Graeme Obree The bike
What was unique about Obree's bike?
What was unique about Obree's bike?
Obree had built frames for his bike shop and made another for his record attempt. Instead of traditional dropped handlebars it had straight bars like those of a mountain bike. He placed them closer to the saddle than usual and rode with the bars under his chest, his elbows bent and tucked into his sides like those of a skier. Watching a washing machine spin at 1,200rpm led him to take the bearings, which he assumed must be of superior quality, and fit them to his bike. Obree later regretted admitting to the bearings experiment, because journalists referred to that before his achievements and other innovations.  Obree called his bike "Old Faithful". It has a narrow bottom bracket, around which the cranks revolve, to bring his legs closer together, as he thought this is the "natural" position. As shown in the film, he thought a tread of "one banana" would be ideal. The bike has no top tube, so that his knees did not hit the frame. The chainstays are not horizontal to the ground. Thus the cranks can pass with a narrow bottom bracket. The fork had only one blade, carefully shaped to be as narrow as possible. A French writer who tried it said the narrow handlebars made it hard to accelerate the machine in a straight line but, once it was at speed, he could hold the bars and get into Obree's tucked style.  At a high enough speed, [I could] tuck in my arms. And, above all, get in a very forward position on the bike, on the peak of the saddle. The Obree position isn't advantageous simply aerodynamically, it also allows, by pushing the point of pedalling towards the rear, to benefit from greater pressure while remaining in the saddle. You soon get an impression of speed, all the greater because you've got practically nothing [deux fois rien] between your hands. Two other things I noticed after a few hundred metres: I certainly didn't have the impression of turning 53 x 13, and the Obree position is no obstruction to breathing. But I wasn't pedalling at 55kmh, 100 turns of the pedals a minute, yet my arms already hurt. CANNOTANSWER
Obree had built frames for his bike shop and made another for his record attempt. Instead of traditional dropped handlebars it had straight bars like those of a mountain bike.
Graeme Obree (born 11 September 1965), nicknamed The Flying Scotsman, is a Scottish racing cyclist who twice broke the world hour record, in July 1993 and April 1994, and was the individual pursuit world champion in 1993 and 1995. He was known for his unusual riding positions and for the Old Faithful bicycle he built which included parts from a washing machine. He joined a professional team in France but was fired before his first race. He also competed in the men's individual pursuit at the 1996 Summer Olympics.

Obree has created some radical innovations in bicycle design and cycling position but has had problems with the cycling authorities banning the riding positions his designs required. Obree has been very open about living with bipolar disorder and depression, and the fact that he has attempted suicide three times in his life, using his experiences as a means of encouraging other sportspeople to talk about their own mental health.

His life and exploits have been dramatised in the 2006 film The Flying Scotsman and more recently in the documentary film Battle Mountain: Graeme Obree's Story, which follows his journey to Battle Mountain, Nevada to compete in the 2013 World Human Powered Speed Championships.

In March 2010 he was inducted into the Scottish Sports Hall of Fame.

Biography

Origins
Obree was born in Nuneaton, a large town in northern Warwickshire, England, but has lived almost all his life in Scotland and considers himself Scottish. An individual time triallist, his first race was a 10-mile time trial to which he turned up wearing shorts, anorak and Doc Marten boots. He thought the start and finish were at the same place and stopped where he had started, 100 metres short of the end. He had started to change his clothes when officials told him to continue. He still finished in "about 30 minutes."

In 2011 Obree came out as gay. Obree suffers from bipolar disorder. He attempted suicide in his teens by gassing himself. He was saved by his father, who had returned early from work. In the 1990s he took an overdose of aspirin washed down by water from a puddle. He had personality problems, sniffed the gas he used to weld bicycles, and was being chased for £492 owed in college fees.

