Author Topic: Battle Mountain 2018  (Read 13413 times)

Re: Battle Mountain 2018
« Reply #25 on: 14 September, 2018, 10:53:21 am »
I'm curious as to the engine required to propel one to >70mph. Does anyone post their power data anywhere? It would be interesting to see what sort of rider it suits (and whether getting a top flight engine (eg a track pursuiter) would make a difference,or whether the people taking part are already that level for this event).

Beardy

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Re: Battle Mountain 2018
« Reply #26 on: 14 September, 2018, 10:56:57 am »
A question Mr L, if I may. Are the arms only competitors wheelchair users in normal life, or are they fully mobile without the aid of wheels and the like? I believe in most wheelchair sports, competitors have to be wheelchair users by default.
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LittleWheelsandBig

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Re: Battle Mountain 2018
« Reply #27 on: 14 September, 2018, 11:04:00 am »
The current HPV record holders are high class (national level) but not international level athletes. They've tried loading a world class racer into a HPV (Jason Queally) but he was handicapped by a slow bike. They haven't yet managed the combination of HPV-acclimated world class rider and a world class machine.
Wheel meet again, don't know where, don't know when...

Re: Battle Mountain 2018
« Reply #28 on: 14 September, 2018, 01:29:23 pm »
A question Mr L, if I may. Are the arms only competitors wheelchair users in normal life, or are they fully mobile without the aid of wheels and the like? I believe in most wheelchair sports, competitors have to be wheelchair users by default.
Karen Darke is a wheelchair user, and has won Paralympic medals among other things.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Darke

ElyDave

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Re: Battle Mountain 2018
« Reply #29 on: 14 September, 2018, 01:45:24 pm »
The current HPV record holders are high class (national level) but not international level athletes. They've tried loading a world class racer into a HPV (Jason Queally) but he was handicapped by a slow bike. They haven't yet managed the combination of HPV-acclimated world class rider and a world class machine.

The mad Scotsman - world class rider, but not HPV acclimated.  Wonder how he might have done in one of the university designed machines?
“Procrastination is the thief of time, collar him.” –Charles Dickens

Re: Battle Mountain 2018
« Reply #30 on: 14 September, 2018, 07:00:29 pm »
I'm curious as to the engine required to propel one to >70mph.

Not exactly a direct answer to your question, but I love this video of ex-record holder Sam Whittingham.
Make sure you have the sound turned up.
Garry Broad

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Re: Battle Mountain 2018
« Reply #31 on: 14 September, 2018, 10:20:59 pm »
Much better weather this morning as the wind stayed pretty kind for most of the session.  Natch one of the riders who didn't get a legal run was HPT Delft/Amsterdam's Jennifer Breet.  We think the wind loves her and wants to be her friend.  Andrea in Taurus was over 80 again, closely followed by Fabien in Altaïr 6 at 79.48.  And the ever-popular Adam Ince finally got an Official Hat with a 51.42 mph run in Half Fast.  I'm on chase vehicle duty again today, so got to ride behind Adam, Andrea, Valina Sintalova in Bluenose and Matthias König in VeloX XS.  With his ability to walk unaided and make jokes in English after a run, we think Matthias isn't trying hard enough :demon:

Oh, and two more world records for the Liverpool team  Ken and Karen both ran in the 600/200m discipline (i.e. a very short run-up).  Ken did 33.81 and Karen 30.30 mph, boosting the prevous marks by more than 5 and 8 mph respectively.

Weather is looking OK for this evening and tomorrow morning but a bit ropy for tomorrow night, so the fast girls and boys are anxious to get a good one in ASAP.  Lieke de Cock looks the more likely of the VeloX 8 riders to break the women's record, and bothe Fabien Canal and the luckless Calvin Moes are both looking for 80.  Mr World's Fastest Mammal Todd Reichert is now here to Dispense Wisdom in Calvin's direction, because Canada.
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Re: Battle Mountain 2018
« Reply #32 on: 14 September, 2018, 11:14:34 pm »
...Natch one of the riders who didn't get a legal run was HPT Delft/Amsterdam's Jennifer Breet.  We think the wind loves her and wants to be her friend...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIF5Fgn0CmU

Mr Larrington

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Re: Battle Mountain 2018
« Reply #33 on: 15 September, 2018, 05:47:04 am »
More rubbish behaviour from the wind this evening.  Only two riders with legal wind and neither was Jennifer :'(  Valina Sintalova decked Bluenose somewhere on the course, Fabien Canal pulled up Altaïr 6 half a mile down the road because of the wind and toppled over before the team could get out of the van and catch him and, while able to make a wind-legal 78.11 mph run, Calvin Moes decked Eta Prime at catch again.  I heard the camera pod b0rked off, so more midnight oil for the Toronto team.  It was also Calvin's turn to cook dinner tonight.

