As I watched Graham Sykes climb onto his rocket bike, I was worried for a moment that I was about to film a man as he died. But as he hurtled past me at hundreds of miles per hour and engulfed me in a cloud of steam, I realised I needn’t have worried — this is just a normal day for Sykes.
I was at the Santa Pod raceway in Bedfordshire, England, meeting Sykes and his team as they prepped his entirely steam-powered bike — dubbed Force of Nature — for a potentially record-breaking speed attempt during a drag-racing festival. After battling through the crowds flooding into the venue, I eventually found Sykes and his team among cars and bikes of all shapes and sizes, diligently preparing Force of Nature for its one scheduled run that day.
Watch this: World’s Fastest Steam-Powered Rocketbike
Sykes, who seemed far calmer than I expected, offered me a marshmallow as I got my first glimpse of the bike, “I tend to not eat a great deal before a run, except for sugary sweets — we’ve all got our vices!” he said.
Sykes (in his racing leathers) and the team make some adjustments to the bike.
The bike looked like nothing I’d ever seen before. Long and sleek with enormous funnel-shaped exhausts on the back, the only thing that marked it out as a motorcycle was the fact it was a vehicle on two wheels. A mechanical engineer by trade, Sykes has made almost every component himself from his workshop in his back garden.
Not that you’d guess. Peering close up at various components, I felt I was looking at something crafted in a NASA lab rather than in someone’s garden shed. At the heart of the bike’s steam propulsion system is a 120-liter boiler, heated by a burner to around 260 degrees Celsius (around 500 Fahrenheit). That boiling process creates an immense amount of pressure inside the tank, which is released when the starting lights go green in about 3 seconds, propelling the bike to speeds of over 200 miles per hour.
The boiler is the only component not built by Sykes He instead sourced it from a company that manufactures pressurized vessels for the nuclear and oil and gas industries. The reason simply comes down to safety. “If it exploded, it wouldn’t just be myself that would be injured or killed,” said Sykes. “It would be everyone else around me too.”
The Santa Pod Raceway plays host to all kinds of drag races, including this one involving what I’m pretty sure is a Mustang. It wasn’t easy to capture, especially when shooting on Kodak Gold film.
Despite the very real risks involved, Sykes struck me as very calm and relaxed on the day. He was clearly enjoying himself as he helped the team do the pre-run checks and chatted with excited fans who came to the team’s base 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 was going to ask me ‘Hey Graham, do you fancy riding my rocket bike?’ so the only way to do it was to build one. In the 1970s Evel Knievel tried to jump over Snake River Canyon and that was a super-heated water rocket, so that’s what inspired me.”
The race day drew tens of thousands of fans, all eager to see cars and bikes move faster than they really have any right to.
But nerves do still set in, even for Sykes. “Every time you get on the bike, you have trepidation,” he said “You have that adrenaline and you’ve got that little bit of reservation in your head that says ‘when I press this button, my life is gonna change. Hopefully for the better.”
I positioned myself next to the track, with a clear view of the starting line. I could see Sykes and the team preparing, and had a nice bit of space that would allow me to see him zoom past. I was there to film the spectacle too, but when each run lasts a matter of seconds, it’s not an easy task to capture. Aside from the camera in my hand and the three cameras I had on tripods, I’d also attached a number of GoPro cameras to his bike (using industrial clamps to ensure they didn’t fly off with the force of the acceleration).
Even so, I was nervous about missing the one opportunity I had to capture Sykes in action. And I was right to be: Before his run, I practiced on other drag races, from tuned-up road cars to hot-rods powered by literal rockets pulled out of fighter jets. The speeds these vehicles achieved were astonishing to me, and the noise was like nothing I’d ever heard.
The rocket-powered drag cars were fast and probably the loudest things I’ve ever heard.
But the practice helped me prepare to get the shot, and as I got the thumbs up that the run was soon to begin, I braced myself. As, I imagine, did Sykes. “When we get the bike to the starting line, Diane, my wife, takes the safety pin out, shows me the pin to say that it’s out and the bike is live, taps me on the head which is as good as a kiss, and… off we go,” he told me.
“Nothing can prepare you for what you’re going to experience. It’s like being kicked from behind — the G-Force pulls your body backwards.”
The lights counted down, turned green and Sykes went off like a bullet. A huge plume of steam erupted from the bike’s exhaust, knocking back one of my cameras, positioned nearby, and sending it hurtling 30 feet into a barrier. I panned my camera quickly as he shot past me, before the wall of steam swept over me.
When most races last only a few seconds, it’s really a case of “blink and you miss it.”
It was astonishing to watch and I can’t begin to imagine what it must feel like for Sykes on the bike. I’ve driven some speedy cars in my time at CNET but the fastest acceleration I’ve experienced is 0 to 60 miles per hour in about 2.8 seconds. That felt insanely fast to me — fast enough that I didn’t like it. I felt the edges of my vision blurring and I didn’t want to do it again.
Sykes does 0 to 60 mph in under half a second.
The Force of Nature bike didn’t break its own records that day. But the run, at least, was a safe one. “Once I see that parachute come out at the end, I know everything’s all right,” said Diane.
Every run is also a great performance that shows the amassed crowds the true power of what steam can do. “People think that steam is an old-fashioned, out-of-date power source, said Sykes. “But every power station that generates power from fuel is really powered by steam.”
Sykes shares a kiss with his wife Diane following the speed attempt.
“When we first started building [the bike] we wanted to run a 5-second quarter mile, with a 200 mph pass — neither had been done before using steam,” he added “We’ve since 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 precision, dedication and passion, I don’t think it’ll be long before they get there.
