Dutch cyclist breaks world land speed record

A 23-year-old Dutch cyclist has pedalled his way to a world record, hitting more than 133.78kph as he sped through a US desert, to become the planet's fastest cyclist.
Sebastiaan Bowier reached a rip-roaring 133.78 kph in the high-tech recumbent bike developed by students from Delft University of Technology and VU University Amsterdam.
This set a new world record, making him the world's fastest cyclist travelling 0.6 kph faster than the previous record holder, Canadian Sam Wittingham.
"We knew that both the technical and human aspects were right today: it is highly gratifying that the potential for success ultimately became reality, even though we faced a pretty strong strong headwind," team leader Wouter Lion said in a statement.

In addition to Sebastiaan's record-breaking speed, another cyclist in the Delft/Amsterdam team, Wil Baselmans secured third place in the world record ranking with a speed of 127.43 kph, just behind Bowier and Wittingham.
The speeds were achieved on a 200 metre stretch of road, with a run-up of 8 km across a totally straight route in the Nevada desert, US.

"It was unbelievably exciting. We had six days in which to secure the world record, but encountered technical problems at the start. This created some headaches and a lot of overnight work. When you manage to break through the world record on the last evening after three days of bad weather, it just feels fantastic," said Lion.

The Delft team opted for a recumbent bike called VeloX3 using a shell with extremely low air resistance.
"Our design has just a tenth of the resistance of a normal cyclist. A special coating by Akzo Nobel from the world of Formula One was also used to give the VeloX3 extremely low air resistance," said Lion.