The bike shop that he ran failed and he decided the way out of his problems was to attack the world hour velodrome record. It had been held for nine years by Francesco Moser, at 51.151 kilometres. Obree said:

The record had fascinated me since Moser broke it. It was the ultimate test – no traffic, one man in a velodrome against the clock. I didn't tell myself that I will attempt the record, I said I would break it. When your back is against the wall, you can say it's bad or you can say: 'I'll go for it.' I decided, that's it, I've as good as broken the record.

The bike
Obree had built frames for his bike shop and made another for his record attempt. Instead of traditional dropped handlebars it had straight bars like those of a mountain bike. He placed them closer to the saddle than usual and rode with the bars under his chest, his elbows bent and tucked into his sides like those of a skier. Watching a washing machine spin at 1,200rpm led him to take the bearings, which he assumed must be of superior quality, and fit them to his bike. Obree later regretted admitting to the bearings experiment, because journalists referred to that before his achievements and other innovations.

Obree called his bike "Old Faithful". It has a narrow bottom bracket, around which the cranks revolve, to bring his legs closer together, as he thought this is the "natural" position. As shown in the film, he thought a tread of "one banana" would be ideal. The bike has no top tube, so that his knees did not hit the frame. The chainstays are not horizontal to the ground. Thus the cranks can pass with a narrow bottom bracket. The fork had only one blade, carefully shaped to be as narrow as possible. A French writer who tried it said the narrow handlebars made it hard to accelerate the machine in a straight line but, once it was at speed, he could hold the bars and get into Obree's tucked style.

At a high enough speed, [I could] tuck in my arms. And, above all, get in a very forward position on the bike, on the peak of the saddle. The Obree position isn't advantageous simply aerodynamically, it also allows, by pushing the point of pedalling towards the rear, to benefit from greater pressure while remaining in the saddle. You soon get an impression of speed, all the greater because you've got practically nothing [deux fois rien] between your hands. Two other things I noticed after a few hundred metres: I certainly didn't have the impression of turning 53 × 13, and the Obree position is no obstruction to breathing. But I wasn't pedalling at 55 km/h, 100 turns of the pedals a minute, yet my arms already hurt.

Taking the record 
Obree attacked Moser's record, on 16 July 1993, at the Vikingskipet velodrome in Norway. He failed by nearly a kilometre. He had booked the track for 24 hours and decided to come back the next day. The writer Nicholas Roe said:

To stop his aching body seizing up, Obree then took the unusual measure of drinking pint upon pint of water so that he had to wake up to go to the lavatory every couple of hours through the night. Each time he got up, he stretched his muscles. On the next weary day, he was up and out within minutes, at the deserted velodrome by 7:55 am and on the track ready to start just five minutes after that. He had barely slept. He had punished his body hugely the previous day. Surely this was a waste of time?

Obree said:

I was Butch Cassidy in terms of swagger. I didn't want any negativity. This was blitzkrieg. I'm going in there. Let me do it. I'm not going to be the timorous guy from Scotland. That's what the difference was. Purely mental state. The day before, I had been a mouse. Now I was a lion.

On 17 July 1993, Obree set a new record of 51.596 kilometres, beating Moser's record of 51.151 kilometres by 445 metres.

Losing the record
Obree's triumph lasted less than a week. On 23 July 1993, the British Olympic champion, Chris Boardman broke Obree's record by 674 metres, riding 52.270 km at Bordeaux. His bike had a carbon monocoque frame, carbon wheels, and a triathlon handlebar. Their rivalry grew: a few months later Obree knocked Boardman out of the world championship pursuit to take the title himself.

Regaining the record
Francesco Moser, whose record Obree had beaten, adopted Obree's riding position—adding a chest pad—and established not an outright world record but a veterans' record of 51.84 kilometres. He did it on 15 January 1994, riding in the thin air of Mexico City as he had for his outright record, whereas Obree and Boardman had ridden at close to sea level.

Obree retook the record on 27 April 1994, using the track that Boardman had used at Bordeaux. He had bolted his shoes to his pedals, to avoid what had happened in the final of the national pursuit championship, when he pulled his foot off the pedal during his starting effort.

