Human Powered Carbon Monocoque Racer

This Carbon Bike racer was designed and built for the Human Powered Speed Challenge in the town of Battle Mountain Nevada - a competition to see how fast you can make an incredibly aerodynamic, human powered bike/trike go over a pan-flat, 5-mile stretch of road in the Nevada desert. With a small number of volunteers, we formed team 'SeventySeven', and the bike was built by myself and friend over the course of 18 months in evenings and weekends.

The bike is a carbon monocoque shell, made in two halves using an infusion resin technique and then bonded together. The internal components are removed through the shell hatch, which also serves as the rider entry point. Navigation is via 2 separate video systems fed from small drone cameras mounted on top of the bike.

The shell is constructed from the following composite layers:

• 200g glass twill
• 2 x 200g layers of carbon-fibre
• 3mm layer of Lantor Soric
• 200g layer of carbon-fibre
• 200g layer of carbon-kevlar hybrid fabric

The bike was completed five months ahead of the event in America, and was tested extensively in the UK on velodromes and runways. We then transported the bike to America, and competed successfully over the week-long event to hit a top-speed of 73.8mph - the second fastest UK effort of all time - just behind the UK record of 76.4mph held by Ken Buckley and Liverpool University, but ahead of luminaries such as Graeme Obree and Olympian Jason Quelley.

The build process and Competition has been covered in several videos on my YouTube Channel.