the WHPVA hereby confirm that the WHPVA record committee has accepted the record attempt carried out
by Francesco Russo on July 27th, 2025, on the DEKRA Test Oval in Klettwitz, Germany in the category 6-hour time trial with standing start and closed course as the new world record. He achieved 401.464 km.
Congratulations!
The new world record will be published on the WHPVA website and the report can be made available to the public upon request and with permission of all persons involved.
You can buy a commercially available stand like this
OR
build your own like this:
This video shows how to build a trike stand to get the trike up off of the ground and make it easier to work on.
He uses 1 3/4″ (45mm) galvanised steel fence tubing but you can build it using PVC pressure pipe instead.
Lockable castors will help move it around your shed.
Build a trolly to get your recumbent tadpole trike into your apartment or a tight place.
Most trikes will not fit through a standard door opening.
This trolly allows you to hold the trike on its side and get it through a door opening and move it around easier.
| President | Duncan McDonald |
| Secretary | Tim Corbett |
| Treasurer | Adam Hari |
Chiltern – Gold rush era town, historic buildings, bakery/IGA, accomodation, good cycling
Has operational train service (VLine) access from Albury NSW/Melbourne VIC – central location for NSW, ACT and VIC members
Accomodation options – Hire Chiltern Memorial Hall via local council (3-4 nights, $100/night+$80 setup fee+$200 bond) https://www.indigoshire.vic.gov.au/Community/Community-facilities/Halls/Chiltern-Memorial-Hall – has kitchen/toilets/showers/AC/heating/internet/disabled amenities – BYO tent, sleep bag, pillow, mattress, etc
| Chiltern Memorial Hall | Indigo Shire Council Chiltern Memorial Hall The Chiltern Memorial Hall is a stylish and well-appointed facility that provides for the staging of cultural, educational, social, entertainment and business events; supporting the growth, development and connectedness of our community. The hall provides accommodation for the Lions Club of Chiltern, Chiltern Tennis Club, Chiltern Playgroup, the Ironbark Church, and the … www.indigoshire.vic.gov.au |
– Lake Anderson Caravan Park – unpowered/powered sites/cabins – from $40-175/night
Cycling Routes in the area (ridewithgps) – https://ridewithgps.com/explore?b=n!Chiltern!146.609330!-36.151215~15km)
Rides – 1/Chiltern – Rutherglen – Return
– 2/Rutherglen Loops – Town (4km); Wine(23km); Lake(14km); River(4km) https://www.victoriashighcountry.com.au/ride/rail-trails/rutherglen-loops/
-3/Around Chiltern – chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.explorechiltern.com.au/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/Chiltern-Cycling-Brochure.pdf
– Murray to Mountains Rail Trail – Rutherglen to Wahgunyah (18km return) chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.explorerutherglen.com.au/wp-content/uploads/sites/68/Murray-to-Mountains-Rail-Trail-Rutherglen-to-Wagunyah-Map-1.pdf
-4/Magenta Mine (15km loop) – cemetery, magenta mine
-5/Callitris (16km loop, 4km sealed) – quiet, sheltered ride thru low hills, ironbark forest
-6/Chiltern Valley (20km loop, 9km sealed) – Donchi Hill Lookout, machinery museum, Dams 1&2
-7/Honeyeater (24km loop, 7km sealed) – Honeyeater picnic area and Dam, Attreys Reef thru ironbark and white box forests
-8/Chiltern gravel loop – Start/Fin Chiltern pool, 26km/+269m (chiltern_loop.gpx) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blzVwVsRz1Q
Pics from recent visit
© 1996-2006 Raptor Designs Pty Ltd. (Last Update 19th May 2006)
The majority of tail fairings and tailboxes on recumbents are either full composite fibreglass or carbon fibre, or they are home made in Corflute (Coreplast) which is a plastic sheet material used by signwriters.
The composite units are expensive and a large investment in time for a homebuilder.
The coreflute ones, well, put bluntly they look a bit scrappy, and it’s hard to mould coreflute into complex curves – not that it can’t be done, of course!
I saw how effective the best fairings at the Greenspeed Challenge appeared to be (admittedly the bikes in question were being ridden by fairly athletic types), and decided to have a try myself.
This fairing is made using a combination of current composite technology and old fabric aircraft techniques.
To get the profile right for the rider so that the air flows a smoothly as possible, the first step in the whole process was to tape a large cardboard sheet up behind the seat, sit in it, and trace around the body onto the sheet.
This is then reproduced in 13mm blue Dow styrofoam and becomes the base onto which everything else is attached.
The internal frame of the fairing is made of thin ribs of the blue styrofoam cut using a “stanley” knife.
This is higher density than the white stuff and can be sculpted and sanded.
The ribs are tacked together onto the seat-backing using 5 minute epoxy (like Araldite)
Each rib is traced as a mirror image to get the whole thing symetrical.