Liverpool had problems too; the main screen in ARION 4 blanked out just as Karen was taking evasive action to avoid the team recovering Bluenose (she was able to switch to the backup and get down the road OK) while some derangement caused the front tyre to start rubbing the top of the fairing during Ken's run, filling the interior with little chunks of rubber and limiting the speed to a legal 36.73 mph in spite of record-breaking power input from the rider.  Fortunately the tyre stayed in one piece as for some unfathomable reason the front is a skinny 650B, which are in short supply in Nevada.
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Re: Battle Mountain 2018
« Reply #34 on: 15 September, 2018, 10:24:28 pm »
Executive summary of this morning: at her second attempt of the day, Jennifer Breet finally got a wind-legal run (72.42 mph) in VeloX 8; Calvin Moes in Eta Prime did a wind-legal run over 80 mph; Karen Darke broke the arms-only world record for the third time this week, leaving it at  46.54 mph.

And your correspondent drove That Shitbox Dodge into Danny Guthrie's campervan just now.  Piss.
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Re: Battle Mountain 2018
« Reply #35 on: 16 September, 2018, 08:14:01 am »
Bastard Windy at first this evening and only Valina Sintalova made a run in the first heat.  She got Bluenose down the course OK but stacked the old warhorse quite hard in the deceleration zone.

Heat 2 failed to attract any riders at all.

Fabien Canal withdrew from heat 3 because it was Bastard Windy*, Calvin Moes actually b0rked one of Eta Prime's chains on starting this time and Andrea Gallo, great slacker that he be, cruised through at sub-50 mph to show off Taurus' tricolore underbody LEDs.  Lieke de Cock had one more attempt at the women's record when the wind finally died, but came up a little short, as did Matthias König's quest for 80 mph in the final run of the event.

Andrea may have gone fastest but the big winners were undoubtedly the University of Liverpool team, Karen Darke and Ken Talbot.  Hurrah for BRITAIN!  Even if Ken is originally from Seattle.

* ETA, and not because Liverpool gave Annecy's chief catcher a BEER shortly before the start of the heat, which disqualified him from doing his job.
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Re: Battle Mountain 2018
« Reply #36 on: 17 September, 2018, 02:01:37 am »
W1nz0rz all:


P9160645 by Mr Larrington, on Flickr

Standing L-R: Fabien Canal, Lieke de Cock, Jennifer Breet, Ellen van Vugt, Russell Bridge, Greg Cantori
Not Standing L-R: Calvin Moes, Andrea Gallo, Karen Darke, Ken Talbot, Adam Ince


P9150612 by Mr Larrington, on Flickr

Forza Italia!


P9150635 by Mr Larrington, on Flickr

Mike Sova takes over the care and feeding of 2D Thomas from Marieke Ligtvoet.  Mikey is returning to his boat tomorrow.  In Grenada.  The git.
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Re: Battle Mountain 2018
« Reply #37 on: 28 September, 2018, 11:35:23 am »
Should have posted this earlier but failed because idleness and networks.  Soup Dragon pilot Russell Bridge's short fillum of the whole sorry saga:

https://youtu.be/0a7usJV_xDo
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Re: Battle Mountain 2018
« Reply #38 on: 28 September, 2018, 07:43:36 pm »
Should have posted this earlier but failed because idleness and networks.  Soup Dragon pilot Russell Bridge's short fillum of the whole sorry saga:

https://youtu.be/0a7usJV_xDo

Beautifully done - just a shame about the whole 'gone missing' saga.
The drone shots after 5mins are well cool.

