October 1st, 2015 – At 116.19 km / h on the streets of the Nevada desert, the new Pulsar prototype, built by the Policumbent Team of the Turin Polytechnic, set a new Italian record for speed of a human-powered vehicle. The record was made during the World Human Powered Speed Challenge, held in Battle Mountain in recent days. The event, like every year, brought together the fastest cyclists and bikes in the world to deal to test their skills and assets in a 200-meter race that follows an 8-km run on a stretch of the SR305 crossing the Nevada desert plateau at an altitude of 1450 meters above sea level. The Policumbent Team is the first Italian team to ever participate in this unique event, debuting with the cyclist and student Andrea Gallo (born in 1987) who rode on the new Pulsar prototype. The 2 wheels prototype has a fairing and reclined sitting in composite material that lowers the aerodynamic resistance up to 20 times compared to a traditional bike. The competition in Nevada saw 26 prototypes from all over the world challenge each other. During the event, Gallo first set the official Italian record reaching 109.96 km/h, ameliorating it at 112.16 km/h, and finally securing it t 116.19 km/h in his last attempt. A result of which the cyclist and the team is proud, above the threshold of 70mph, an important reference for a first experience that ranked Andrea Gallo as one of the 24 fastest riders in history, and the Polytechnic of Turin in second place among the university teams. Overall, a major success for Policumbent, now laying the foundation to further promote research in the field of human-powered vehicles. With the experience gained in the field, the team is already improving the prototype to reach 80mph in 2016 and develop a totally new project that would undermine the current record of over 85mph by 2017/18. The technological and sports activities offers an ideal environment for research and development of solutions to be applied for human-powered vehicles, in particular velomobiles, a three-wheeled version for daily use. (Red)
