Bursford’s Ultimate

Ultimate is right. I have posted old superbikes from Lotus and Hotta before, but this picture just reminds me that I need to post more of those crazy bikes from the 90s that I love so much. In the mid 90s, Bruce Bursford was passionate about speed on a bicycle and breaking records. Using technology and materials from F1 racing and the aerospace industry, he built the “Ultimate Bike” a version of which is shown here. Sadly, Bruce was killed by a van while on a training ride in 2000.

I just found this great page about his Ultimate Bike via Stumbleupon, so I wanted to pass it along. Check out the gearing on this LOLA labeled bike (a maker of Indy cars). Wow! That makes a 53 x 11 look pretty wimpy. I guess that is why I hardly ever get up to 207 mph on the flats.

Posted

April 11, 2008

James

Tags:

90s, Bruce Bursford, LOLA, record bike, Ultimate

Comments

7 responses to “Bursford’s Ultimate”

erik k

April 11, 2008

that bike is pretty much awesome, I would definitely like to find out what it would be like to ride that thing, its cool to see how far things have come from their origins, as a look at this much older bike shows, but the similarities are still pretty obvious too

Reply
Ron

April 12, 2008

At 82 mph, the wind drag is a factor of velocity squared. No wonder he decided to break the record on a ‘treadmill’

Reply
James

April 14, 2008

Yeah Ron, I wish I could average the same speed in the real world that I can on my rollers.

Reply
James

April 14, 2008

Erik, I forgot to mention; great pic of the old Schwinn. Thanks for the link. That chainwheel looks like it would be close to touching the boards on the track.

Reply
Ricardo Tavares

April 15, 2008

Great Blog you have!That´s a really good vibes to bycicle design what you show here.
Continue the good work!
Greetings from Portugal Unidos Pelo Pedal Blog!
Bye

Reply
Parker

April 16, 2008

James,

I really enjoy your posts on super bikes! It’s like looking at an alternate design reality.

Reply
liam

November 24, 2008

LOTUS BIKES! i’ve been trying to find information on these bikes. I recently got a Lotus Legend and have it set up as a fixed, and it is a fantastic bike. please let me know if you have a website i can go to.

bonorox at gmail

thanks!

Reply