A 45-year-old British cyclist, Neil Campbell has registered his name in the record books by hitting 280km/h or 174 mph mark. He achieved the feat on an airfield in Yorkshire on his custom-made bike using 3D-printed parts and carbon-fiber chain rings.
The architect-turned cyclist had left his job to fulfill his dream of breaking this record. He spent around $18,000 to build a cycle capable of breaking the record which was previously held by a Dutch biker, who made the record in 1995.
He clocked this record-breaking speed after detaching from the back of a Porsche while feeling that he was ‘about to crash the whole time’.
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Talking to CNN, the rider expressed his excitement at the unknown challenges that awaited him on the track.
I didn’t think we’d get close, because we were testing on Thursday and Friday and it didn’t go particularly well. It’s such an intense build-up — you run on adrenaline for the weeks and months beforehand. We went into Saturday not knowing anything, we had no idea what we could do and what was capable.
Campbell is not stopping here as he plans to improve his record by reaching 200 miles per hour at the Bonneville Speedway in Utah. Note that he broke the men’s record for fastest speed in a slipstream.
If he crosses the 200mph mark, he will also break the overall world record held by America’s Denise Mueller-Korenek, who hit 295.96 km/h or 183.9 mph, which she achieved last year.
The cycle is attached to the car and the car is going at 280 km/h.
Cycle isn’t attached to the car. He’s following the car on purpose to be protected from wind resistance or drag effect, the car is taking the wind resistance and disbursing it around the cycle so he’s experiencing much less of a difficulty in achieving that speed due to no wind resistance. It’s called slipstreaming.