'Nutty' North Yorkshire inventor smashes land speed record on steam-powered bike

• Video report by Jon Hill

A "nutty" inventor has smashed the land speed record for a steam-powered motorcycle after reaching over 160mph in less than four seconds.

Graham Sykes, a precision engineer from Bedale, North Yorkshire, designed his "rocket bike" in his garden shed with his wife, Diane, over the course of 10 years.

The bike - nicknamed "The Force of Nature" to reflect its environmentally-friendly qualities - uses hydrogenated vegetable oil to superheat water into highly pressurised steam, which thrusts the bike forwards at high speed.

"We've got a big cylinder which we fill with water, then we heat it up and that water pressurises, it expands," explains Graham.

"It gets to 250C, which brings us up to around 600psi [40 times atmospheric pressure], and then we release that pressure out through some valves, through some rocket nozzles, and that sends us [forward] very fast."

Before the attempt at Elvington Airfield, near York, the previous record for a steam-powered motorcycle stood at just over 80mph - less than half the speed Graham achieved.

He hit 163mph in 3.87 seconds over one-eighth of a mile (201m) from a standing start.

The 60-year-old grandfather-of-nine has to lie prone on the bike to make him as aerodynamic as possible.

He said people think of him as a "nutty professor".

"But I'm not, I'm very level and down to earth. I'm just a I'm just an engineer with a passion for sport and going fast," he said.

But this record may just be the beginning, as the next target is in Graham and Diane's sights - topping 200mph.

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