Cycling in the vacuum

IN NOVEMBER, the paranaense rider Evandro Portela achieved an unprecedented feat when pedaling at 202 km / h in the vacuum of a powerful car (see video below). The event happened in a paranaense highway, closed especially for its attempt, that was worth the inscription in the Guinness Book, the Book of the Records.

Evandro, who was once a professional road rider, but used to raise controversy over his training in the truck vacuum, finally seems to have been able to prove once and for all his seriousness on the bike. "But, unfortunately, here in Brazil people do not vibrate as much as outside," he says, justifying the repercussion of his record, which was more widespread in Europe than in America Based.

Months before the record, we participated in a decisive training, in which Evandro reached 184 km / h and said he was confident to hit the 200 km / h mark.

Read the full story below, which also recalls the "appetite" that some cyclists have, throughout history, pedaled to the million in the vacuum of motor vehicles.

BEFORE BEING the guy who is currently trying to beat a world record in cycling, Curitiba's Evandro Portela is a lucrative actor in the " viral video industry ". One such video, posted on YouTube and Facebook in March 2014, is already close to 8 million views.

It's a 5-minute, uncut shot, in which Evandro holds a GoPro in the back of a truck and shoots over cars and buses over 120 km / h in the vacuum of the truck. The scene is on a federal highway that cuts across the metropolitan area of Curitiba (PR).

He is not wearing a helmet and sometimes in an amazing state of adrenaline, he even takes both hands off the handlebars. In the end, with the same difficulty, as it would take to get his bottle of water attached to the bike, he retrieves the camera with the truck still moving.

"There have been months when I still get $ 700 because of this footage," says Evandro - who traded image rights with a gringo site of viral videos on the same day he hit 184 km / h in July this year.

Now, however, he pedaled in the glue of a car, in a joint action and properly rehearsed. Since 2014, after overtaking the 120 km / h mark by sticking his skin in the vacuum of that truck, he began to take seriously the "motor-paced cycling", an extreme strand of cycling and one that wants to become a world record holder still this year. The model consists of pedaling in the vacuum of a motor vehicle - a car, a motorcycle or a truck.

The cheap is to see how fast a best bike us can reach without having the force of the air playing against it. The variables, however, are virtually infinite. In 1995, for example, the Dutchman Fred Rompelberg reached an incredible speed of 268 km / h in the glue of a dragster (light-duty vehicle with an extremely powerful engine specially designed for tear-off tests) in a salt desert in the United States.

And in 2013 motorcyclist Guy Martin, who is accustomed to stretching more than 200 km / h in motorbike competitions, pedaled at 180 km / h in the boot of a truck on a concrete runway in Wales.

Both have become record-owners: Fred is still the guy who has pedaled faster in the vacuum in history; Guy was consecrated as the fastest Briton on a bicycle.

However, they used specially built bikes that, among other adaptations, had a two-crown ratio, a system that makes pedaling much more efficient at high speeds. They did not ride either, either, from scratch, but towed by a steel cable.

And they let loose when they were well packed. Another similarity is that they wore leather overalls and closed helmets. They did not look like road cyclists at all.

Obviously pedaling at 180 km / h or at almost 270 km / h is dangerous, and any pilot error or equipment failure can be fatal. So it is understandable that, at the end of their respective attempts, Guy had his hands shaking, while Fred had to comfort his daughters and his wife, who was crying and begging him to do it again.

"Rule number 1 of these challenges is to have absolute mastery of the bike," says Evandro. "I want to emphasize at the beginning of my videos that the risk of death is high, so I do not recommend it to anyone."

For him, who was a professional cyclist in the 1990s and 2000s, including major events like the Vuelta an EspaĂąa and the Volta de Portugal, the "motor-paced" must be a "purely cycling record." Unlike Fred and Guy, the Brazilian will not use tow cables and has also ruled out the use of special clothing and transmission systems that do not match a traditional bicycle.

The only change visible on your bicycle is the crown of a hundred teeth, to make the cadence of pedals practicable at 200 km / h. "It will be an unprecedented record," explains Evandro. "Something similar to what the German Jean-Claude Rude and the French Jose Meiffret [ two famous fans of the vacuum cycle] tried to do it in the 1960s and 1970s.

"There are indications that Jose has reached 204 km / h pedaling a bicycle with a 130-tooth crown behind a Mercedes-Benz 300 SL, one of the fastest cars of those times, has never been recognized by the Guinness Book.

FOR EVANDRO, besides having the name consecrated, it will be a dignified "return to the origins". "The first races I won in cycling, still in the rookie category, competed with my Caloi Cross rim 20, which had a crown of 65 teeth." He recalls that the component was made by a friend's father in his own garage in a self-taught procedure in which a manual lathe was used.

In the early 1980s, children in Brazil had two options: Caloi Cross or Monark BMX.

"Caloi had a 44-tooth crown, while Monark had 52," he explains. With much more asphalt available than BMX tracks, the pivots preferred to ride fast, instead of taking off and landing on dirt ramps. When the kids discovered that the crown was what made the difference for the bike to ride more, the owners of Caloi Cross tried to find a way to make the races in the neighborhood more fierce.