He rode 52.713 kilometres, a distance beaten on 2 September 1994 by the Spanish Tour de France winner, Miguel Induráin.

Old Faithful banned
The world governing body, the Union Cycliste Internationale, grew concerned that changes to bicycles were making a disproportionate influence to track records. Among other measures, it banned his riding position: he did not find out until one hour before he began the world championship pursuit in Italy. Judges disqualified him when he refused to comply. The magazine Cycling Weekly blamed "petty-minded officialdom."

Obree developed another riding position, the "Superman" style, his arms fully extended in front, and he won the individual pursuit at the world championships with this and Old Faithful in 1995. That position was also banned. However, in May 2014 the UCI relented, acknowledging that fixing the kind of equipment to be used was hindering technical progress. It restored previous banned world records, from 2000, now to be described as "Best hour performance".

The original Old Faithful bike is on display at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, while two near-replicas built for use in the Flying Scotsman film are displayed in the Riverside Transport Museum in Glasgow.

In March 2018, Obree tested another replica of Old Faithful in the Mercedes-Benz F1 team's wind tunnel to gauge the aerodynamic efficiency of his various riding positions on the bike, having never previously participated in wind-tunnel testing. It was found that the  (drag coefficient) of Obree's initial "tuck" or "crouch" position was 0.17, compared to a conventional 1990s bike position of 0.20 and a modern conventional position of 0.188, leading to an estimated gain in speed of about 2-2.5 km/h over his rivals in the 1990s and a gain of 1.5 km/h over contemporary track cyclists: meanwhile the "Superman" position was found only to be marginally more efficient than the 1990s conventional position, and less efficient than the modern conventional position. Obree however noted that the discomfort of the "crouch" position takes a lot of energy out of the rider through holding the hands and shoulders in place, whilst the "Superman" position was much more manageable.

Other achievements
Obree was individual pursuit world champion in 1993 and 1995. He broke the British 10-mile individual time trial record in 1993, won the RTTC 50-mile championship the same year (a record 1h 39m 1s), and won the 25-mile championship in 1996. In 1997 he joined forces with coach Joe Beer and clocked 18m 36s in a 10-mile time trial (V718 Hull) and next day won the British Cycling Federation 25-mile championship - this was part of building towards an hour record attempt that was to be eventually shelved.

The writer Peter Bryan, of The Times, said:

To see Obree in full flight, shoulders hunched and elbows tucked into his ribs, is a memorable sight. His face contorted with pain illustrates the effort he is putting in. And yet, not too many minutes after he has finished a ride the champion is sufficiently relaxed to talk with a queue of pressmen.

Professional career
Obree rode his hour records as an amateur. He took a professional licence after winning his first world championship, telling Bryan: "I reckon I can make more money on the bike than I get from unemployment benefit."

He joined Le Groupement, a French team but did not attend a meeting in Les Carroz d'Arâches (fr) and was fired for "lack of professionalism." Obree had been racing in Florida when the team first met. But he was on holiday there when the team met again for publicity photographs. He got to the next get-together but flew to Paris instead of Lille, where the meeting was held.

The team manager, Patrick Valcke, said:

"If a rider has that attitude, it's best to stop working together as soon as possible. We paid for his tickets [to fly from Glasgow to Geneva] and he didn't even turn up, didn't even phone to explain why he was not coming. He said that he did not want to leave his family so soon after the death of his brother (see below) but he could have phoned to tell us that. I don't want any more to do with him."

Obree said: "I was too ill to attend the get-together and had no success when I attempted to contact team officials on 1 January. My wife, Anne, who is a nurse, insisted I was not well enough to travel to France."

The Le Groupement team fell apart after a short time, when the sponsoring company was involved in scandal, with accusations that it was nothing but a pyramid selling scheme. Some of the team members claimed that they were owed money, and their wages had not been paid.

