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AeroVelo Man-Powered Bicycle Does 85.71 MPH

The World Human Powered Speed Challenge is a competition dedicated to breaking land speed records for vehicles that are powered by human muscle solely, and this year the bar has just been set higher.
Team AeroVelo 1 photo
Photo: AeroVelo
Team AeroVelo's Todd Reichert set a new record at the Battle Mountain in Nevada, breaking the old 83.13 mph (133.75 km/h) record set by Sebastiaan Bouwier of HPV Team Delft in Velox 3 on September 14th, 2013. Reichert's fastest homologated speed was 85.71 mph (137.9 km/h), but subsequent runs were even faster.

In fact, after the official record-setting run on Thursday, September 17th, Reihert's carbon fiber torpedo-shelled bicycle did 86.65 mph, which translates to 139.41 km/h.

The video is a documentary about the rather unfortunate 2014 run, plagued by technical problems

The video below tells the story of the team's efforts from last year, when two attempts have been affected by technical issues. The first problem was a blown tire that also caused the bike to flip and slide along the highway, thankfully without injuring the rider. The second run was less dramatic, but the rider's legs hitting the shell only granted him the third-fastest result.

2015 was a much better year, and considering the highest speed AeroVelo's two-wheeler reached, we can expect that the team gets ready t break their own record in 2016, as it looks like there is still room for improvement.

And if you think that this feature is a thing to be taken lightly, just imagine yourself doing 85 mph, reclined behind the front wheel, inside an ideally-claustrophobia shell covering the weird frame and having to rely on cameras to steer and stay on the tarmac... Not exactly easy, right?

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