From a technical perspective, I'm a tad perplexed about the idea of using just a single speed in the Soup Dragon. Surely gears are essential as you build momentum? [He says.....just assuming]
Garry Broad

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Re: Battle Mountain 2018
« Reply #39 on: 29 September, 2018, 02:09:02 pm »
Russ said he was totally happy with the single-speed business, though I'm not sure it's going to set a trend.  The landing gear, which impressed everyone, helped in that he didn't have to worry about trying to balance while pushing a very high gear at very low revs.  Everyone else has gears, though some had as few as four, and the Italians and Delft/Amsterdam were both using a setup where the cassette moves sideways instead of a conventional derailleur.  Nothing new under the sun, though; Miles Kingsbury used the same idea on the Mango in 2002, albeit with only a piece of string to operate it rather than electronic wizardry.

The drone stuff is courtesy of Nik Vatin, an emigré from $BALTIC_STATE, who used to have a habit of turning up on the doorsteps of HPV enthusiasts across Europe and eating them out of house and home :D
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Re: Battle Mountain 2018
« Reply #40 on: 29 September, 2018, 03:01:34 pm »
Thanks, D, a wonderful event and reporting.

Re: Battle Mountain 2018
« Reply #41 on: 29 September, 2018, 03:17:51 pm »
Russ said he was totally happy with the single-speed business, though I'm not sure it's going to set a trend.  The landing gear, which impressed everyone, helped in that he didn't have to worry about trying to balance while pushing a very high gear at very low revs. 

I can see how useful the Soup Dragon landing gear is when that single speed is probably rotating slower than the London Eye at the beginning of a run!

He did a good job to sell the landing gear in the video, what with footage of everybody else falling over at the beginning of their attempts  ;D
Garry Broad

Re: Battle Mountain 2018
« Reply #42 on: 30 September, 2018, 08:30:46 pm »
I have had this idea turning in my head whether a hybrid drive using a flywheel to store the power at the beginning of a run and release it to boost rhe end speed could work. Would it be allowed? Would the necessary drive splitting and clutches just take up too much space and weight to be accomodated in the racer hull? Would the gyroscopic forces as the flywheel slowed down after the run chuck the machine on its side before the catchers could catch it? Still just the rider"s muscles doing the work of course. Has anyone else gone through this reflection and abandonned it as unworkable?

Tim Hall

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Re: Battle Mountain 2018
« Reply #43 on: 30 September, 2018, 09:30:17 pm »
Possible rude/stupid question. So Mike Burrows has been designing bikes for ages, with great, as far as I know, success. How, then, did Soup Dragon end up with such a flexy steering arrangement and play in the wheel bearings?
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Mr Larrington

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Re: Battle Mountain 2018
« Reply #44 on: 30 September, 2018, 09:34:16 pm »
A flywheel, or any other kind of energy storage system, is permitted under the rules provided it's completely discharged before the run starts.  No-one's tried it in any HPV competition that I'm aware of, though flywheels have, IIRC, been tried as an aid to hillclimbing on ordinary bikes and found wanting.  Too much extra mass and complication for too little gain.

Possible rude/stupid question. So Mike Burrows has been designing bikes for ages, with great, as far as I know, success. How, then, did Soup Dragon end up with such a flexy steering arrangement and play in the wheel bearings?

We've got the BHPC AGM in a couple of weeks.  I'll ask him :demon:
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Re: Battle Mountain 2018
« Reply #45 on: 17 November, 2018, 08:55:10 pm »
We're on the telly!  Well, sort of.  Not found a link to the actual programme yet.
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Torslanda

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Re: Battle Mountain 2018
« Reply #46 on: 17 November, 2018, 10:12:44 pm »

We've got the BHPC AGM in a couple of weeks.  I'll ask him :demon:

...and whar was the answer?
VELOMANCER

Well that's the more blunt way of putting it but as usual he's dead right.

Kim

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Re: Battle Mountain 2018
« Reply #47 on: 17 November, 2018, 10:41:41 pm »

We've got the BHPC AGM in a couple of weeks.  I'll ask him :demon:

...and whar was the answer?

He may have been preoccupied with setting a new BHPC record for heart rate...

Re: Battle Mountain 2018
« Reply #48 on: 18 November, 2018, 06:03:07 am »

Mr Larrington

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Re: Battle Mountain 2018
« Reply #49 on: 05 December, 2018, 02:16:44 pm »
Rather than start the 2019 thread ridiculously early, I merely note here that the dates for 2019 are September 8-14.  An extra day of racing, as if the volunteers weren't already sleep-deprived zombies by Thursday as it is.  Tech inspections and introductory briefing on Saturday 7th.

Not booking anything until this Brexit fustercluck is sorted, mind.
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