Inaugural Reed’s Bamboo Bike Ride

Seven members of the Lower Sixth Form have been building bamboo bikes over the course of the year as part of their optional elective, Engineering Project Solutions. Today saw the culmination of months of technical construction, precision design and blistering labour. In front of a crowd of hundreds, three bikes took to the start line to complete the three-lap course.

Despite having performed strongly in testing, the Blathwayt bicycle simply couldn’t handle the torque being produced by Ignacio Barquero and Jai Golar and managed only a few metres before being substituted for the reserve bike. The Mullens bike had looked like a design phenomenon all year but struggled to keep its chain. Nathan Cutting and Suleiman Naqvi’s machine had performed brilliantly in testing but seemed to develop terminal problems after the rather more substantial Dr Thompson tried riding it.

And so it fell to Bristowe. Not the quickest House around the track, but the only one to do so with their bike intact by the end of the race; Jay Cronjaeger, Benji Sealy and Angus Barrett’s construction was a joy to behold. Huge congratulations to all those involved on a brilliant project!

Will Pope, Head of Physics