Streamliner, Part One

This page chronicles the construction of a streamlined bicycle or “streamliner” in an attempt to participate in the World Human Powered Speed Challenge (WHPSC) near Battle Mountain, Nevada.

Human powered vehicles or HPV’s first entered my stream of consciousness when I was about eleven or twelve years old. I was watching the television, and saw a report on a HPV that was capable of 60 miles per hour. I vividly remember seeing the rider through clear plastic canopy pedaling a gigantic chainring. I naively thought there was no limit to what you could do if you had a big enough chainring.

Vector Patent 4,410,198

A couple of decades after the Vector went 60 MPH, I heard about a Canadian bicycle racer named Sam Whittingham going over 81 MPH in a streamlined bicycle called the Varna Diablo. I pretty much became obsessed with streamliners ever since then, particularly the Varna, which was created by Bulgarian sculptor Georgi Georgiev. Thanks to the Internet, searching pictures of streamlined Human Powered Vehicles is easy. I routinely scoured the Internet for pictures, charts, power data, tables,... ANYTHING I could find. I even found this U.S. Patent for the Versatron Vector.