He took his design to the British Cycling manufacturers but was shunned!  

Unpreturbed, Mike showed his design to the British Cycling Federation and was with received with much interest.  The only problem was that the bike was concidered illegal by UCI official and the project was shelved in 1987.     

The Bike returned from the ashes in 1990 when a UCI rule change, allowing carbon fibre monocoque frame designs to be used in internal compertition  meant that the Windcheetah was now legal and back from the dead!  

Lotus became involved in the project when a close friend of Burrows saw the design and took it to the Lotus factory to show the engineers.  Lotus saw in the bike a potential world beater, and came on board to enhance the design and use their advanced Carbon Fibre techniques to maximize its potential.  

They recognised the publicity aspects of an Olympic Gold Medal won riding a bike designed and built by Lotus.   

A pair of special tri-handlebars were added to the bike and a certain Chris Boardman who was destined to make both himself and the bike famous worldwide!  

The bike's unique design and Chris's ability to achieve the almost perfect time trialing position proved an unbeatable combination.  

Chris went on to win Olympic Gold to the 1992 4000m individual pursuit in Barcelona. Britain's first cycling Gold Medal for 72 years.  

With the evolution of the Superman position, now banned by the UCI, a set of elongated tri-bar handlebars were added although the design stayed similar.  

A company called Aerodyne made the frame on which Chris broke the hour record. Eddie Merckxx had the contract to sell Lotus frames on the continent, and Aerodyne had manufactured frames for Lotus due to set-up costs and volume. 

Now it looks like the end of the road for the design, first developed by Mike Burrows, in the form of his Windcheetah as the UCI move towards banning the monocoque and pushing more traditional diamond frame design.