What is it?
Named the ‘Force of Nature,’ this steam rocket bike was designed and manufactured by Graham Sykes Performance Engineering Ltd. The bike is a steam-powered ‘Rocket’ motorcycle for drag racing, exhibitions and land speed record-breaking. Its uses the latent energy of super-heated pressurised water released through De-Laval nozzles where it turns to steam and creates the thrust to propel the bike forwards.
The design brief was to create a drag racing bike like no other. Build quality to rival NASA, whilst promoting its green credentials. A unique spectacular and eye-catching drag bike utilising basic steam principles applied through Graham’s innovative custom engineering and design. No proprietary motorcycle parts were to be used unless they were deemed un-improvable!
So, how exactly does this bike work you may ask?
A stainless steel cylinder forms the structural backbone of the bike and contains 50 litres of distilled water. A hollow tube runs through the centreline of the vessel allowing a 60kw bio-fuel burner to be attached to hear the water. After approximately 1 hour the temperature of the water inside the vessel will have risen to 250 degrees C and the pressure to 40 Bar (approx. 600 Psi)
What of Graham Sykes?
Graham Sykes designed and produced all of the prismatic parts on a Hurco vertical machining centre, mostly from DXF files output from AutoCAD and input directly in the machines proprietary Ultimax CNC system. Graham is the holder of five motorcycle land speed records were he reached the eye-watering speeds of 181.39 mph on his V8 powered drag bike.
