
The world's fastest human-powered vehicle tops 85 mph - yurisagalov
http://www.engadget.com/2015/09/18/aerovelo-fastest-human-powered-vehicle/
======
ohazi
I'm a little surprised nobody has mentioned the opaque fairing, visibility, or
the camera.

At first I thought it might be to keep the weight down, as there are plenty of
composite materials that are lighter than (even thin) plexiglass. But then
there's the weight/complexity of the camera, display, and battery.

Then I thought, well, the rider in in such an odd position, maybe he wouldn't
be able to see very much even if there was a window.

But apparently the actual reason is that the rider produces so much heat that
a window would fog up, and it would be too difficult/unsafe for the rider to
wipe it. Given the white coloring, I suspect they're also trying to avoid
cooking their human power source.

Here's part of a Q&A where they discuss visibility:

[https://youtu.be/mscVAb1VZJw?t=271](https://youtu.be/mscVAb1VZJw?t=271)

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irl_zebra
I'm guessing something can't get much more aerodynamically shaped? I wonder if
they used a power meter to measure the driver/rider's power output and whether
the driver was an accomplished cyclist. It seems that at this point, it would
simply be a matter of getting a stronger cyclist, say someone like Brad
Wiggins who can push 430 watts for an hour over an amateur, but still
respectable rider, who puts out something more like 250 watts for an hour.

The article states that riders have 5 miles to speed up before they cross the
speed trap that measures. Assuming the average speed of the whole endeavor is,
say, 60mph, you would want a pro time trialist who excels at hard 5-minute
efforts. This chart[1] states that a world class cyclist should be able to put
out 7.5 watts/kg for 5 minute efforts. Brad Wiggins weighs 77kg, so I guess
theoretically he should be able to put out 577 watts, versus a "good" with the
same weight who might "only" put out 350 watts in the same 5-minute period.

I would be very interested to see what would happen if you simply replaced the
85mph rider in the submission with Brad Wiggins.

[1] [http://d4nuk0dd6nrma.cloudfront.net/wp-
content/uploads/2009/...](http://d4nuk0dd6nrma.cloudfront.net/wp-
content/uploads/2009/07/powerprofiling.jpg)

~~~
yurisagalov
Todd is actually a world-class rider (based on the chart you provided, as
well).

From the article before they won the Sikorsky prize:

"Reichert, a national-level speed skater, can pedal at 1.2 horsepower for a
full minute"

[http://m.thestar.com/#/article/news/gta/2012/08/26/humanpowe...](http://m.thestar.com/#/article/news/gta/2012/08/26/humanpowered_helicopter_toronto_engineers_aiming_to_win_elusive_sikorsky_flight_prize.html)

~~~
irl_zebra
EDIT: Made a mistake with the numbers!

This is interesting; 1.2hp is about 895 watts. Assuming he's probably 65kg
(total guess from the looks of him). That means he can do about 13.7 Watts/KG
for 1-minute. According to the chart I posted above, looking at 1 minute
power, that puts him as a Far to Moderate level cyclist. Even giving the
benefit of the doubt and assuming 55kg, making the ratio a better 16.2
Watts/KG, that just moves him up to the "Good" category.

So perhaps a lot of improvement could be had moving to a professional cyclist.

~~~
yurisagalov
You are looking at maximal power output for 5 seconds (the left most column)
while you should be looking at maximal power output for 1 minute (the 2nd
column from left) :)

~~~
irl_zebra
Wow you're absolutely right, my mistake! Todd must be a very, very fantastic
cyclist!

~~~
jonknee
Hence setting the speed record!

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sandworm101
So my question is now: In terms of aerodynamics, what aren't they doing?

Some commentators have noted that the shape of this bike is just about as good
as it can get. The rider/engine is also not going to see any vast
improvements. So rather than this become a pure athletic event, where can
engineers look for improvements? Will they have to start dealing with boundary
layer issues? Will the next generation of bike be covered in golfball-like
holes to reduce turbulence?

~~~
x0054
Does it have to be a bike? What about a rowing rig, where you can leverage the
powerful muscles in your back and upper body?

~~~
jacorreia
Contrary to what it might look like, rowing is almost entirely dependent on
your legs, your arms/back merely keep the momentum going at the back of the
stroke. Also, the muscles in your back are nowhere near as strong/large as the
muscles in your legs, there's nearly a magnitude of difference. Though if you
added power from your arms in addition to fully utilizing your legs (it would
be much harder to concentrate) then there would be a benefit. But then you run
into how to engineer such a thing, especially with respect to aerodynamics.

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drpgq
I wonder why for fastest human-powered they don't use more than one cyclist. I
assume with eight humans like in rowing you could get up to a ridiculous
speed. Might be a little dangerous though.

~~~
Semiapies
This isn't horribly safe, either. Wiping out at 85 MPH would _suck_.

