Windcheetah

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Windcheetah or Speedy is a recumbent tricycle designed by Mike Burrows in 1981 and is now produced by Bob Dixon's Advanced Vehicle Design (AVD Windcheetah Ltd.).

Windcheetah.jpg

Design

Its design is of the “Tadpole” type (two wheels at the front, one at the back) with a cross-shaped frame made of aluminum tubes. The wheel is designed in such a way that more is glued than welded during construction. It is controlled by an unusual fork device mounted on a universal joint so the rider can maintain control while leaning back. As is typical for Burrow's wheels, all three wheels are suspended in a cantilevered manner. The rear wheel has a diameter of ETRTO 559 (26 " ), the front wheels of ETRTO 406 (20 " ). The first models still had ETRTO 451 front and ETRTO 630 rear wheels. They then switched to ETRTO 369 Moulton rims for the front and ETRTO 541 rims for the rear. Some racing variants returned to the 451 front wheels in combination with a 622 rear wheel.

successes

The Windcheetah achieved almost legendary status. It has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum . There are also models in various technology museums.

The Windcheetah's influence stems from their success in various competitions, especially endurance competitions. Mike Burrows won the European HPV Championship twice on his own (modified) Speedy. The bike has broken at least six endurance records, including the record for the route from Land's End to John o 'Groats , which was broken in 1997 on a Windcheetah specially designed and built for the purpose. Andy Wilkinson covered the 1386 km long route in 41 hours, 4 minutes and 22 seconds at an average speed of 33.7 km / h - 4 hours below the previous record despite the loss of an hour due to a defect in one of the special titanium axles . Top speeds of over 110 km / h were reached on some descents.

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