In a weeks time an elite collection of racers, engineers and their supporters will be assembled in Battle Mountain, Nevada, USA.  Each will be attempting to break various current human powered speed records, even if only their own personal best from previous years.

This year is set to be of more interest than usual.  Not only will Sam Whittingham be defending his current 2009 record of 82.819 mph.  There is a very serious contender in the Dutch Universities of Deft and Amsterdam and their Human Power Team with VeloX 2, a significantly revised design of the the original VeloX they raced last year, and packed full of technology.  To round off the competition, outsider and celebrity Scotsman, Graeme Obree is attempting to not only break the current record but aspires to smash it!  In an echo of his 1993/94 hour records on an upright bike he is attempting to pass 100 mph on a prone, head first, bike he has designed and built himself.  It should be obvious that it is Graeme and his Beastie who are featured on this year’s Battle Mountain Poster.

There are some who are quite skeptical that 100 mph will be passed, especially on a first attempt, but none-the-less there are many who are rooting for the “Flying Scotsman” to do well.  A couple of articles give more detail, one from the Daily Telegraph and one from Road.CC.

A short video showing Sam’s record setting run from 2008 is shown below.

Below is a montage of clips from 2009 which should give an idea what SR305 will be like next week.

There is also a documentary being produced based covering the last three years at Battle Mountain called Human Power.  Production is expected to be finished sometime in 2013.  Mean time there are more videos available on Georgi Georgiev’s Varna Website, the designer and builder of the record breaking bikes.

The current list of race entrants is given on this page. And result will be published here.