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Fastest vehicle powered by multiple humans |
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WillHay3108 
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Joined: 09 October 2022 Location: Wimbledon Status: Offline Points: 2 |
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 Topic: Fastest vehicle powered by multiple humansPosted: 09 October 2022 at 9:04pm |
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Hi, I've recently had some thoughts on a new design for a human powered vehicle and it made me wonder why the land speed record is below 100mph. Surely you can just increase the power indefinitely by adding more riders? Noting that the drag at top speed doesn't increase proportionally to mass.
Has this been tried? Cheers, Will |
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AlanGoodman
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Club Chairman Joined: 04 March 2005 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 8036 |
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Posted: 09 October 2022 at 9:08pm |
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Yep. It was tried at Battle Mountain a couple of years ago I believe… I’m sure Mr Larrington will be along with details shortly…
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LWaB
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Joined: 13 August 2016 Status: Offline Points: 277 |
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Posted: 09 October 2022 at 11:06pm |
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Multi-rider HPVs have often been problematic, since the beginning. It is hard to keep chains in place and flex becomes much more of a problem as dimensions and total power increases.
Edited by LWaB - 09 October 2022 at 11:06pm |
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russellbridge
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Joined: 21 October 2013 Location: Manchester Status: Offline Points: 843 |
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Posted: 10 October 2022 at 7:34am |
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See sprocket rocket:
https://youtu.be/W6K18bgxn78 5 ex US Postal Team riders with thighs like tree trunks couldn’t make this thing go over 63mph, no matter how they tried. They were putting out around 5000W combined. Most of the bikes aim for a small transition zone between laminar and turbulent air flows, because it’s the transition zone that creates most of the drag. The sprocket rocket shape is almost all transition zone or turbulent air (that’s my layman’s understanding anyway) Russ Edited by russellbridge - 10 October 2022 at 8:53am |
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russellbridge
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Joined: 21 October 2013 Location: Manchester Status: Offline Points: 843 |
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Posted: 10 October 2022 at 7:36am |
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Toronto university’s ‘Titan’ tandem uses a different approach. It uses a similar shape to the rest of the bikes but scaled up, so the transition zone is similar.
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legs_larry
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Joined: 09 March 2005 Location: London Town Devine Status: Offline Points: 1554 |
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Posted: 10 October 2022 at 11:05am |
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Russ gets up earlier than me
 Also the logistics of transporting (and launching, if it's a bike) multi-rider vehicles is enough to put most people off. Though not the Sprocket Rocket gang, whose trailer had more engineering in it than some of the competing machines.
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a bit ov a lyv wyr by slof standirds |
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