Mike Burrows

Mike Burrows is a bicycle designer, best known for the design of the time trial bike manufactured by Lotus for Chris Boardman, though he also contributed to a bicycle for Graham Obree and designed the Windcheetah which holds the Land's End to John O'Groats record, 41 hours.

Burrows has long been involved in the recumbent bicycle/tricycle world, having designed the Speedy or Windcheetah trike and more recently the Ratcatcher, Ratracer and Ratracer B.



Mike Burrows rides the RatRacer B

The RatRacer B is not, as its name implies, a development of the Ratracer (below). It is a unique machine, the front fork being aligned front-to-rear and the pedals attached to the front axle through a pivoting hub. Steering travel is strictly limited, this bike is definitely for track use only! Mike wiped out on it at Reading, to the detriment of his skin suit, but he was certainly lapping fast up to that point.



Mike rides the Ratracer (left). Note race number 0!

The rider on the right is Denise Wilson of Bikefix; this picture clearly shows the monoblade.

Pictures © Bikefix

He is also involved in utility cycling and has designed a folding cycle (the Giant Halfway), an especially thin machine (the 2D) that takes up little space in a hallway and a freight bike (the 8-Freight) in use with cycle courier companies such as Outspoken.

In the 1990s, Mike worked for Giant Bicycles and designed the compact frame TCR road bike amongst others.

One of Mike's trademarks is cantilever wheels suspended from one side only, on monoblades instead of forks. These have gone mainstream with the release of the Giant Halfway, but have been a feature of his bikes for many years and will be instantly recognised by any British TV science fan, being fitted to Adam Hart Davis' renowned pink and yellow bike, fitted with a front monoblade and which bike featured heavily in some of Hart-Davis' programmes. Hart-Davis also owned a Speedy, finished in his trademark pink and yellow.

Mike lives in Norwich, England. He has written a book, Bicycle Design: Towards the Perfect Machine (ISBN 1-898457-07-7).