HEARTLAND Evening News

14 September 1996

KIA is backing the fastest men on two wheels, Bruce Bursford and Cefyn Lloyd, who smashed the world tandem speed record at Farnborough Airshow on Friday riding the Delcam ultimate Tandem.
The previous record for the tandem stood at 100 mph, a speed that Bruce exceeded in his solo speed record last year when he broke 207 mph on the Ultimate Bike.
Following the record attempt at Farnborough the tandem record now stands at 205.7 mph.
The tandem, which cost £50,000,000 to develop and build is constructed almost entirely of carbon fibre and weighs just 12lbs.
Despite its weight it is stronger than the conventional steel framed racing bikes currently in use around the world.
The pair travel to America to try to take the record further and their year culminates in an attempt to take the record into unknown territory at the Motorshow next month.
Both Bruce and Cefyn will be driving Kia Sportages for the coming year which will be used to transport both the Ultimate bike, for further solo record attempts by Bruce and the Delcam Ultimate Tandem for further attempts at the tandem speed record.
Also involved in the project is Uri Geller who has been training both Bruce and Cefyn in their mental attitude towards the record in order to gain the absolute maximum from their bodies in the attempts.
An example of the power needed to break the record is the power generated by both Cefyn and Bruce.
A well trained racing cyclist will generate up to 450 watts of power in one burst,” in order to take the record to the speeds anticipated, both Bruce and Cefyn had to generate in excess of 5,500 watts each in one burst and sustain that effort for 30 seconds, the most impressive demonstration of explosive physical power in sporting history.