Mont Ventoux — In the Provence region of southern France — is the mountain mecca for road bike enthusiasts. Jam-packed with glorious, sweeping, alpine roads and stunning scenery, “what a location!” I hear you say. Believe me, the selection of a location was no easy task. Mont Ventoux (Photo – Channel 4) To give us an idea of […]
The gravity racer was designed and constructed by the team at CSER (Heather Driscoll, Terry Senior, Alice Bullas, John Hart and Christina King). As with most engineering projects, we did not have an unlimited budget or time, so where possible we tried to use and modify bought in components. Modify is the key word though; […]
When we accepted the challenge of designing a gravity racer we were inundated with offers of help: tips on what we should do, recommendations for which parts we should be using etc. It seemed that nearly everyone we spoke to was an expert! While some of their advice was gratefully received we decided to spend a bit […]
Following our successful Speed with Guy Martin challenge last year (where we smashed the gravity sled record at a whopping 134.368 kph / 83.49 mph) North One TV decided to get in touch again and see if we would help to set the gravity racer record with Guy Martin (http://www.guymartinracing.co.uk/about-guy/racing/) at the helm? Hmm let me […]
Water skis on snow? Really? Although the idea might sound crazy to you and me, it made perfect sense to the late Shane McConckey, back in 1998. A professional skier and BASE jumper, Shane is considered to be the father of what is known as “rocker” technology, which has revolutionised the ski industry in the […]
After a regrettably lengthy hiatus from the blog, this article was inspired by the excellent aerodynamics segments of the ITV’s tour de France coverage (in collaboration with Southampton University). Cycling aerodynamics in the 1980’s A few years ago my colleague Dr Richard Lukes wrote a review paper titled “The understanding and development of cycling aerodynamics” […]
Engineering Sport 