About us

Who are we?
Policumbent is a Team made of students from the Politecnico di Torino.

What do we do?
We are oriented towards the design and the realization of human powered vehicles and the riding of the created prototypes.

What is our mission?
The Team keeps its mission towards technical and management education of its members, the study and design of innovative solutions and the approach to the sport.

What do we use to work?
The interdisciplinarity is one of the main characteristics of the activities of the Team Policumbent. Every day the students meet in the Laboratory of the Department of Mechanics to work together. Continuous exchanges of ideas, know-how and practices enrich every member both as a person and as part of the Team.

What is our goal?
Beyond the appealing world of competitions and records, the aim of Team Policumbent is to underline the importance of cycling as a real opportunity of creating a new perspective of living a territory, to travel on it and, of course, to respect it. A significant increase in using human powered vehicles for the daily mobility and for the tourism is not an utopia, on the contrary it is a simple cultural issue, as it is shown by positive experiences in some of the European countries.

Can we use these technologies?
We believe that the presence and the growth of a team of students and professors willing of studying, designing, realizing and using human powered vehicles is a bet for the future, above all in a University as the Politecnico of Torino. We hope that Policumbent can develop and carry on the research and the team work with the same enthusiasm and passion.
Prototypes
Prototypes from the origin to this day
Pulsar (km/h)
Taurus (km/h)
TaurusX (km/h)
WHPSC
WORLD HUMAN POWERED SPEED CHALLENGE
How does it work?
Every year, in September, Teams from all over the world try to overcome human speed limits in the middle of Nevada desert.

The stretch of the SR 305 (which from Battle Mountain leads south to Austin, on a desert plateau at about 1400 meters above sea level) offers a very curated and fast asphalt and an average slope of 0.64%.
Sessions and qualifications:
The total duration of the challenge is one week.
The race is divided every day into two parts: the first one in the morning (at about 8:00 a.m.) and the second race in the evening (6:00 p.m.). These are the best moments of the day with minimum wind and greater chance of validating any record (the regulation requires that the wind is less than 6 km/h in any direction).
Evening sessions are the most sought-after because of the wind and temperature conditions. These are accessible only to those who exceed the threshold of 60 miles per hour (96.6 km/h).
WHPSC – THE RACE
START

Prototypes are brought to the start, where each team helps their cyclists to start. The prototype can be hold by a single person for no more than 15 meters.
RUN

Cyclists begin their 8-kilometer run-up. The power profile to be followed is carefully calculated by analysis performance algorithms.
TIMING

Once the 8 km run-up is up, the cyclists pass through the speed trap. This is a stretch of road 200 meters long and contains laser detectors that perceive the passage of vehicles by calculating the average speed.
CATCHING

After appropriately decreasing their speed, the cyclists are helped to stop and get out of the prototype. The run is over.
Our results

WHPSC 2015
Prototype: PulsaR
116.19 km/h
2nd place in Universitary Team category.

WHPSC 2016
Prototype: PulsaR
126.90 km/h ITALIAN SPEED RECORD
2nd place in Universitary Team category.

WHPSC 2017
Prototype: Taurus
122.32 km/h
2nd place in Universitary Team category.

WHPSC 2018
Prototype: Taurus
133.26 km/h
ITALIAN SPEED RECORD
4TH FASTEST MAN IN HISTORY

WHPSC 2019
Prototype: Taurus
136.49 km/h
ITALIAN SPEED RECORD
ANDREA GALLO IS THE 3RD FASTEST MAN IN HISTORY
Prototype: Taurus X
123.88 km/h
ITALIAN SPEED RECORD
VITTORIA SPADA IS THE 2ND FASTEST WOMAN IN HISTORY
Our numbers
Social e visibility
YouTube
Testimonial
Two silvers and two new records for Team Policumbent at the World Human Powered Speed Challenge

Two silvers and two new records for Team Policumbent from Politecnico di Torino at the World Human Powered Speed Challenge 2019

Andrea Gallo, from San Damiano, rushes at 136 km per hour with only the strength of his legs

Blog
Read our last news of our blog

2020 here
January 8, 2020
This new year is going to be full of initiatives, improvements and lots of work for us to do.To start off our news: we have a new project named Handbike, born from the meeting of Policumbent and Eaton...Read More

HERE IS VITTORIA AND SERENA
May 31, 2019
As we have already anticipated in previous articles, this year a girl will be running for our Team with a Taurus clone bike. We have two candidates to beat the record of 121.81 km/h of Barbara Buatois...Read More

FIGHTING THE ROLLING RESISTANCE
April 8, 2019
Analysing the factors that influence Taurus’ performance, we can’t forget to mention the contact points between the bike and the asphalt: the tires.In order to maximize the bike speed, we studied the ...Read More
Media
Our video
Contacts
ph. +39 011 090 6934