Attitude to doping
Obree said of his short professional career:

"I still feel I was robbed of part of my career. I was signed up to ride in the prologue of the Tour back in 1995, but it was made very obvious to me I would have to take drugs. I said no, no way, and I was sacked by my team. So there I was, 11 years later, sitting there waiting for the Tour cyclists to come by, and something welled up in me. I feel I was robbed by a lot of these bastards taking drugs. I also hate the way that people think anyone who has ever achieved anything on a bike must have been taking drugs. I was surprised how resentful I felt when I was in Paris. It had obviously been simmering away in there for years. That's something new I'll have to talk to my therapist about."

In 1996, he told the magazine L'Équipe:

"In my opinion, 99 percent of riders at élite level take EPO or a similar drug, not particularly to dope themselves but to be at the same level as the others. And that's rather sad."

His web site says:

"AND by the way, I never took drugs to improve my performance at any time as has been happening in the sport for a long time. I will be willing to stick my finger into a polygraph test if anyone with big media pull wants to take issue. In other words, if you buy a signed poster now it will not be tarnished later."

Further suicide attempt 
Obree's brother, Gordon, died in a car crash in October 1994, and Graeme Obree again slid in and out of depression. In 2001 he was found unconscious at Bellsland Farm in Kilmaurs, 12 km from his Ayrshire home. The Obree family horse was stabled there, and he was discovered by a woman checking a barn. He had tried to hang himself. His wife, Anne, said he had been diagnosed as having severe bipolar disorder three years earlier.

Present day
Obree is divorced from his wife, with whom he has two children. He continues to race occasionally in individual time trials for Ayrshire-based Fullarton Wheelers cycling club. In May 2005, he crashed in the rain in the national 10-mile time trial championship near Nantwich in Cheshire. He was a member of the winning three-man club squad that took the team title in the Scottish 10-mile championship in May 2006. In December 2006, he competed in the track event, Revolution 15, in a four kilometre pursuit challenge.

In January 2011, Obree disclosed in an interview with the Scottish Sun that he is gay and that his difficulty with coming to terms with his sexual orientation contributed to his earlier suicide attempts. "I was brought up by a war generation; they grew up when gay people were put in jail. Being homosexual was so unthinkable that you just wouldn't be gay. I'd no inkling about anything, I just closed down." He came out to his family in 2005.

New Hour record attempt
In May 2009, Obree announced that he would make an attempt at the "Athlete's Hour" record on a bike he had built himself during 2009. Obree said in October 2009 that the attempt had been cancelled as the bike he'd built himself was not suitable for the conditions. He will not be attempting this again.

In December 2009, he was inducted into the British Cycling Hall of Fame while in March 2010, he was inducted into the Scottish Sports Hall of Fame.

Human-powered vehicle land speed record

In December 2011, Obree announced that he would make an attempt at the human-powered vehicle (HPV) land speed record, hoping to hit 100 mph. In May 2012, he revealed that the bike he is building for this attempt is a prone bike.
The attempt was originally to take place in Britain, and the record speed was then . However, he competed in the 2013 World Human Powered Speed Championships in Battle Mountain, Nevada, where the record was also set. He achieved a speed of  on the morning of Friday, 13 September.

While Obree did not break the HPV land speed record, he did set a new record for a rider in the prone position. The previous day, Obree had set a speed of , which was a record speed in the prone position on a two-wheeled HPV (the overall prone record being held by a trike).

Book and films 
He published his autobiography in 2003 titled The Flying Scotsman. He said: "It started with the psychologist saying it would do me good and ended up as my life story." A film based on the book premiered at the Edinburgh International Film Festival in 2006, starring Jonny Lee Miller and Billy Boyd. In November 2006 Metro-Goldwyn Mayer bought world distribution rights and the film was released in the US on 29 December 2006; it was given a UK release on 29 June 2007. The DVD was released in the UK on 5 November 2007.

