Bicycles, spacecraft and intelligent design: a chance to hear Stuart Burgess
In the end, the difference can boil down to a chain drive.
The British Olympic cycling team has won a gold medal at every summer Olympic Games since 1896. Their consistent success, especially more recently at the Rio, Tokyo and Paris Olympics, is based on hard work, training, and clever inventions that make slight improvements to gain a competitive advantage.
Central to one of the recent ‘marginal gains’ has been the work of Professor Stuart Burgess. Stuart’s innovation was inventing a unique pendulum chain test, which was so accurate that it enabled British Cycling to try out tiny adjustments – like using slightly different lubricants or chain geometries – to find the best combination. Stuart then used these results to design a new chain to create a winning bike for Team GB.
Stuart is coming to Sonning Common to talk about his work for the British Olympic cycling team, and will bring an Olympic bike with him. Of course, invention is not straightforward, and Stuart will talk about the highs and lows of the process of arriving at the winning design, what part his Christian faith played, and where the invention has led both him and Team GB. The talk is appropriate for all ages, and will be entertaining.
Stuart has also worked for the European Space Agency on all four of their major earth observation satellites. He led the design team that created the robotic arm that carries the solar panels for each of these satellites. Each arm has three hinges, and his important invention was the completely new type of gearbox used on each hinge, that allows the arm to work smoothly.
Much of Stuart’s research is based on using amazing design solutions found in nature, including birds, whales and fish, and applying these to robotics and other engineering problems. His recent book, Ultimate Engineering, explores the design of the human body, with its many examples of ‘design so advanced it reaches the limit of what is physically possible’. He shows how the theory of intelligent design is leading cutting-edge scientists into fresh technological breakthroughs inspired by solutions found in nature.
Professor Burgess has taught engineering design at Cambridge University and at Bristol University, where he is currently Emeritus Professor of Engineering Design. He has been invited to speak at conferences in over 30 countries, and to exhibit his work at the Royal Society. He holds seven patents, has published over 200 scientific papers, and has received over twenty prizes and awards, including the James Clayton Prize, the highest professional Mechanical Engineering Award in the UK.
Everyone is welcome to Stuart’s talk on designing the winning Olympic bicycle:
- ‘Designed for Glory’
- Saturday 17 October 2026 at 18:30
- Sonning Common Village Hall
- This entertaining talk lasts about 45 minutes and is suitable for all ages
The meeting is hosted by Chiltern Evangelical Church.
Visit Stuart’s webpage here.