The completed frame is reinforced with 50mm wide fibreglass tape wetted with epoxy resin (proper stuff for fibreglass work).
This provides rigidity as well as providing a barrier so that other glues and paints won’t disolve the stryrofoam. You can’t use polyester resin – it will melt the foam.
The frame is then covered with Stitts PolyFibre (or Ceconite) and glued on using PolyBrush.
These are an unshrunken polyester with a relatively open weave compared with your business shirt!
A hot air gun is used to then shrink the fabric to drum-tight.
The open weave of the fabric is then filled by brushing on more PolyBrush.
Once dry, it was painted, then a sealing strip of light “expansion joint” foam was glued around the edge to provide a good seal to the rider’s body.
A simple contact glue was used for this.
The fairing was designed to slip over the bike’s rack and lock into place. There’s a luggage compartment behind the rider.
The whole thing weighs only 1.2 kilograms!
Performance:
1) On two major rides on windy days against other bikes.
First impressions were that against the wind and on the flat at speed I definitely don’t have to work so hard.
When riding with others down hills, I tended to draw ahead (I could coast while they had to pedal at times to maintain speed against the wind).
2) Controlled test on a slope. On a calm day I did several roll-downs on a slope near home with a bike computer attached (and calibrated against a GPS).
The terminal velocity on this slope is about 30km/hr on this bike (ie: you accelerate to about 30km/hr, but no further thanks to wind resistance).
In multiple tests, the bike with fairing was always 1.5 to 2km/hr faster when it reached terminal velocity.
It’s not a big difference, but if you consider that the effects of drag acrue as the SQUARE of air speed, it can make a big difference to the required effort if you’re bucking a major headwind!!!!
Being so light it has no effect on my climb capability, such as it is.
Note: it’s also very quiet, with no road noise resonance because of the flexible fabric structure.
If you have ever thought of building your own machine, this could give you some ideas.
Check out The Shed page first.
After fun 25 years of bike building, Atomic Zombie is going to retire, so he has made up this “Master Collection” that contains everything he has ever built.
This special will remain up until he transitions into a new phase of life.
For more information on all 40 DIY Plans, you can see a details page on ChopZone.com.
Thanks to all those who have put a grinder to a bike frame!
Recumbents come in a huge variety of styles, weights, comfort levels and prices.
There is something for everybody.
The question is, which one is right for you?
That depends on:
Honza Galla and Matt Galat discuss their preferences
Adam has plans on increasing the Australian land speed record from 75 miles per hour to the next mile per hour hat of 80.
This will put him in the top 10 fastest human ever and the fastest person ever to build and race their own bike without sponsorship.
Adam’s bike was flown over to America last year and has stayed there in storage at the big chief motel for the past year. This means no shipping fee this year and allows him to continue his racing career year to year.
He has improvements planned to be made to his streamliner before this year’s event that will squeeze some extra watts of efficiency and hopefully be enough to get him over the 80mph barrier.
The first is a more reliable battery system for the camera and electronics. Previously individual 18650 lithium cells were joined together to create a larger capacity bank of 12volts.
These were time consuming to charge and at risk of failure. If one failed the entire system would fail. These will be replaced with Milwaukee 12v 5ah battery banks. Off the shelf item means fast charging and extremely easy to source replacement parts if needed.
The second is a new set of wheels.
The wheels used in 2024 were built when Adam was first learning to use carbon fibre and composite materials. This meant the wheels were over engineered and weigh 4.5kg each. The surface finish on the front wheel is also not ideal for optimal efficiency inside the wheel fairing.
The new wheels being built will be designed using years of experience Adam has gained.
They will save a whopping 2kg per wheel in weight. This 4kg saving should make acceleration easier not only because there is less weight to accelerate but also because there is far less rotational mass to accelerate.
Finally, Adam is looking into improving the efficiency of rolling resistance. See the link to a video trisled recently did showing the difference inner tubes can make to rolling resistance. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMCRKP_h9wg
In 2024 adam used butyl rubber inner tubes. This year he plans to swap them out with tpu inner tubes and hopefully find a faster make of tyre to go with that. Even only a few watts of saving can mean a big difference to top speed when 300watts get the streamliner to over 75mph/121kmh.
Other minor improvements include more thorough taping of the fairing seam and installing a plastic sheet to separate the brake discs from the cockpit to limit any harmful smoke produced during braking entering his lungs.
Other teams planning to attend this year are Russell Bridge with the team 77 hoping to break the British record of 77mph and the French university Annecy with rider Francois Pervis who is aiming to break the overall land speed record of 89mph.
OzHPV have just received confirmation from WHPVA that they have ratified all records at the recent Lang-Lang event! The records have already been posted to their website:
Competition Records – World Human Powered Vehicle Association
Congratulations to the riders and their new distance records!
OzHPV will be working to update its record list on our website.
We note that it is now out of date with records set in the last 18months not shown and apologise to the people affected.