Battle Mountain: Graeme Obree's Story, a documentary film about Obree's appearance at the 2013 World Human Powered Speed Championships in Battle Mountain, Nevada, premiered at the 2015 Edinburgh International Film Festival. The film, directed by David Street with music by Alun Woodward of Chemikal Underground, went on public release on 21 March 2016, with a tour of cinemas featuring a question-and-answer session with Obree following screenings. The film was crowdfunded through the Kickstarter website.

Notes

References

Related media 
 Flying Scotsman: Cycling to Triumph Through My Darkest Hours Graeme Obree VeloPress 2005 
 Flying Scotsman Graeme Obree Birlinn Books 2003

External links 
 
 Graeme Obree – Biography at CyclingInfo.co.uk
 Graeme Obree's home made bike photograph

1965 births
Living people
Sportspeople from Nuneaton
Sportspeople from North Ayrshire
Scottish male cyclists
UCI Track Cycling World Champions (men)
People with bipolar disorder
Gay sportsmen
LGBT sportspeople from Scotland
LGBT cyclists
Scottish track cyclists
Olympic cyclists of Great Britain
Cyclists at the 1996 Summer Olympics
The Flying Scotsman is a 2006 Scottish drama film, based on the life and career of Scottish amateur cyclist Graeme Obree. The film covers the period of Obree's life that saw him take, lose, and then retake the world one-hour distance record. The film stars Jonny Lee Miller as Obree, Laura Fraser, Billy Boyd, and Brian Cox.

Plot
The film starts with Graeme Obree (Miller), who suffers from a depressive moment (which we learn is due to a crippling bipolar disorder), cycles into a wood where he attempts to hang himself. A flashback to Obree's (Sean Brown) childhood depicts him being physically attacked at school by other pupils, leaving the young Graeme with severe psychological scars. One day Obree is given a bicycle by his parents and we see Obree evading the bullies.

As the film progresses the adult Obree is married to Anne with a child. In between competing in local races, he runs a failing cycle shop and has to supplement his income as a bicycle courier. Graeme encounters Malky McGovern (Boyd), a fellow bike courier, who recognises who Graeme is and they become  friends. While working in his shop an older gentleman called Baxter (Cox), asks Graeme to repair his old bike. Graeme agrees after roping Baxter into being the judge over a race with a local van driver. Baxter takes a liking to Graeme but recognises a darkness in Graeme. 

Graeme decides to try and beat the hour record. However, he has neither the funding nor the quality of bicycle required. Determined to succeed, he asks Malky to take over his management and fund raising from his wife Anne who is overwhelmed with work and raising their child. Cox turns out to be a boatyard owner and offers Graeme and Malky his yard to build a fitting bike. Graeme sets himself 8 weeks to build a bike, raise funds for the challenge and pay for access to a fitting velodrome. Chris Boardsman is attempting to break the record within 9 weeks.

Graeme manages to build a revolutionary prototype called Old Faithful, for maximum efficiency, made up from scrap metal and components from a washing machine. Malky chastises Graeme that they cannot attempt the record using a Old Faithful as Boardsman is going to be using a bike designed by computers and costing £500,000. Nevertheless Malky, Anne and Graeme arrive in Norway for their attempt, Graeme is derided by officials. Malky reveals to Graeme that he has had a proper bike built based off the prototype of Old Faithful. Graeme agrees to use the new bike but his first attempt at the record proves to be a failure. 

Graeme tells everyone he intends to go again as he has the velodrome booked for 24 hours. Everyone cautions him against this as the record takes a physical toll. Graeme devises a cunning way to prevent his body from ceasing up and cramping and exercises through the night. The next morning he and Anne sleep in and rush to Malky, who unknown to Graeme has rebuilt the bike using Old Faithful's parts. Graeme embarks on his attempts and is successful. 

