GoKawiilAs 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.
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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. Andrew Lanxon/CNET
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. Andrew Lanxon/CNET
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.
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