I'm curious what multi-cyclist vehicles could do, now that you suggest it.
With the lightness of these vehicles, at what point would you have to add
spoilers?

~~~
irl_zebra
While I know it would suck to wipe out, I'm hoping with this thing it may be
more of a "slide for 1000ft and off the flat road" type of suck than a "life
altering injury" type of suck.

~~~
bronson
The video shows a wipeout around 4:30, just a long slide. The bike wasn't near
85mph though.

Sadly, the video is pretty cheesy and content-free. It's hard to recommend.

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dasil003
> _The WHPSC is basically where cyclists put their knees where their mouth is,
> and attempt to beat the record for pedal-powered speed._

This is truly an epic pun, I'm duly impressed.

~~~
Asbostos
Could have done better using "feet" :P

~~~
dasil003
No, that's the beauty it. When you tuck for aerodynamic efficiency your knees
come very close to your mouth.

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carlhu
The video ends with a brief second where the cyclist explains what prevented
even higher speed. I make out: "too much vibration...", "knees rubbing...",
"unable to continue increasing power output". Would love to hear more about
this.

~~~
QuotedForTruth
Note the video was from last year when they failed to set the record. This
year they've done it. They probably will release a video of this year's
efforts eventually.

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PetitPrince
For those lazy to convert that's 137.94 km/h . That's just above most of the
world's road speed limit.

~~~
ching_wow_ka
That's interesting. Any source? I live in the northeastern part of the United
States and it's rare for me to see a speed limit above 65 mph.

~~~
Symbiote
120km/h looks like the typical global speed limit, but I haven't calculated
it. It includes China, India, Brazil, several countries in the middle east and
Africa.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_limits_by_country](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_limits_by_country)

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trevorcreech
They just posted the video where they actually beat the record:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33clAZoaLWs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33clAZoaLWs)

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QuotedForTruth
I wonder how much impact a professional track cyclist would have. Im sure the
current pilot is a strong rider, but if you got a world record sprinter into
the world record bike, how fast could they go?

~~~
SeanLuke
A professional track cyclist would be quite inferior to these riders. These
aren't some average Joe riding here: they're they best high-performance
cyclists in the world. For example, this particular record was long held by
Sam Whittingham: I invite you to see his Wikipedia entry.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Whittingham](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Whittingham)

~~~
QuotedForTruth
He's obviously very very strong. I'm sure the riders all the teams select are
amazingly strong riders. They aren't, however, gold medal caliber track
cyclists. The men with the strongest legs in the world. There is much more
prestige and money in winning a track cycling medal than setting a record in
human powered vehicles.

Im simply wondering, what happens if they get the best of the best. With
proper time to adapt to the vehicle, its probably worth a few mph. Not too
significant, but enough to reset the record.

~~~
SeanLuke
> They aren't, however, gold medal caliber track cyclists.

Correspondingly, gold medal track cyclists aren't world record setting
performance cyclists.

These tasks demand somewhat different skill sets, and at this level,
"somewhat" is a big deal. There's a _reason_ why the "top" track cyclists
don't hold any of these records.

~~~
QuotedForTruth
What I'm saying is that that reason most likely isn't lack of physical
ability, but lack of ever trying. Why would they when they are chasing olympic
medals and making way more money than would earn setting these obscure
records?

------
SeanLuke
It's interesting to note that this record was once again set along a very
specific stretch of highway in Battle Mountain, Nevada which is prized for its
near perfect flatness and is often used for human-powered vehicle record
attempts.

~~~
paulgerhardt
The course is not perfectly flat, but it is perfect for the contest.

The rules for this event stipulate that the track cannot be slopped downhill
by more than 0.66%. Conveniently this track averages 0.64% downhill over the
entire 5 mile duration. [1]

The story about how Raymond Gauge (what an aptronym!) happened to find this
particular stretch of road makes for it's own fascinating big data tale.
Months of mining away on USGS tables with Celeron processors to get 10
suitable tracks. A documentary made a few years back went into the specifics
with plenty of dramatic shots of him driving the lonely stretches of Nevada,
New Mexico, Kansas, etc whittling down his choice candidates until he settled
on Battle Mountain.

The biggest limitation in these events is air resistance. Plenty of other
folks have gone significantly faster on bicycles not facing a headwind[2].
Altitude helps.