"I have no doubt that it was these disputes that gave me the whole base to get into professional cycling," says Evandro, who until the age of 14 raised the height of his Caloi Cross saddle with a personalized crown to make a stick in "speedier" . "I did not even change the tires. He left the mounds, the originals of a factory, "he adds.

Like every cyclist, he also discovered early the "vacuum power".

But it was only in 2005, during a competition in the interior of SĂŁo Paulo, that began to draw attention to this. "My tire stuck and I lost the squad," he says. "After my team made the switch, Mr. Bruno Caloi [ heir and then president of the largest bicycle factory in Brazil ] passed driving a support car and I took the opportunity to enter the vacuum. It would be my chance to get the first place. " It is proven that those who do not have to fight against air resistance can save up to 40% energy compared to someone who is up and down in the wind. But it takes courage and physical strength to keep the spin high, even with that extra help.

Bruno was so impressed with Evandro in the glue of his vehicle - even when the speedometer hand reached 120 km / h - that he thought of turning the pedal in a vacuum into a marketing strategy for his company.

According to Evandro, it would be an event to enter the Book of Records, and even a brand of cars would be part of the scheme. "I would pedal a Caloi bike in the boot of a Chevrolet Lumina at 100 mph," he recalls. But in 2006, about to put into practice the attempt to homologate this brand, Bruno Caloi passed away, and the idea ended up not going out of the paper.

In 2014, retired from professional cycling, but still accustomed to vacuuming trucks in the highways of Paranรก, Evandro bought his first GoPro and recorded the video that turned on the Internet - reported at the beginning of this article.

It was in the same year that he met the businessman Eros Deconto, for whom he sold a bicycle and his record plan. "I usually have visions of what will happen in my life.

More recently, I saw that it would be a great project, but I still had no idea what it was until I met Evandro, "says Eros.

As important as being a mystical person and believing that the brand pursued by Evandro is a story that will also be part of it is the fact that Eros owns a Subaru Impreza WRX Turbo, the powerful car that competes in the World Rally.

This would be the penultimate item on the list of the Curitiba cyclist so he could dream of the record again. The last would be the pilot. Eros immediately embraced this responsibility as an opportunity to live the premonition he had.

"Our timing is total," says Eros on the day they reached the unprecedented 184 km / h mark, five months before the official attempt. "I'm always looking in the rearview mirror and the speedometer. A portlet of Portela's head and I already know that it is for me to accelerate. " THERE ARE THREE years of inventions and adjustments. At first, the acrylic cowl mounted behind the Subaru to protect the rider from the wind was longer. "But we realized that Evandro could go a little to the side and hit that side too much, which would cause an accident," explains Eros.

They have turned to engineers and technology to evolve as a team - they estimate that they have spent around $ 100,000 on the project.

In addition to the development of the acrylic fairing and the giant crown (which is already in its third version, made of steel), they also thought of other conditions that could help in terms of aerodynamics, speed gain, and safety.

Evandro lists: "All bike bearings are ceramic, which have no friction and support higher speeds. The front wheel is aluminum, heavier and therefore more stable than a carbon wheel. The rear wheel spokes are flat and offer little resistance to air. " Even the clothing that the rider uses, developed by the national brand Mauro Ribeiro Sports, was designed to cut the wind, providing a gain of 4 km/h.

What bike do I go with? Go the best bike us!

The tires used are the Continental Grand Prix 4-Season, which have interspersed layers of rubber and Kevlar and are the last word in terms of safety.

"You can go through shards of glass and stones that they do not stick," says Evandro, who at 39 still follows the regulated training of a professional rider, doing leg sets at the gym and spinning hundreds of miles per week.

In November, when the Guinness Book judges are present, the transit of vehicles on the highway will be suspended for 20 minutes. It's the time that Evandro and Eros will have to accelerate their respective engines up to 200 km / h - or a little more.

For the time being, practical high-speed training has been on the open road during the first rays of the sun. On these occasions, they rely on motorcyclists scouts to ensure the left lane free.

At least Evandro no longer needs to be glued to wagons. Now he also wears a helmet and does not take his hands off the handlebars. It's focused.

Who knows him well, as the miner Cassio de Paiva Freitas - owner of one of the greatest curricula in cycling of all time and with whom Evandro competed in Europe - knows his potential to accelerate on the bike.

"I think pedaling in a vacuum is a very careful maneuver, but Evandro is fully aware of what he's doing," says Cassio. Nothing that prevents, however, the Curitiba to receive an avalanche of negative comments every time one of his films goes on the air.

"This is not cycling, but a recklessness that should not even be divulged," say those who disapprove of his attitude.

On the day he pedaled at 184 km/h, there were friends present, who filmed and then shared the video on social networks. A few hours later, while we were having lunch at a restaurant in Curitiba, Evandro pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and entered Facebook. "There are almost 200 thousand views!" He found laughing, almost not believing.

"I do not think even the trickiest guy in today's Tour de France has that audience," he exaggerates. "When we get a paper stamped by the Guinness Book, even Red Bull will want to talk to me. They might ask me to hit that record again on the Dubai airport runway, "he dreams. Maybe Evandro was already thinking like an actor signing his first Hollywood millionaire deal.

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