You were
speeding, boys...
White Lightning was the first Human
Powered Vehicle (which includes all kinds of bicycles) to
break 55 mph, which was the National Speed Limit at the
time, and in the process also won the $3000 Abbott
prize. The riders receiving the mock speeding ticket were
Jan Russell and Butch Stinton, the year was 1979, the
place was Ontario Motor Speedway in Southern
California.
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Historical Notes from Tim
on bike development and testing...
We tested models in the wind tunnel, rather than do
full scale tests, because it was easier and much less
expensive to try various shapes and modifications. In
other works, we obtained a lot more data than if we had
done full scale test.
Nowadays, I wouldn't even do wind tunnel tests, but use a
computational fluid dynamics program on a powerful PC.
The thing about wind tunnel tests is that it tells you
very little about real world overall performance. In the
real world, bike performance depends not only on
aero drag, but also rider power output, frame/drive train
efficiency, and handling. Also, aero drag varies
greatly in cross winds, and can greatly increase if the
vehicle is not properly designed. Most published wind
tunnel tests do not take all these factors into
consideration; thus the results are only useful to
compare downhill speeds with no cross winds. Only a very
small part of most bike rides are done in these
conditions.
The White Lightning which I developed in the wind tunnel
22 years ago only raced on flat tracks with large
corners, and in low wind conditions (required by the
rules). In real world riding conditions, the other
factors are as important as wind drag, if no more so.
This is why our F-40 and F-90 hold numerous long distance
open-road records, they take ALL these factors into
consideration.
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White Lightning at the Ontario
Speedway
White Lightning Model Wind Tunnel
Tests
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