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Of course the thing that made Fred Rompelberg's 167mph possible was the traditional Brooks leather saddle he used. Proper British craftsmanship...
Reg reader Richard Smith has called for one Brit to be awarded a Special Projects Bureau medal after strapping a shed to a Ford Zephyr and and chasing it on a bicycle. Custom bike frame wrangler Tom Donhou hit 128km/h as he powered his improbably-geared machine behind the classic motor. The project wasn't planned to break the …
"I feel the need, the need for speed!"
I'll get my coat ;-)
Seriously though, they say invention and adventure is dead, well wake up British media (present company excepted) it's out there, you just have to want to show it instead of the reality drivel that clutters our TV from morning to night. Raspberry Pi, Dyson, Trevor Baylis, Thrust SSC and things like this are what make Britain great
That maybe, but it doesn't detract from the fact that their inventions have helped change the world around us.
And how many R&D jobs are still in this country BECAUSE the company is still around to employ people at all?
As for Trevor Bayliss, just look at the number of wind-up torches, mobile chargers, radios et. al. And all based on his simple concept, of course he'd want to protect his ideas wouldn't you?
Both ideas were the snowball that started an avalanche of progress.
Defending Trevor Bayliss ? A bit different from El Reg comments on him on previous occasions. Try these shit storms of ridicule, from which I take one choice quote each :-
http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/1/2013/02/19/baylis_protect_inventors/#c_1735254
"there were hand cranked radios at least as far back as World War II, so he definitely didn't invent the general concept. A cursory search on Google Patents reveals a 1942 patent for a "Spring Driven Electric Generator" by Robert Leslie Haynes et al"
http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/2/2009/09/02/patent_infrigement_criminal_offence/#c_574408
.. from which the very first comment was :- "Trevor Baylis...is an unmitigated prick, as anyone who has ever seen or heard him speak will know full well"
A clockwork radio is in the realms of the bleedin obvious. If I'd needed to make one it would have been simple enough and it would not have entered my wildest dreams to have patented it. I would not have "wanted to protect my idea". In fact, as an engineer and hobbyist myself, similar in some ways to Bayliss, I have had many ideas, and constructed them (or, at work, have had them made), but would never dream of entering the patent minefield. They have been used by my employer, or just for myself, or once as a hobby magazine article for anyone else to copy. How many R&D jobs do you need for a clockwork torch ? - sounds like a variant on the light bulb joke.
BTW, Dyson is a sack of shit. My wife has had to deal with him personally in business matters, and he is quite different from the charm act he uses in public.
I recognize Cliff in that video. He made the track control rod on our pedal racing car.
It's already been and gone this year but if you find yourself at a loose end in the new forest next summer the pedal car grand prix is a nice diversion and a few Royce creations can be seen in action.
http://vimeo.com/70318766
No chance the Ford Capri long expired and crushed way before Chavs where even thought of.
My guess is FHM (the Chav mag) got confused between Capri and Corsa.
Which we all know is the ultimate aspiration for chav teens or Seat Ibiza for the slightly more well off chav working at Maccy Ds.
XR Fords - I remember them well, commonly seen in rear view mirrors.
Boy racers, nothing like deflating a couple revving at traffic lights, riding between them, and beating both of them, on a 250!. However a Cossie Sierra took a 600 to leave it behind.
XR3is seemed to crop up everywhere, often picking on smaller Rootes Group cars, lets just say the old high compression Avenger 1600 engine is very pokey, and please check the Sunbeam engine options.
Had a draw in a TLGP against a 2.0 Capri while driving an Avenger estate! (I knew them)
Even my mum in a Reliant 3 wheeler had a XR3 try it one once.
It should have been shot from much closer, from time to time we can make out identifiable mechanical or body parts. Surely a mistake. There's even a whole _face_ at one point, inexcusably wide shot, surely anything larger than a pimple is too wide to be shown in its entirety in any self-respecting video these days.
Very impressive but he could have avoided all the specialized engineering and construction of his bike by simply attaching a 3 foot tow rope to the auto's rear bumper. Something similar was tried by another record seeking bicyclist, but he reversed the sprockets. Unfortunately he did not succeed, painfully blowing out his knee at 3700 RPM.
As to the Brooks leather saddle, it's manufacture was featured on an episode of "How its made". It is very comforting to see a hand crafted product still being made in traditional ways in this world of injection molding.