The Wattbikes were very popular all weekend at BikeRadar Live with hundreds of people getting peak power and 200m scores. The most famous of the riders were Graeme Obree and Brian Lopes. Both legends in their own area of the sport, Graeme a two time pursuit world champion and former holder of the world one hour record was not really suited to the type of racing that we were doing – infact he posted 885Watts for the Peak Power and 12.09s for the two hundred metres, which would have left him a ways off the leaders – make it an hour though and he would be dangerous! Brian in comparison was much more suited to the peak power and 200m. As a four times World Champion, in 4x, 8x and Dual he understands getting a quick start and certainly has some impressive leg speed. In his warm up he produced a peak cadence of 188r/m and a peak power of 1630W on setting 1. Once we moved the resitance to level 6 and had the 200m race he was even more impressive. He recorded a peak power of 1689W and a time of 9.51s for the 200m very impressiev stuff and the fastest 200m of the day – the second fastest coming in the same race with a 9.53s.
A good weekend all round with much interest in the Wattbikes. The DHL trailer will now be moving around the country visiting DHL centres – we will keep you posted.
After a day in London yesterday discussing the future of the Wattbike website with our friends at Metia it would seem obvious that I should spend this morning in Stoke-on-Trent at Don-Bur in the back of a DHL Artic. It was certainly an educational morning, but the important question is “Why?”.
Wattbike have teamed up with DHL to provide a travelling Wattbike activity area – it just happens that for DHL that can be delivered on the back of an Artic. The basic premise is that the trailer will have up to ten Wattbikes, three screens, a registration table and if all goes to plan, hundreds of people around the country trying out the Wattbikes. The Wattbikes will be positioned facing outwards, on one side of the trailer with the three screens behind the bikes. When the trailer arrives at its desired location, the curtain on one side will be rolled back, the power plugged in, and the Wattbikes will be ready for action. If the weather is good the roof also peels back to allow some indoor cycling in the sun. The trailer is being fitted out by Don-Bur, who are the countries leading specialist in the design and manufacture of commercial vehicle trailers and bodywork, and as well as fitting some clever safety features they will be fitting the racks for the screens and the Wattbikes. As the global leaders in international express and logistics, DHL will be moving the trailer around their sites to introduce the Wattbikes to their staff and raise money for Unicef, but for one weekend only the trailer will be available to the general public at Bikeradar Live. We will be running races, raising money for Unicef and generally putting all-comers through their paces on the Wattbikes, so come to Donnington Park on the 30-31st May, have a great weekend out and find out about the Wattbikes at the same time.
We spent the morning hammering out the details of the Wattbike area at Bikeradar live, and we are getting a bit excited. The event will have a load of exciting races, including a flying lap of the race track that will soon be used for the F1 Grand Prix, a downhill mountain bike race, a sportif and of course the Wattbike event. The Wattbike area will be supported by DHL who have become fans of the Wattbike through their DHL Sprint days where they use the Wattbikes as part of their testing and coaching of young athletes.
Keep checking up on the progress of Bikeradar Live through any of Future Publishing’s titles
