A 17-year-old Yale College student with a passion for extreme sports has been shortlisted for a major design prize
Jordan Syme has combined his interest in engineering with his enthusiasm for mountain biking by coming up with a revolutionary design for a downhill racing bike which is now in the last ten of a nationwide competition.
Jordan, from Rhewl, near Ruthin, who is on a Mechanical Engineering: Pathway to Apprenticeship course at Yale College, entered his design after reading an advertisement in the mountain biker’s bible, MBUK magazine.
He said: “Kingdom Bikes put something in the magazine inviting people to send in their designs for a mountain bike frame and they got so many entries they decided to make it into a competition.
“I sent my design in and they must have liked it because it has been shortlisted for the prize which is to have the frame built up as a bike and marketed with the winner getting a percentage of the sales.
“The idea was to design a mountain bike frame and I decided to design a downhill frame because that’s what I really enjoy.”
Jordan took up mountain biking three years ago and is a regular visitor to the mountain bikers’ Mecca at the One Planet Centre at Llandegla but in the last 12 months has concentrated on downhill racing – an extreme form of the sport.
Riders plunge down steep hillsides, often through forests, flying over jumps and dodging trees, rocks and other obstacles at speeds of over 30mph.
They wear full face helmets, neck braces and body armour – it’s not a sport for the faint-hearted – and the bikes have to be tough too.
Jordan, who competed in the Pearce Cycles Downhill Series in Shropshire along with his friend, Ben Davies, from Llandegla, said: “I designed a frame and suspension system and obviously it has to be able to deal with some pretty fearsome terrain.
“It has to be able to cope with all the bumps and dropping from some spectacular heights of up to 15 feet onto rocks and tree roots – it’s that and the speed that gives you the real buzz.
“That means the bike and the suspension has to cope with some major impacts and it has to keep working without locking up.
“If you’re driving a car really quickly and you have to brake and only the back wheels are braking then the axle would want to go backwards which would mean you’d be bouncing rather than rolling smoothly.
“I’ve designed the suspension so that the back wheel moves backwards and upwards which allows it to work much better and more smoothly because to go fast you need the wheels to be on the ground not in the air.”
Jordan left little to chance with his design, not only using a computer system to draw the three-D design but even building it himself using balsa wood, cardboard and wooden pegs made from cocktail sticks.
“It’s rudimentary but it allows you to see how the design works,” he said: “I’m quite pleased with it and I enjoyed doing it and would love to work in engineering design one day.
“For now I’m enjoying my course at Yale and just really keen to get an engineering apprenticeship.”
His design has attracted some rave reviews including one from Elite standard World Cup downhiller Gareth Brewin who said: “Design looks really good, geometry looks spot on. Hope it gets made to see what it’s like.”
Kingdom had a panel of experts including top professional riders, engineers and designers go through the entries and they are posting the best on their website.
A Kingsdom spokesperson said: “The winner will be the most popular design, defined by positive feedback. Then we’ll make the bike a reality, build it and then give it to the person who designed the bike.
“We actually shortlisted Jordan’s initial design he sent in as we liked the shape of the frame and the suspension linkage. But we’ve taken so long to process the designs that Jordan re-submitted an even better, more refined design so we’re posting his latest creation instead.”
Apart from Llandegla, Jordan also rides forestry tracks at Foel Gasnach, Cyffylliog, near Ruthin, and has even ridden the downhill track down Ben Nevis at Fort William.
He said: “It’s a tough sport but it’s very technical as well. I really enjoy it, 100 per cent, but you’ve got to be physically and mentally right.
“Sometimes it scares me but if it didn’t there wouldn’t be any point doing it.”
You can see and comment on Jordan’s design at http://www.kingdombike.com/TheKingdom/?p=834
