Swiss solar bike begins trek across Australia

Tom Brändle leads off the Swiss team's race across Australia Keystone

A Biel-designed solar bicycle has begun to take on some of the world's best sun-powered cars in a race across the deserts of Australia.

The “Intellibike”, created by a group of professors, assistants and students from the Bernese city’s engineering school, is the only two-wheeler in a field of 38 vehicles taking part in the World Solar Challenge.

The race, which was first held in 1987, left Darwin in the far north on Sunday and takes competitors to Adelaide on the southern coast via Alice Springs.

The first stage went well for the Swiss team, which covered 504 kilometres in eight hours and 50 minutes. “We covered more ground than we expected even though the weather wasn’t perfect,” said August Pfluger, one of the project’s promoters.

Temperatures reached up to 36 degrees during the first stage. “It’s hard to pedal when temperatures are so high,”said Sandra Stierli, one of the 10 cyclists. “But the team’s positive attitude and the desire to go forward have not been altered.”

While all the other vehicles in the competition will rely purely on the sun to propel them along the Stuart Highway, the “Spirit of Bike” team will be adding pedal power to get the job done. Ten athletes on two bikes will ride 40-minute shifts during the daytime.

The bicycles have a small electrical motor – which uses energy stored in batteries – that multiplies the riders’ efforts. Instead of cruising at perhaps between 30 and 40 kilometres an hour, the bikes can reach a maximum of 75 on a flat road.

Strong response

The cyclists were chosen from a field of more than 2,000 candidates from all over Switzerland. “We were very surprised by the response,” said Pfluger, who launched the project two years ago.

“The hardest part was deciding who to choose for this adventure. We wanted fit people, but not super athletes.”

The competition takes the Swiss team back to the scene of a previous triumph. In 1990, the Biel engineers’ car trumped the opposition from manufacturers such as Honda to carry off the winner’s trophy.

The secret weapon at the time was the array of solar cells used to recharge the car’s batteries. These panels, far more efficient than those used by the competition, were a totally new design developed with the University of New South Wales in Sydney.

The Biel team are relying once again on new technology from abroad. This time, with no solar array on the bike itself, it’s 14 prototype lithium batteries from South Korea that are being used to propel the bike.

Building a prototype

This type of rechargeable battery is commonly found in portable computers, but their use for vehicle traction is still under evaluation.

“We put these battery cells together to make one large prototype battery,” said Henry Schwarzenbach of the Biel engineering school. “If all goes well, this kind of battery could be on the market sometime in the future.”

The “Intellibike” also uses an upgraded version of the electric motor used by the school’s solar cars in previous editions of the race. Electronic management of the motor increases its efficiency, while an overall aerodynamic design eases the bike’s movement.

“We basically used off-the-shelf components,” said Florian Kaufmann, who helped develop the bicycle’s electronics. “What is really new and innovative is the way we have combined all the elements.”

The bike weighs around 20 kilogrammes, making it considerably lighter than other two-wheelers with electric motors. The designers started by using carbon fibre rather than steel to reach this goal, before tackling the other components.

“The real challenge was to reduce the weight of all the parts,” Kaufmann told swissinfo. “The batteries and the motor already make up two-thirds of the total weight.”

Despite its use of readily available components, the “Intellibike” is not about to go on sale anywhere soon. “The aim of the project is not to eventually sell something, but to show that sustainable mobility is possible,” said Pfluger.

The scorching outback

The bike and its riders face a punishing 3,000-kilometre trip, with the heat, dust and road conditions combining together in a diabolical mix. The race passes through places where people prefer to live underground rather than be crushed by the scorching temperatures found in the outback.

“We hope the Intellibike will hold together,” said Schwarzenbach, “but we haven’t been able to test it under comparable conditions. Hopefully the front and back suspensions will smooth out the rough road ahead.”

The engineers will be keeping an eye on their prototype during the race, but the riders haven’t been forgotten. “There is a doctor on the team, and he will be making sure nobody overexerts themselves,” said Pfluger.

“What is really important though is that we come together as team,” he told swissinfo. “If we don’t have a true team spirit, we won’t be able to overcome any difficulties we face.”

Bumps and potholes aren’t the only concern on Australia’s outback roads. Massive roadtrains, trucks hauling four or five trailers, barrel along the highway, following the only north-south route available to them.

Dead kangaroos

The lorries aren’t the Spirit team’s main worry though. It’s rather the presence of dead animals that is causing some concern.

“There are hundreds of dead kangaroos lying on the road,” Pfluger told swissinfo. “If our bike hits one of those at full speed, it could do some real damage, so the riders have to be really wary of road conditions.”

The Swiss team hope to reach Adelaide in six days, not fast enough to hope for victory. The last race saw the winners reach the South Australian capital in just over four days.

The engineers could have taken part in a shorter, parallel race for solar-powered bikes, but they decided the challenge wasn’t interesting enough. “We probably would have won without making any particular effort,” said Pfluger.

So are the Swiss crazy to face extreme conditions without even a chance at winning? Pfluger doesn’t think so.

“If we weren’t a little crazy, we wouldn’t try this. But if people weren’t a bit crazy, there wouldn’t be any innovation or progress.”

by Scott Capper