The Most Significant DesignThe Lotus Type 108 Olympic Persuit Bike

LOTUS TYPE 108

Chris Boardmans Olympic Persuit bike

The Lotus Type 108 is an individual pursuit bicycle, that was designed, built and used from 1990-1994. The frame design was revolutionary as it used a carbon composite monocoque structure that mas-sively increasing lateral stiffness, strength to weight ratio as well as allowing for advanced wind tunnel testing leading to changes in the moulding process.1990 was an important era in frame design as the cycling Governing Body, UCI (Union Cycliste Internationale) revoked a long running ban on the use of monocoque bike frames in track rac-ing. Norfolk based designer Mike Burrows was brought in, he specialised in the design and build-ing of carbon fibre frames. Shortly after this Lotus Engineering became involved in the design process largely down to the involvement of Mike Bur-rows who was a long term friend of Lotus Racing. This close relationship allowed Mike to take his design to the Lotus factory and their knowledge ad-vanced techniques to the use of Carbon Fibre al-lowed Mike Burrows and the Lotus Engineers max-imize the designs potential. In February 1992 Lotus se-cured the rights and marketing to the bikes designs that then be-came the LotusSport Bike.

Carbon Fibre Seat reduces weight and can be indicidually mould-ed .

“The bicycle is the one piece of sport-ing equipment that’s got more of a role to play outside the arena, than inside. Tennis rackets, cricket bats, footballs, useless outside the arena. Bicycle, saves the planet.”

The logo to the left shows the airflow over a peruit rider, an aerody-nampic position pro-duces areound 5% gain.

After the frame weight and shape the wheels are the most import-ant part, ie the weight and shape, the full carbon contruction re-duces rotational weight and the three carbone blades but thrught air reducing drag.

Revolutionary Carbon Fibre monocoque frame.

The single leg fork was revolutionary at the time as it reuced drag which was a crutial element to breaking the persuit world record.

Aero dynamics expert Richard Hill was then brought in and through the use of wind tunnel testing minor modifications were made leading to the perfectly designed, highly efficient bike frame. The success of the Lotus 108 was immediate with a variety of riders shaving valuable seconds off Time Trials.

At the end of the design pro-cess the two key drag reduction area had been met, resitance from the tyres that equals 15% of drag and the other 85% from the bike itself and equiptment.

LOTUS TYPE 108

“Even when I was sitting on the start line and I’d won the rounds previously, set the fast-est times, done a world record in training ... I never actually thought I was going to win it.”

The 1992 Olympics created a huge impression, propelling the Lotus bike into the lime light. Chris Boardman set a new world record of 4 minutes 24.496 seconds winning the 4000m pursuit, catching World Champion Jens Leh-mann in the final few laps. The profile of this win was massive as it was the first British cy-cling gold medal in 72 years highlighting the potential of the bike. After the Olympics the 108 was modified with tri-bars creating the superman position that was later banned by the UCI. In total fifteen Type 108s were built which included one prototype in 1991, as well as three frames that were use during the Olympic Games. A further eight replicas were offered for sale at roughy £15,000 each. Out of the fifteen two are on display, one at the Lotus Factory at Hethel and the other, the bike Board-man used for the hour record is at the Muse-

um of Liverpool. Chris Boardman is a British Road and Track bike racer from Merseyside. He won an individual pursuit gold medal at the 1992 Summer Olympics and broke the world hour record three times. Af-ter his success full track racing period he transferred success-fully over to Road Racing first racing for GAN team and later Credit Agricole. Previous to his track racing as a junior her flirted with Time Trial becoming very successful and collecting a variety of national Junior titles. During the second half of his career he won three stag-es of the Tour de France being most success-ful in the prologue wearing the yellow Jersey the First british rider since Robert Miller.

“After hundreds of people through the wind tunnel, one thing is clear the best aero position is crutial.”