
ETA: Building the World's Fastest Bike - yurisagalov
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1156290643/eta-be-a-part-of-building-the-worlda-fastest-bike/
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Theodores
I don't see why this is being done on KickStarter. Surely a soft drinks
company or even a bicycle company would be able to find the $30K without too
much effort? Even a relatively small company supplying cycling
components/accessories could find the money for this. If naming rights are
part of the deal and there is a chance of getting into the Guinness Book of
Records, then some sponsor outside the bicycle trade should be easily
findable, particularly given the size of the advert space presented by the
aero-fairing.

Even the rights to a TV show about this would cover the $30K (maybe they have
bagged that already). Maybe they are ideologically opposed to sponsorship and
don't want to be a 'Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro' (that was the official F1 name
for the Ferrari team as recently as 2011). Or perhaps Kickstarter has worked
for them in the past and it is now their goto for $$$. Regardless, this
particular project is crying out for sponsorship money rather than
Kickstarter.

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AeroVelo
Hi Theodores. We are in the process of finding and obtaining sponsors from
other companies. As mentioned in the Kickstarter story, the total cost for
this project is actually around $120K, and we are only using Kickstarter to
cover a portion of that cost. Also, the amount of space available for
advertisement is not as large as you think - adding stickers to the front
portion of the fairing would increase the drag. (Notice the location of the
stickers in the photo of Bluenose in the Kickstarter story)

~~~
Theodores
Good luck with the sponsorship, the Kickstarter is a good way to 'Kick Start'
the sponsorship conversation if you are able to get people ponying up.

It must also be possible to do an event in a cycling arena and sell tickets.
Manchester in the UK springs to mind.

One thing about forums is that people are honest about their feelings, really
useful feedback comes when things are not varnished. People might not be
right, initial feelings might need to be re-adjusted. Initially I did not feel
the project belonged on Kickstarter, now I think it does!!!

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FigBug
I talked to Sam Whittingham briefly after his speed record fell last
September. 133.78 km/h beat his old record by 0.6 km/h. I think his record
stood for about 13 years. He says now it all comes down to the tires, they are
the one component that takes major money to custom make. Nobody makes tires
for 133km/h bicycles. As long as everybody is using the same tires, nobody is
going to go significantly faster. Hopefully they've found a source for high
speed tires.

~~~
Shivetya
My searching is apparently lackluster, what are materials used in tires for
this application? Other than speed ratings, what other issue is most costly in
creating these tires?

~~~
Theodores
Tyres were actually pretty good in the days of Dunlop when they made them from
natural rubber and cotton. They were state of the art for the time then they
made the strategic decision to get out of cycle tyres and concentrate on other
aspects of their business.

Modern tyres come in 700c racing bike size with a few specials at 650c, to get
something small wheeled is not off the shelf. A normal bike, e.g Tour de
France, needs things like grip and puncture resilience rather than just low
rolling resistance. This applies to the track too. The actual market for
specialist, i.e. tubular, bike tyres is minuscule compared to regular bike
tyres, to all intents and purposes it is cottage industry stuff.

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grecy
> _Our human-engine will produce only 1 horsepower_

I thought an Olympic athlete at full-tilt with arms and legs could only put
out 0.75 horsepower?

~~~
Someone
[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horsepower#History_of_the_uni...](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horsepower#History_of_the_unit)
states:

 _" a healthy human can produce about 1.2 hp briefly and sustain about 0.1 hp
indefinitely; trained athletes can manage up to about 2.5 hp briefly and 0.3
hp for a period of several hours."_

And for those who wonder how a human can be stronger than a horse: peak output
of a horse is way higher than 1 hp ( _" The peak power over a few seconds has
been measured to be as high as 14.9 hp."_)

~~~
jacquesm
In Amsterdam there is a PR thing by a national beer brand where they take an
old style horse drawn cart loaded with beer barrels (empty?) through the city.
When they go up a bridge it is incredible to see how much power those horses
can muster in the short stretch up the bridge, the sparks are shooting out
from under their hooves and you can see their bodies strain with the effort.
Very impressive.

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scythe
While this seems to be a really cool _research_ project, it mostly made me
curious if something like this could ever be available as a consumer product
-- i.e. an aerodynamic, safe recumbent. I'm guessing the "catch" is that
ultralight materials are expensive and the design doesn't really help much on
a hill. It seems like it might work well alongside something like this:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NuVinci_Continuously_Variable_T...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NuVinci_Continuously_Variable_Transmission)

~~~
mesofile
Neither the material costs nor the gearing system are barriers. You can put a
fairing on your recumbent bike today [1] although to get a fully enclosed
shell you'd have to go custom. The market doesn't support fully enclosed
bikes, recumbent or otherwise, because they're not practical. The same
principle that makes a fully faired bike fast on a closed course would make it
a nightmare to ride in open traffic with moderate crosswinds and/or sunny,
warm conditions.

[1] [https://t-cycle.com/-ezp-16.html](https://t-cycle.com/-ezp-16.html)

~~~
Someone
Even ignoring that, you will need assistance to get in and out of these
recumbents.

For examples, look at the various "catch practice" videos at
[http://www.hptdelft.nl/en/index.php?option=com_youtubegaller...](http://www.hptdelft.nl/en/index.php?option=com_youtubegallery&view=gallery&Itemid=56)
(the current world record honderd, if I am not mistaken)

Three wheels might make these things more practical, but apparently, that
doesn't make them faster.

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Gravityloss
The logo has the bike going left. This is against visual conventions and it
seems backwards.

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155224
Thought that Guy Martin already broke that speed record on his TV show
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wT0eJXtrwHg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wT0eJXtrwHg)

~~~
AeroVelo
That speed was paced behind a vehicle, which is not the same record we're
going for. In fact, that record has very little to do with the power of the
human or efficient engineering design.

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cpks
I don't see why I'd want to pay for this.

It doesn't change the world in any way.

Bringing something fast and practical to the masses would be a different
story, but this doesn't move technology in that direction.

It's just paying for some kids to make it into Guinness....

~~~
quchen
The backers fund something they think is interesting, and they're certainly
aware of that. Most big inventions started as seemingly useless projects that
required lots of money. Sure, this is as far away as the Wright brothers from
a transatlantic passenger jet, but with foundational research, you never know
where you end up. If it runs this fast with a human, imagine hooking a small
motor to it. How far could you travel with one liter? How about a pedelec
version to get a semi-long-distance consumer bike? Could you maybe put the
thing on rails and have human-powered trains or trams?

