Burrows Windcheetah/Lotus bike

I got this probably 30 years ago from Mike Burrows before the whole Boardman olympics things with Lotus took off. I’d crashed my fixie TT bike and was looking for a new frame and knowing Mike pretty well I had a chat with him, and he told me his latest project had just come out of the oven and was looking promising, would I like one? And so here it is, the second of two prototypes.

It’s been sat in the garage for around 20 years now, and it’s looking a bit sorry for itself, much to my shame. The mylar cover for the rear wheel disintegrated long ago, and the wing handlebar was taken for another bike, and then broken in a crash. So my old TT set-up will have to do for now. It should really be an easy fix - I have to modify the stem as the Monoblade steerer is very short and is plugged so the quill won’t insert much at all. I should maybe fit an Aheadset but I’ve got a lovely 1” threaded Record headset I want to use, so quill stem it is.

Mike Burrows hasn’t been too well of late, so I plan to pop the bike into my little noddy car and go visit him in Norwich and he can help me fettle a few details , and maybe I can hunt around his workshop and find some better bars laying around in exchange for a few beers at the Fat Cat.

Hopefully it’ll be sorted reasonably soon and ready for a few unfeasibly slow laps around HH…

2 Attachments

Open mouth emoji.

Woah, that's amazing! Be great if you could get this to HH one day.

You won't find any jealous droolers here, honest guv'!

Seriously though, that's lovely. Do show us when you've fettled a bit further.

wow, first the lotus 110 thread ( https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/347322/?offset=50#comment16220528 ) where the father commuted the beast and now even crazier, a protoype ! hard to spot, but is the rear dropout a slot? so you can adjust chain tension?

Would love to see this in action at HHV!!

race track league on this i beg you

My word

wow! sub'd

Amazing. How do you tension the chain, eccentric bb?

subtle flex of the millenium, congrats

Amazing. Nothing else to say.

and knowing Mike pretty well I had a chat with him, and he told me his latest project had just come out of the oven and was looking promising, would I like one?

Openmouth.gif

As name-drops go, and coupled with the 'oh, I just had this kicking around the garage for a while', this is astounding. Plus those monoblade forks!

Thanks for the interest, all. A few replies to points rises above.

The plan is to get it down HH when it’s running again. I’ve ridden it there before, but that was before the Lotus thing kicked off and no-one knew what it was back then. I did ride it at the old Eastway too, which wasn’t much fun on a fixie, and in a few ECCA time trials.

It’s got an eccentric bottom bracket - the rear axle is affixed through the frame. I’ll need to strip the BB out and hope it moves again, Mike came up with a toothed edge to the BB shell and a plate over the top to lock it in place - probably not the best method but it was a prototype.

I’ll need to source some more Mylar or some other fabric to cover the rear wheel - it’s what’s used on light aircraft, glued on to the rim and hub, heated with a heat gun to shrink it and then doped with cellulose and painted, all because I couldn’t afford a disc wheel at the time, although I’ll be looking for a Mavic disc wheel that I can modify. If anyone knows of one….

Anyway, I put it together quickly over the weekend to see what looked like again, and it all looks promising, so I’ll strip it down again and clean and reassemble it properly and take some pics as I go along. I’ve finally sold three of my four motorbikes so I have room in my garage to do some work, seeing as lockdown and my wife WFH has meant my basement workshop is now her office.

I met Mike B in the mid 80’s when I got involved with recumbents and we’ve been friends ever since. I’ve got lots of tales about the development of the bike, how Lotus got involved and how it all went sour and Mike got totally stiffed by Lotus (he never received a penny from them) but I’ll save those for a bit later. But yeah, it really did happen like that, we had no idea what would happen with the design and I think I paid Mike about £400 for it. After the Barcelona Olympics, a Lotus dealer offered me £25,000 for it. I declined….

Incredible, legendary stuff. Here for it. More!
I love that the entire nds is exposed.

Oh my good lord. Look at that.

Look at it.

Sweet baby Jesus! This gonna be good.

Nutty bike. Great story. Love it

Should book in in to Evans for a new BB and rear hub service

Wow, can’t wait to see this on the track

Amazing, definitely one of the most interesting bikes we've ever had on here. Let's hope MB gets better.

Yup, I’d certainly trust Sports Direct mechanics. Their experience on Pinnacles and Dunlop full-sus bikes will be invaluable.

this is incredible!
a Mike burrows windcheetah recumbent popped up on eBay local to me this week.

looking forward to updates and stories