[1]
[http://www.recumbents.com/wisil/whpsc2015/whpsc_site.htm](http://www.recumbents.com/wisil/whpsc2015/whpsc_site.htm)

[2] 207.9 mph -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycling_records#Speed_record_o...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycling_records#Speed_record_on_a_bicycle)

~~~
mikeryan
Interesting that for land speed records you generally need to do two passes of
a course one in each direction and your speed is an average of the two passes
in order to prevent these types of shenanigans ;-)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_speed_record](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_speed_record)

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tsumnia
While watching this, a thought occurred in my head: for these types of
challenges, are the participants tested for PEDs and such?

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tangled
I'm guessing that the rules prohibit using some of the pedal power to charge a
battery during the initial part of the run, and then using that stored energy
to provide an additional speed boost :D

~~~
sandworm101
I don't see why not. The initial run is essentially the storing up of
momentum. From that, running up a flywheel inside the bike is just storing the
same energy in a different place.

~~~
kazinator
It stretches the concept of "human powered". Why not just pedal while
stationary to charge a battery (take as long as you like), and then ride the
course with no additional expenditure of effort.

~~~
tangled
Because then you would be bringing additional stored energy into the
competition (beyond what's in your body)?

~~~
aninhumer
Well, the course is a 5mile run up to a 200m speed trap. So if you allow
batteries/motors, you could just sit stationary somewhere in that 5 miles
pedalling for a while, and then use electrical acceleration to get up to speed
for the trap. You're not bringing any additional energy, but its clearly not
in the spirit of the challenge.

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ak39
This is probably the few projects in life where you can say you've challenged
your mind just as much as you've done your body. And one can see the impact of
both of these in these young and beautiful "geeks". What a project it must be
to work at - beautiful minds and beautiful bodies. And the happiness shows.
:-)

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zyb09
Picture on top has new Google logo on it, video at 3:49 shows old Google logo
on the vehicle.

~~~
cubix
That video is from last year's attempt.

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thearn4
I've met with some of the guys from Aerovelo and done a little bit of
collaboration with them. They're top notch, and an all-around awesome team of
engineers. And Todd is a beast (watch the Atlas human-powered helicopter
video).

~~~
giarc
Video
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syJq10EQkog](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syJq10EQkog)

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MrBra
What software solutions are there that could be used to simulate mechanics and
physics (including gravity, friction, ...) in order to prototype, say, a human
powered heli_thing? :) No, I'm serious.

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songgao
I was gonna say this makes me realized just how aerodynamically inefficient a
regular bike is, but then I found out that the world record of cycling on flat
surface is actually 83.13 mph [0], which is actually pretty close to this.
Assuming the rider is also top notch, I guess the benefit from optimizations
done on aero isn't much larger than the weight added.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycling_records](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycling_records)

~~~
joe_the_user
wikiepedia doesn't check it's own references.

The speed is for a human powered vehicle (fully fared). Edit: All the flat
records in the section you're referencing are for hpvs, not tradition
bicycles, as a look at the pages of the riders will show.

See:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sebastiaan_Bowier](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sebastiaan_Bowier)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Buatois](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Buatois)

~~~
songgao
Thanks for pointing that out!

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rdlecler1
So let me get this straight, WeChat and other major companies are downloading
pirated Xcode software which has malware?

~~~
christianmann
A swing and a miss.

You might try again, on a different story. This doesn't seem to fit here.

~~~
nstart
I'm curious as to how that comment even ended up here :S

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revelation
Seems like they could get an extra 10% by simply going to a higher track.
Mexico City is popular at 2250m of altitude..

~~~
brandmeyer
Also less oxygen for the cyclist.

~~~
revelation
The body will naturally produce more red blood cells at altitude so while
there is a performance hit, it is mitigated. Also, the crucial power here is
anaerobically produced anyway.

If must be, I think the rules don't forbid an oxygen tank.

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sergers
last night they broke their own new record,

"On Friday evening, Sept 18th, Todd set another record at 86.50 mph"[1]

[1]
[http://www.ihpva.org/home/?view=plink&id=21](http://www.ihpva.org/home/?view=plink&id=21)
(the site of the competition that engadget links to)

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amelius
This reminds me of the Flintstones :)

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sandworm101
Typical Canadians. Their country's flag is smaller than the GMC logo. I hope
someone from UofT alumni relations gives them a call.

If you are going for a speed record, you need something more like this:
[http://cdn.rsvlts.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/olympics-
sk...](http://cdn.rsvlts.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/olympics-skeleton-
helmet-pic-2-642x396.jpg)

~~~
darcyparker
I am a proud Canadian who lives in the USA and have a little Canadian sticker
on my car. It's my little shout out to other Canadians on the road. I guess
we're quietly showing our pride to others. Being loud about it is not in our
nature. But I do like that luge helmet :)

~~~
sandworm101
It's not luge. When the idiot goes head-first they call it skeleton.

~~~
darcyparker
Thanks - I never noticed the difference.

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jfoutz
The d&d fan in me thiks falling is a free action. A human powered plane doing
a dive would go faster I'd bet. Not prepared to rules lawyer that case though.

~~~
vacri
If you're willing to allow that, then just wear a single shoe (to be the
'vehicle') and do a BASE jump.

~~~
tyho
You might want to bring a parachute too.