However, his victory is short-lived as his record is broken by Chris Boardman (Adrian Grove, credited as Adrian Smith) a week later. The Union Cycliste Internationale changes the rules to discourage Obree from using his experimental bicycle. Obree is severely depressed the night following his record-making ride. This is exacerbated when Boardman breaks the record. When Obree is confronted in a pub by the four bullies who had victimised him years earlier at school, he becomes completely withdrawn and rarely leaves his house.  Baxter attempts to counsel him, but Obree feels betrayed when he discovers that Baxter is the pastor of a local church.

He recovers enough to compete in the Individual Pursuit World Championship in 1993, in which he uses his bicycle design again.  The UCI officials begin rigorously enforcing the new ruling, penalizing him for riding in the stance that his bicycle design is intended to support.  The physical and emotional exertion take their toll, and he crashes disastrously, breaking his arm.

The plot then returns to the opening of the film.  The rope Graeme attempts to use to hang himself breaks, and he is found by another cyclist who summons the authorities. Graeme initially resists treatment, until Baxter tells him about his wife, who also suffered from bipolar disorder and ultimately took her own life. At Graeme's request, his wife, Anne, a hospital nurse, agrees to help him begin treatment.

Graeme later makes a comeback and regains his world title.  The new bicycle configuration that he uses, which supports the "Superman" stance, is later banned by the UCF after eight riders win gold medals with it.

Cast
 Jonny Lee Miller as Graeme Obree: The main character in the film. Jonny Lee Miller joined the project in 2002, and he and Obree spent time together, Miller keen to pick up mannerisms and speech patterns. Obree would later stand-in for Miller during some cycling sequences in the film.
 Laura Fraser as Anne Obree: Obree's wife, who was once his manager. Laura Fraser had misgivings about playing Obree's wife, Anne, when she was sent Obree's autobiography from Douglas Mackinnon. "I wasn’t expecting to enjoy it as I thought it would be all about sport," said Laura, "but I got into the book straight away, it was absolutely compelling." It is the first time Fraser has played a real person and before filming began, she and Miller talked with the Obrees to help show their relationship during the film.
 Billy Boyd as Malky McGovern: Obree's manager. When approached to have a role in the film, Boyd knew only the "basic elements" of Obree's story. Boyd, being Scottish, felt it important to have the right script and further promote Scottish film.
 Brian Cox as Douglas Baxter: A minister who helps Obree chase his demons and concentrate on his goal. Cox, a seasoned actor, had been working in Europe before returning to Scotland to shoot the film. He commented that the story is one of "perseverance and passion". He said, since seeing the film, "[t]he end result is even better than I hoped – it's a masterpiece."
 Morven Christie as Katie, a friend of Anne and within the film, Malky's girlfriend

Production

The Flying Scotsman first attracted screenwriter Simon Rose in 1994. Along with Rob Roy producer, Peter Broughan, and Scottish director, Douglas Mackinnon, he based the film's script on Obree's autobiography, also entitled The Flying Scotsman. The film, however, seemed doomed to fail and was cancelled several times.

In 2002, the death of a key American investor caused The Flying Scotsman to collapse only days before shooting was planned to commence. East Ayrshire Council, who originally gave £5000 to fund the project, refused to give further finance, stating that it didn't feel it would contribute to the community. Producer, Broughan, called the decision "a disgrace". It took three years for the project to get back on track. Broughan was joined by producer Damita Nikapota on the project who secured pre-production finance from Freewheel Productions. Peter Broughan tried to sack the director Douglas Mackinnon but Damita Nikapota refused to let this happen.

Shooting of the film began on 7 July 2006 and ended 4 September 2006. The film was shot largely in Galston, Scotland, with East Ayrshire, Glasgow and velodromes in Germany standing in for places in the story such as Colombia, France and Norway.

