

Re:as alwasy...bikes are still faster than cars..

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't imagine biking 12 miles to work! I live 3.2 miles from work, and even though I've competed for over 20 years, it still takes me almost an hour to get to work. It usually takes me a little less than nine minutes by car. I finished the Assault on Mount Mitchell in just over 6 hours last year. It's a 72 mile race from about 100 yards from my front door to the top of the highest peak in the eastern US. Even though I'm one of the best in the state, it would take me almost six hours each day to get to/from work if I biked the 12 miles you called "magic."

You shouldn't use the word magic to describe 12 miles. Maybe 500 meters, but no way in hell I'd consider attempting to bike 12 miles on city streets on a regular basis. It's very slow going waiting on pedestrians, avoiding buses that ignore traffic laws, waiting on cars that are turning left that don't yield to the right of way to the bike, avoiding opening doors from cars parallel parked, avoiding potholes, avoiding those slick metal construction plates, avoiding metal grates that eat tires and flip you over the handlebars, avoiding sand/gravel/slick red clay from erosion and construction sites, avoiding trucks that swing wide when making turns, and so on. I've already been in the hospital twice due to accidents while biking to work. The last time was when a cop opened a car door into my path, and I hit the side of a bus after bouncing off of the door. That accident cost me my $2k bike, over $15k for the health care, and almost $2k to repaint and replace the sticker on the cop's door. For $19k, I can afford to drive to work for a very long time. Even though I live in a small town, I know three local cyclists that have been killed on weekdays. Twelve miles is just ridiculous.

Re:For us using the english system.

[g00bd0g]

Whoever reported this actually got it wrong. We covered 53.43 miles/85.97 km

Some quick pictures here.

http://www.easyracers.com/vbb/showthread.php?s=&th readid=2669 [easyracers.com]

Probably you are not into recumbent racing...

[jesterpilot]

I don't think you have done many recumbent races. I ride many races a year on my Challenge lowracer. Stayering and coöperation with competitors are fundamental as well. The only difference is you have smaller groups due to the greater differences in speed. A rowing bike is much slower than a velomobile, so it's two groups of rowing bikes, five groups of lowracers, three groups of tail-faired lowracers and four groups of velomobiles, for instance. But you have to use tactics or you lose. I blew many of my races this way when i just started.

A tactical very interesting part of recumbent racing is the go-kart circuit: in every corner it's a hard fight to get through first, but if you try to block your competitor too hard, you lose speed or may even crash. Fast acceleration, hefty but controlled braking is essential. With 14 corners every 38 seconds (my last race on a go-kart circuit), that's quite exciting.

This just in...

[dtmos]

The present-day record for car pacing is held by Fred Rompelberg [guinnesworldrecords.com] of Holland, who reached 268.831 km/h (167.043 mph) on a bicycle [fredrompelberg.com] following a car [cyclingforums.com] at the Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah, on October 3, 1995.

Interestingly, he set the record 27 days shy of his 50th birthday, so there does seem to be a trend here....

Recumbents rock.

[markw365]

2 weeks ago at Hellyer velodrome Freddy was "getting too old for this" and now he sets a new record. This is a 1 hour record. Hitting mid 50's on a diamond frame bike takes a good hill. The drafting bicycle speed record is somewhere around 150mph. The non-drafting, pedal up to speed record no tailwind, no hills is at 82mph in a similar bike that Freddy used. Recumbents.com [recumbents.com] , Battel Mountain [recumbents.com] have info on the top speed runs. Freddy did something like 76mph last year. These bikes are more HPV's as they are fully faired. Aerodynamics and power are a cool combination.

  For the street, one of the best performing recumbents are the Bacchetta's. [bacchettabikes.com] Bacchetta has been giving a good showing around the country for the past few years. They did the Hotter-N-Hell century as a team (drafting) in 3:56 passing the bicycle race that was part of the event. John Schlitter won the Race Across Florida on a Bacchetta this year, and Bacchetta took 1,3-5 overall. They were used for a 3rd place finish last year in the Race Across America 4 man team. They also had a rider up to third this year before he dnf'd. Cycling News Results [cyclingnews.com] with Jim Kern in 3rd on a Bacchetta . Later this month, there will be quite a few recumbent and HPV teams competing in the Race Across Oregon [raceacrossoregon.com] including a 4 man team, and 2 man team from Bacchetta.

Of course, to give credit where credit is due. One of the slickest bikes out there is the Velokraft NoCom [recumbents.com] low racer bike. This bike is more track/pure race oriented, and is quite fast.

If you want to increase your cycling speed by a few mph. Check out a recumbent. For more info, there's the wildly popular recumbent site Bentrider Online [bentrideronline.com] which has a very informative forum section.