Cameron Robertson and Todd Reichert with their speedy cycle, which they call Eta
A Canadian man has become the fastest human to pilot a muscle-powered vehicle, reaching 144 km/h in an ultra-aerodynamic bicycle of his own design. Having set that record, he says he'd like to see automakers push the boundaries of vehicle efficiency.
Todd Reichert isn't talking about stuff he doesn't know: Before tackling his pedal-powered speed challenge, he put his PhD in aerospace engineering to work in helping to design and build an ornithopter -- a human-powered plane with wings that flap like a bird's.
Reichert, who runs a company called Aerovelo with partner Cameron Robertson, said he believes his record-setting bike is the "most efficient form of transportation ever designed," he told the CBC, and thinks that if car manufacturers were to "push what people perceive as the limit" they could come up with a functional and practical car that's much more energy-efficient than anything available now.
"(S)tuff that actually hits the road will be some small percentage of the way to what people perceive as the limit," said Reichert. "And if you can push what people perceive as the limit, you know, they're not going to go and make a car that gets 10,000 miles per gallon. But knowing that 10,000 miles per gallon is possible, when you look at like 60 miles per gallon? You're like, come on guys, what are we doing?”
Reichert's partner, Cameron Robertson is also an aerospace engineer, and he says the pair is "probably among many people like Elon Musk or others working towards a more efficient and sustainable future.”
The pair envision future rail-based mass transportation that travels upwards of 300 km/h on a fraction of the energy required by a small car. And Robertson said he can imagine a future " in which all the cars were self-driving, so crashes are less of an issue and maybe weighing only 50 or 100 pounds. You could kind of imagine what a sustainable future might look like."
Watch below to see one of the Aerovelo team's earlier speed runs, before they optimized their machine for the 144 km/h record.
