Every year a group of engineering students take a bike to Battle Mountain. The 200-metre stretch of road in the Nevada desert is the site of the World Human Powered Speed Competition - the perfect place to test the top-speeds of a low-gravity recumbent bike over a four-mile acceleration zone. For the London South Bank University (LSBU) students, it’s also the culmination of a year’s worth of research, experimentation and - in some cases - physical training.
The goal at Battle Mountain is simple: try to break the 89.59mph record set by Todd Reichert in 2016. Except it’s not actually that simple. Hurtling along that stretch of Nevada road at 50 - 80 miles per hour in an egg-shaped aerodynamic shell, the rider only has a tv screen through which to see the road ahead - even the smallest wobble can be hard to rectify, sending the bike hurtling sideways through the desert.
