As I watched Graham Sykes ride his rocket bike, I worried for a moment that I was about to film a man dying. But as he passed me at hundreds of miles an hour and covered me in a cloud of smoke, I realized I needn’t have worried — this is just a normal day for Sykes.
I was at the Santa Pod race in Bedfordshire, England, meeting Sykes and his team as they prepared his all-powerful bike — called the Force of Nature — for a potential speed-breaking effort during the drag racing festival. After fighting my way through the crowds that filled the area, I finally found Sykes and his team among the cars and bikes of all shapes and sizes, busily preparing Force of Nature for one of the scheduled runs that day.
Watch this: Rocketbike with the most powerful steam in the world
Sykes, who seemed calmer than I expected, offered me a marshmallow when I first saw the bike, “I usually don’t eat much before a run, except for sugary sweets — we all have our bad habits!” he said.
Sykes (in his racing skins) and the team made some changes to the bike.
The bike looked like nothing I had ever seen before. Long and sleek with huge funnel-shaped exhausts at the back, the only thing that marked it as a motorcycle was that it was a two-wheeled vehicle. A mechanical engineer by trade, Sykes made almost every part of his workshop himself in his back garden.
Not that you would guess. Peeking around the various components, I felt like I was looking at something designed in a NASA lab rather than someone’s garden shed. At the heart of the bicycle’s steam propulsion system is a 120-liter boiler, heated by a burner to about 260 degrees Celsius (about 500 Fahrenheit). That boiling process creates a huge amount of pressure inside the tank, which is released when the starting lights turn green in about 3 seconds, propelling the bike to a top speed of 200 miles per hour.
The boiler is the only part not made by Sykes He instead sourced it from a company that manufactures pressure vessels for the nuclear and oil and gas industries. The reason simply comes down to safety. If it exploded, it wouldn’t be me who would be injured or killed,” said Sykes. “It would be everyone around me.”
Santa Pod Raceway plays host to all kinds of drag racing, including this one featuring what I’m sure is a Mustang. It was not easy to photograph, especially if you are shooting on Kodak Gold film.
Despite the very real dangers involved, Sykes struck me as a calm and relaxed person on the day. He seemed to have enjoyed himself as he helped the team do the checks before running and chatting with the happy fans who came to the team camp to meet Sykes and get his autograph. He was clearly in his element.
“I always wanted to ride a rocket bike,” he said “But no one would ask me ‘Hey Graham, do you want to ride my rocket bike?’ so the only option was to build one. In the 1970s Evel Knievel tried to jump the Snake River Canyon and that was a very hot water rocket, so that’s what inspired me.”
Race day drew tens of thousands of fans, all eager to see cars and bikes go faster than they really had the right to.
But nerves still set in, even for Sykes. “Every time you ride a bike, you’re nervous,” he said “You have that adrenaline and you have a little reservation in your head that says ‘if I push this button, my life will change. I hope it will be better.'”
I positioned myself next to the track, with a clear view of the starting line. I could see Sykes and the team getting ready, and I had a little space that would allow me to see him zooming in. I was there to film the spectacle, but when each run takes seconds, it’s not an easy task to capture. In addition to the camera in my hand and the three cameras I had on tripods, I also attached a number of GoPro cameras to his bike (using industrial clamps to ensure that it does not fly away from the force of acceleration).
Still, I was nervous about missing the one chance I had to catch Sykes playing. And I was right to be: Before his race, I practiced in other drag races, from modified cars to hot ones powered by real rockets launched from fighter jets. The speed these cars achieved surprised me, and the sound was like nothing I’ve ever heard.
The rocket powered cars were the fastest and probably the loudest things I had ever heard.
But practice helped me prepare for the shot, and as I raised my thumbs to start running, I braced myself. As, I think, did Sykes. “When we take the bike to the starting point, Diane, my wife, pulls out the pin, shows me the pin is out and the bike is live, touches me on the head like a kiss, and… off we go,” he told me.
“Nothing can prepare you for what you’re about to experience. It’s like being kicked in the rear — the G-Force pulls your body backwards.”
When the lights turned green, Sykes turned off like a bullet. A large piece of debris exploded from the bike’s engine, knocking back one of my cameras, placed nearby, and sending it hurtling 30 feet into the barrier. I quickly extended my camera as he shot past me, before the wall of steam reached me.
When most races last a few seconds, it’s a matter of “blink and miss it.”
It was amazing to watch and I can’t begin to imagine how it must feel with Sykes on the bike. I’ve driven some fast cars in my time at CNET but the fastest acceleration I’ve had is 0 to 60 miles per hour in about 2.8 seconds. That felt crazy fast to me — so fast that I didn’t like it. I felt the edges of my vision blur and I didn’t want to do it again.
Sykes does 0 to 60 mph in less than half a second.
The Force of Nature bike did not break its records that day. But running, at least, was safe. “When I see that parachute come out at the end, I know everything is going to be alright,” said Diane.
Every run is also a great performance that shows the assembled crowds the true power that steam can create. “People think of steam as an old, outdated source of energy, Sykes said. “But all fossil-fuel power stations actually run on steam.”
Sykes shared a kiss with his wife Diane following the speed attempt.
“When we started building [the bike] we wanted to run a 5-second quarter mile, go 200 mph — nothing had been done before using steam,” he added. “We’ve achieved both of those goals.”
Sykes and the team hope to achieve a 4-second run in the future. From what I saw of their accuracy, dedication and passion, I don’t think it will take long for them to get there.
