BHPC racing

[LittleWheelsandBig]

Did you nearly collect the rear left wheel of the guy in front of you?

Once you commit to a corner on a trike, any sort of braking is virtually impossible. I weigh more than Geoff, so tend to carry more speed. He slowed slightly in the corner (rolling resistance or wind resistance, who knows?) and my only option was to corner a shade tighter and slide up his inside.

Trikies are very familiar with riding at close quarters. They frequently draft by gently nudging the front tyre against the rear axle of the trike in front. I used to race on the velodrome quite a bit last century, so I am quite comfortable bumping shoulders or overlapping wheels with trustworthy riders. Newbies and squirrelly folk get given a wide berth but that is boring if applied to everybody.

[Peter]

David L'Hostis is indeed French.  He's rider no 18, and usually somewhere near the top of the Unfaired championship.

Thanks, Kim.

[LittleWheelsandBig]

I am third in line in that shot. From the inside, it felt a little more edgy than just some blokes drifting gently round a bend.

I ever said “gently”!  I thought drifting was better than skidding, but a controlled skid would have described it too.  Whichever, far too edge for my liking, but then that’s the starting position with upright trikes.

I think of drifting (like a car) requiring power while cornering. That isn't really possible with an upright trike cornering enthusiastically, so ‘drifting gently through’ was the fallback thought.

As mentioned above, it is almost impossible to slide a trike on good tarmac but it is pretty easy to lift the inside wheel. Unless you instantly react to skying a wheel, it isn’t much of a step to inverted trike flying.

I have managed to get my trike skittering through a fast downhill corner but that was mostly because of a rough surface and patchy gravel. It all turned out fine in the end, happily. Panicking is never a good idea when you are cornering close to the limit.

The small wheel trikes have higher rolling resistance than the big ones but possibly less wind resistance. I noticed that the lack of a top tube allowed small wheel trikies to lean out further and lower than I could. In the hairpin, I was basically cornering as hard as I could with little margin to turn tighter. The inside wheel gently lifted a few times, which is fun.

[tatanab]

It is easy to get the front wheel skittering across the road on a broken surface, I used to do it every day on a particular commuting route.  With your weight off the the side and back, the front is travelling a bit light.  Not good for the head tube joints!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cornering - I tend to get lower rather than further out.  On the Trykit I have a 750mm axle and a sloping top tube which allows me to get my hips down inside the wheel, you can see this in the video of the second race and start/finish bend.  It is not long after you go through, so you can compare styles easily.  On my Longstaff I have the usual 700mm axle and flat top tube which means I cannot get inside the wheel, so on that I tend to hang out further and sit on the wheel more to compensate.  Riding my small wheeler I miss having a top tube to hook the knee over, but I have only ridden it on the road, so not with bends like at Stourport.  My next outing is likely to be Bath.  Which machine will I use, or will I use the Higgins?  Probably not the Higgins because it is 66 years old so should be treated gently(ish).

[Kim]

Actual drifting is achievable on a tadpole recumbent with a lightly loaded rear wheel, but it's only likely to happen if the traction is worse than you'd get on normal wet tarmac.  (I'm wondering about those mossy corners at Preston, which I make a point of avoiding on two wheels...)  The pedal cars tend to be prone to this sort of thing too, as they usually drive both rear wheels without the benefit of a differential, which means something's got to slip.  Usually it's just the tyres that suffer.

Skittering front wheels on upright trikes sound terrifying!

[fd3]

David L'Hostis is indeed French.  He's rider no 18, and usually somewhere near the top of the Unfaired championship.

His video suggests speeds of 25mph and over - which is definitely unfair.

[LittleWheelsandBig]

That is why he is in the fast races while the upright trikes are in the slow races, which might be won with something somewhat above 20mph.

[Karla]

I used to race on the velodrome quite a bit last century, so I am quite comfortable bumping shoulders or overlapping wheels with trustworthy riders.

Oh I realise.  No offence intended!

[LittleWheelsandBig]

None taken.

Some people have a large personal space requirement on the bike. Some of us, smaller. As long as the first group let the second know their preference without panicking, it is easy to accommodate.

[Kim]

David L'Hostis is indeed French.  He's rider no 18, and usually somewhere near the top of the Unfaired championship.

His video suggests speeds of 25mph and over - which is definitely unfair.

That is why he is in the fast races while the upright trikes are in the slow races, which might be won with something somewhat above 20mph.

Indeed.  We try to minimise the speed and/or experience differential for safety reasons.  Though it's not an exact science (see above).

Typically the top of the fast race is in the 30mph+ range, with the top of the slow race somewhere around 20mph.  The bottom end of the slow race can often be in single digits.  Stourport is not a fast track, as there's a bit of a climb, and the faired machines never get to make proper use of their aerodynamic advantages.

