A dark desert highway, cool wind in the hair. The sun peeks up behind the mountain and lights up the desert plateau. My fingers bite in the cold and I dig my gloves out, close my eyes and pull my headphones back over my ears, lulling myself into a relaxed state. A 40 minute warm-up has eased into dawn, and now the strip of tar across the Nevada desert is about to close to traffic. Laid in a handbike enclosed within a dark egg-like aerodynamic pod, this is one of the scariest endeavours I’ve ever partaken in: soon for another attempt at the World Human-Powered Vehicle landspeed record for arms.
I pull on my gloves, breath sharp in the chill, and settle into focus. ‘Staging’ onto the road is announced. Minutes later, I am helped into the handbike and the pod seals around me—carbon fibre, claustrophobic, an eggshell designed for speed. There is no horizon now, no sky, only a phone-sized screen showing the strip of tarmac ahead through a tiny periscope lens.
We launch. Every bump, every rattle booms through the shell, the sound of fragility at full tilt. Five miles to build, five miles to hold the line, and at the end, a narrow timing gate, two-hundred metres where we chase max speeds. This is not just a ride. It’s the razor edge between engineering and performance, control and chaos, failure and possibility.
But ‘failure’ is never that. It’s learning.
After seven years away, we have been back with the University of Liverpool Velocipede (ULV) Team in Nevada (8-13th September) with one clear goal: to design and ride a bike that beats / reclaims the hand-cycling land speed record* for a female and male rider, at the World Human Powered Speed Challenge.
High performance is never just about strength or willpower. It is always a dance between controllable and uncontrollable factors.
The week kicked off and it didn’t take long for the drama to start. The team hadn’t had time to test the bike on an open-road at realistic speeds, and the steering felt all over the place—too much play in the system meant major wobbles every time we tried to hold the bike steady on the long desert straight. I was very relieved to crawl out of the capsule afterwards. The engineering students jumped straight in, tweaking and tightening until the steering felt solid and rideable.
Even with the fixes though, something was still off. The speeds just weren’t there. Lots of head scratching and some thoughtful tinkering, the team pulled in advice from other riders, aero experts, and anyone with a clever idea to try. For the tech-curious among you, here’s a flavour of what we’ve been playing with:
- Rolling resistance – The road feels rougher this year, so we’ve been fiddling with tyre pressures to reduce drag.
- Aerodynamics – Think tiny details: sanding, polishing, even peeling off sponsor stickers. Later in the week we added velcro tabs on the shell to try and smooth out turbulence and a tail-end designed to reduce aero drag.
- Dominant forces – Mechanical, gravitational and aero resistance forces and their relative impact on a handbike versus a two-wheeled velocipede.
- Weather – The desert has been throwing curveballs: more humid air, colder temps, and even storms that cancelled rides. All of that equals more drag.
Despite all the tweaks, the speeds just haven’t clicked into place. It was disappointing for the team after so much effort that we came away with no new records, but we’re not the only ones. Pretty much everyone here is seeing slower times this year. Huge kudos though to the French team Altair (Annecy), who managed to bag a new European record with their sleek new bike at 88mph.
The week has been about so much more than numbers on a speedo. It’s been an intensive course in engineering, teamwork, creative problem-solving, and the fine art of chasing the outer limits of human-powered design. Every ride, even the messy ones, has taught us something new. It’s been fantastic for us all to have the chance to keep learning, keep pushing, and keep chasing what’s possible.
Thanks to all the team from Liverpool University Mechanical Engineering Department, the first-class Masters students (Michael, Yoshino, Olly, Tom, Aidan, Izzy & Bailey) sponsors, organisers, volunteers and everyone involved in such a fun, crazy and fascinating annual challenge. Not sure when we’ll be back but never say never!
It was great to have coaching support again from my long-time coach John at Endurance Bike and Run, hydration support from Precision Hydration, and connection to innovation with Clinisupplies.
* Myself and Ken Talbot both broke the world record in 2018: 46.54 mph (74.91km/h) and 51.58 (83.02km/h) respectively. Whilst my record still stands, the Italian team with rider Diego Colombari broke Ken’s male record in 2024 by just 0.17 mph at 51.75mph (83.28km/h).
