Deleted post... apparently this isn't news.

Not a new idea in the world of motorpacing...



The current record is 167mph... the gentleman above was trying to break the record in 1979 and was aiming for 128mph but had a blowout at 110mph (and survived).

Better his knees than mine. This story has been covered in another thread, but I had never seen this article before.

This quote has so much wrong with it, I don't even know where to start....Nothing like pop science written poorly!

This is for a fg/ss bike or all bikes?

I don't remember the speed he was attempting to hit, but I know there is a horrific crash video of french rider who was trying to set a new world record by riding down the side of a dormant volcanoe and his custom made/composite bike came apart at the seams during the record attempt. He face planted, into a rag doll flip, and than continued to rag doll for a few hundred feet. He did not survive. It's an awfully tough video to watch.

He lived. Stop talking out of your ass.

His name is Eric Barone and he did survive.

gr8 thrad

I've seen this bike pop up 3 times today in multiple threads and I'm not even paying attention to the forums all that much.

Big news week...Marathon Bombing, Senate "shooting" down background checks, Fertilizer blowing up in Texas, and now a bike with a big chainring.

Wonder what will happen tomorrow? "Bombing suspect shot down while riding bike through freshly fertilized field."

Cool............a 935 with the rare camper option.

ahem....

Dustbin lid for a chainwheel!

And no brakes. Velodrome only I guess, which would be right for the era.
What gets me is he's built like a climber. If you were planning to ride that thing, thigh muscles would be nice.

No one had muscles back then, lol.

"Muscles" - he big bulgy kind - are actually relative newcomers to the track racing world. Prior to the 1980s or so, even the sprinters were working on "supple" rather than "big". It was the East Germans (Lutz Hesslich in particular) who introduced the bodybuilder physique to track racing in the early-to-mid 1980s, and steroids are known to have played a part.

BTW, here's Fred Rompelberg in his prime.


Despite his "climber's build" he was a top motorpace racer and is the current world speed record holder at 167 MPH. He turned a gear of 390 inches, which is roughly the equivalent of a 164x11. (He used a double reduction system.)

The man's a legend.

Then there's Chris.....

They be thighs, I bet his tailor likes him... no pants in the world would fit off the rack.

i think that looks kinda gross
but its like his job so its cool

I was a motorpace specialist in the 80s. I can't recall any big muscle-y guys involved in it. Most of us (myself included) were actually kind of skinny. That game just isn't about power.

As unbelievable as Hoy was at what he did, I wonder if he would have been a decent stayer. The races generally went for 60 or 90 minutes and could cover nearly 100 kilometers, which isn't normally the kind of effort sprinters train for.

chris hoy on the left.

/pics of dude's legs.

gross

+1

I actually had a girl that was really impressed by my legs because they're pretty toned/muscular looking because of riding. I couldn't imagine having Hoy thighs, though. Bit of overkill.

I just wanna pop them.

I've gotten used to it.