It’s a very strange shape and it’s made out of Kevlar and fibreglass, you may be still trying to figure out what it is but according to its creator, it’s a bike and it might even be the world’s fastest bike.
The bike is called The Beastie and has been designed by Graeme Obree, renowned cyclist, which he plans to race in the World Human Powered Speed Challenge. He hopes to break the world record of 82.8 miles per hour with this new bike.
Obree has been working on a new design of the small vehicle, all in the hopes of breaking a new human-powered land speed record, according to Humans Invent. The strange looking design needs two people to push to get start and can’t even stand upright when stationary.
Obree attempted to explain the shape and design of The Beastie to the website Humans Invent: “The front section is rounded, then it widens out and widens out and then comes back in, in a very smooth curve and narrows down to the back end…the most important part in terms of dividing the air and then pulling the air back in again with the least amount of energy is to have a laminar (non-turbulent) flow over the sides of it.”
In a recent test, he hit speeds of 50mph on a runway but struggled to increase on this speed due to the poor visibility that the small window provides and being unable to anticipate how much of the runway is left.
The Beastie awaits more tests before it can hope to break the new record.
Photos courtesy of Humans Invent
Irish journalist writing on business, tech and engineering.
