Canadian company AeroVelo sets world record for human powered vehicle
19 Sep 2015
Canadian company AeroVelo, which makes human powered vehicles, has built a bike that achieved a speed of 85.71 miles per hour. Company founder Todd Reichart pedaled his way to a new human-powered speed record at the 2015 World Human Powered Speed Challenge competition, riding the three wheeled Aerovelo Eta human-powered speed bike built by a team of 14.
Aerovel Eta smashed the previous record for a human-powered vehicle of 83.13 miles per hour set by Dutch cyclist Sebastiaan Bowier in 2013.
AeroVelo has a number of human-powered firsts to its name, besides the Aerovelo Eta. In 2010, the company built the Snowbird Ornithopter, the first human-powered flapping winged aircraft to take flight. In 2013, the company's AeroVelo Atlas took the $250,000 Sikorsky Prize for first minute-long human-powered helicopter flight.
Reichert and AeroVelo's record was not completely safe, as the competition continued would continue today.
The speedy bicycle was built by a team of 14 engineers. The previous record was set by Dutch bike enthusiast Sebastiaan Bowier who pedaled at 83.13 mph in 2013.
The Canadian engineering company had envisioned smashing the record for quite a while and had announced the goal of beating the human-powered speed record last June, according to GizMag.
The vehicle was named Eta, the Greek letter that symbolising efficiency, and was the new version of a 2012 model. Eta was outfitted with a camera mounted on its roof, and a video monitor to view the road ahead.
AeroVelo's Vortex bike had set a new land speed record of 72.6 mph for college-built and piloted vehicles.
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