Average lap speeds can be seen in the timing results:

http://www.bhpc.org.uk/Data/Sites/1/media/events/events22/02stourport/index.html

[Mr Larrington]

Actual drifting is achievable on a tadpole recumbent with a lightly loaded rear wheel, but it's only likely to happen if the traction is worse than you'd get on normal wet tarmac.  (I'm wondering about those mossy corners at Preston, which I make a point of avoiding on two wheels...)  The pedal cars tend to be prone to this sort of thing too, as they usually drive both rear wheels without the benefit of a differential, which means something's got to slip.  Usually it's just the tyres that suffer.

I remember a very wet day at Kimbolton when Glenn Thompson actually managed to spin an unfaired Windcheetah

[tatanab]

The pedal cars tend to be prone to this sort of thing too, as they usually drive both rear wheels without the benefit of a differential, which means something's got to slip.  Usually it's just the tyres that suffer.

Upright tricycle drive systems in use at Stourport were of 3 types - single wheel drive (left side), differential, and double freewheel (we call it two wheel drive).

[LittleWheelsandBig]

The third is the best. The Quattrovelo uses the double freewheel system developed for upright trikes and those QV parts are all manufactured by Geoff, who is in the race.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Average lap speeds can be seen in the timing results:

http://www.bhpc.org.uk/Data/Sites/1/media/events/events22/02stourport/index.html

Good graphic! And clearly demonstrates huge range of speeds.

[fd3]

Typically the top of the fast race is in the 30mph+ range

The sort of speeds that are barely sensible on a turbo trainer - even if I could manage that on the road, I think I'd be too scared to go that fast.

[Kim]

Average lap speeds can be seen in the timing results:

http://www.bhpc.org.uk/Data/Sites/1/media/events/events22/02stourport/index.html

Good graphic! And clearly demonstrates huge range of speeds.

Those CrossMgr animations are a thing of beauty and a joy forever.  I've been progressively replacing the GPX files they're derived from using 1-point-per-second tracklogs with speed data from an actual race, so the corners are smooth and it can show the dots slowing down and speeding up at the appropriate moments.

The software can show you the animation in realtime during the race - which can be handy for getting ready to wave bells and flags - and it's uncanny how accurate it can be, given that it's only using the times the rider passes the RFID system at the finish line.  (Obviously it does go wrong if there's an incident of some kind.)

[Kim]

Typically the top of the fast race is in the 30mph+ range

The sort of speeds that are barely sensible on a turbo trainer - even if I could manage that on the road, I think I'd be too scared to go that fast.

It's surprising how different a race track is from the road in that respect.  You can have a lot more confidence when it's mostly flat, you know the surface is decent and there's nothing lurking round the corner to run you over.

Not that I'm likely to reach 30 in anything other than kilometres per hour a flat out sprint, mind you.

[Mr Larrington]

Shame Eastway was subsumed by the Great God Mammon chiz, coz you could get a good turn of speed up on the hill feeding into the back straight.  Also it was within easy riding distance of Larrington Towers.

[Kim]

Sign-on for York (19th June - the rally weekend) is now open to BHPC members.

[Kim]

Sign-on for York (19th June - the rally weekend) is now open to BHPC members.

And closes tomorrow.  Not many takers for this one, so potentially some easy championship points for those who turn up...

Non-members are welcome.  You merely need a magic hat and a brake that works.  Since it's a banked velodrome, multi-track vehicles need to be reasonably fast, but bicycles shouldn't have too much trouble, even if they're Mildly Inappropriate™.

[Mr Larrington]

David l'Hostis' Lancaster video now on YouBend.

[aidan.f]

Since it's a banked velodrome, multi-track vehicles need to be reasonably fast, but bicycles shouldn't have too much trouble, even if they're Mildly Inappropriate™.

From BHPC faceache page....

Note: We shall be using the ROAD CIRCUIT for this event, not the velodrome as previously advertised

https://www.facebook.com/events/187269299903671/

Now trying to work out how to fit both a long barrow and up-wrong trike on the roof rack :-|

[LittleWheelsandBig]

If I’d have known the racing was on the road circuit, that might have increased the entry. When did that change?

[tatanab]

Note that Facebook link is to last year.

[Kim]

If I’d have known the racing was on the road circuit, that might have increased the entry. When did that change?

If it has, nobody told me.  We couldn't get use of the track this year (which is disappointing, for the reason LittleWheelsandBig states), but had arranged a standby booking if bad weather made the velodrome unusable and whoever had booked the track pulled out.

I assume it's just FriendFace churning up random old bollocks, as is its way.