Release
The Flying Scotsman's first country-wide release was in New Zealand, where the film reached number 2 in the box office and stayed in the top 8 for the first seven weeks of its release. The film kicked off the 60th Edinburgh Film Festival, and later was given a wide-release date of 29 June 2007. Metro-Goldwyn Mayer was the main distributor in the United States, and the film was released there firstly on 29 December 2006. It also received a limited release on 4 May 2007.

Reception

Review aggregation web site Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 49% based on 53 reviews. The sites consensus reads: "The Flying Scotsman's too-brisk pacing reduces the scale of cyclist Graham Obree's accomplishments while not uncovering what makes him tick."
 
The film gained mixed reviews worldwide following its release, with most of the praise being aimed at Jonny Lee Miller's performance in the title role. Russell Baillie, reviewer at the New Zealand Herald, gave the film four stars, commenting that it is "gripping, affecting and inspiring". John Daly-Peoples also praised the film, calling it "compelling & heart-warming". 
Bill Zwecker, of the Chicago Sun-Times, said "[t]urmoil and victory meet in remarkable Scotsman". Zwecker also called Miller's acting a "revelation". Tom Keogh also praised Miller's acting, calling him "enormously sympathetic and appealing" as Obree. He also gave acclaim to the "terrific supporting cast", commending Brian Cox.

Total Film gave the film a fairly negative review. The film magazine said the mesh of Obree's depression and the "Brit-flick furniture (loyal wife, rural scenery, gawky comic relief)" came off flat, "diminish[ing] rather than elevat[ing] its hero’s achievements". The Guardian also questioned the film's comedic aspect combined with the issue of Obree's condition. Obree is an "opaque and unsympathetic figure" in the film, said reviewer Peter Bradshaw, also calling the record-breaking attempts "weirdly anticlimactic and blank".

References

External links
 
 

2000s sports drama films
2006 biographical drama films
2006 directorial debut films
2006 drama films
2006 films
British biographical drama films
British films
British sports drama films
Cycling films
English-language films
Films about bipolar disorder
Films about bullying
Films set in 1993
Films set in 1994
Films set in 1995
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films Mike Burrows (born 1943) is a bicycle designer from Norwich, England.

He is best known for his collaborative work with the design of the track carbon-fibre Lotus 108 time trial bicycle manufactured by Lotus for Chris Boardman, when he won the 1992 Olympic 4000m pursuit in Barcelona. He also attempted to copy the famous "old Faithful" bike used by Graeme Obree, to be used as a spare in an attempt on the world hour record. However the bike was not liked by Obree and not used in any record attempt.

Burrows has long been involved in the recumbent bicycle/tricycle world, having designed the Speedy or Windcheetah trike and more recently the  Ratcatcher, Ratracer and Ratracer B. He has collaborated on projects with Richard Ballantine.

He is also involved in utility cycling and has designed a folding cycle (the Giant Halfway), an especially thin machine (the 2D) that takes up little space in a hallway, the 8-Freight cargo bike in use with cycle courier companies such as Outspoken Delivery, and makes customised screen and PA carrying freight bikes with extendable "batwings" for AV2 Hire.

In the 1990s, Burrows worked for Giant Bicycles and designed the compact frame TCR road bike among others, the bike design was truly revolutionary, to minimise bike manufacturing cost.

Burrows' designs often feature cantilever suspended wheels. He supplied a bike fitted with a front monoblade to television science presenter Adam Hart-Davis, which featured in some of Hart-Davis' programmes.  Hart-Davis also owned a Speedy, finished in pink and yellow.

Mike is currently involved with the design of a recumbent that could break the speed record for an HPV. The design Aim 93 will attempt to break the record at the International HPV Association's world championships at Battle Mountain.

Bibliography 
Bicycle Design: Towards the Perfect Machine ().
From Bicycle to Superbike ().

References

External links 
Velovision 8-Freight review
Velovision Ratcatcher review
Official 8 Freight website
8 Freight users
Next stop Nevada: British cycle team aim at 90 mph record

1943 births
Living people
Sportspeople from Norwich
English male cyclists
British cycle designers