Yet Another Cycling Forum
General Category => Freewheeling => The Dark Side => Topic started by: Mr Larrington on 30 August, 2017, 10:16:39 am
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(Sings)
It's that time of year
It's time to go abroad
It's time to go on holiday
And visit Betty Ford NV-305
No, not me, Lawnmower DETH...
Actual runs don't get underway until the 11th, but if I don't start the topic now I'll probably forget. Or something. No Aerovelo this year chiz - I assume RL has caught up with them - nor Team Cygnus chiz chiz but I'm hoping for some keen competition among the women, with BRITAIN's Becky Taylor in Liverpool's ARION 3, a returning Barbara Buatois inna brand-new Varna camera bike and both Iris Slappendel and Aniek Roodenkerken in HPT Delft/Amsterdam's VeloX 7 givin' it large. We want 80, Becky!
Last year's best of the rest, the Super Ketta Machine 162, is also returning with a new rider and - hopefully - without the TV crew, Team Policumbent have a brand new and drop-dead gorgeous bike, the Taurus, for Andrea Gallo and BRITAIN's Ken Buckley returns for the third time as the other rider in ARION 3. We want 80, Ken!
Your roving reporter, together with both iterations of 2D Thomas van Schaik, will be heading to USAnia this very day so assuming The Man hasn't found all the rude things I've said about Donald TЯump the Automatic Diary (http://automatic-diary.blogspot.co.uk/) will be open for business from tomorrow morning UK time. I'm very grateful to the forumites who talked me out of going via Houston this year...
Official event webby SCIENCE is at http://www.wisil.recumbents.com/wisil/whpsc2017/speedchallenge.htm; first stop for the results after each session Mr Sir Lord Professor Nogami's pages at https://jnyyz.wordpress.com/category/hpv/; Facething group is at https://www.facebook.com/groups/123929127660938/
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Will Bethany (7) and Bethany's mum be travelling also?
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Will Bethany (7) and Bethany's mum be travelling also?
That would be telling!
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I am in Denver, not Guantanamo, and the convertible is actually a convertible this year. Hurrah!
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That would be telling!
We want information. INFORMATION! INFORMATION!
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Photos needed
What does 2D thomas think of the convertible?
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Photos needed
What does 2D thomas think of the convertible?
You're going to have to be more precise than that if you want information. After all we have already ascertained that the party consists of at least three travelers (and possibly more) including two 2D Thomas's.
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(https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4428/36759139782_25975d3351_c.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/Y1hcA7)
P8310175 (https://flic.kr/p/Y1hcA7) by Mr Larrington (https://www.flickr.com/photos/mr_larrington/), on Flickr
Sole photo of the trip thus far as it was getting dark by the time I arrived at last night's caravanserai. And I ate'nt had the top down yet as although it was toasty warm in Denver remembering how to drive on the wrong side of the road and listening to a pair of competing sat-navs is difficult enough even when the wind is not whipping your hair around your ears. For the motor-car has a built-in one while Emily was quietly chuntering away in a pocket of my rucksack. This could get interesting.
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Why is the bottom of the image pixelated?
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Why is the bottom of the image pixelated?
'e's a villain. A right wrong 'un and no mistake.
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Why is the bottom of the image pixelated?
Plane driver took a wrong turn (perhaps due to competing satnavs) and instead of USAnia he's ended up in Minecraft. Which would explain the suspicious lack of hassle at border control...
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…and BRITAIN's Ken Buckley returns for the third time as the other rider in ARION 3.
The other rider to Ken in ARION3 was going to be me. I'd been training with the Liverpool guys since December last year and recently finished a bunch of test days at Woodford aerodrome with the completed bike. It has some very nice engineering inside it, and the team is great. And then just last weekend, with only days left before flying out to BM, unfortunate circumstances meant I had to respectfully withdraw from the whole endeavour. :'( I'm still gutted about that, as is the rest of the team.
But if anyone can do it, Ken can, and I would say the bike is aerodynamically capable of 80 to 85mph. :thumbsup:
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That's pants. :(
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B'ggr :'(
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...when the wind is not whipping your hair around your ears...
You have hair? On your head? Git!
Or do you mean the wind whipping your ear-hair around? :)
And for good measure I'm going to resubmit my complaint from last year about the total lack of coverage of, "The Spanish Race" to Pandemic. It really isn't good enough them letting their commentator in chief bugger off on his holibobs.
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Top down all day yesterday, applying hairbrush to Anistonesque flowing locks today. This has generated enough loose fur to provide a whole generation of Wild Woozles, such as inhabit the East Pole, with nesting material. If Dr Hook's Lucy Jordan really had travelled to Paris in a sports car with the warm wind in her hair she'd have looked like the wreck of the Hesperus long before reaching the Terripherique Peripherique. Ha!
Complaints about the Vuelta should be addressed to the organisers of that event, who IIRC moved the date to coincide with Pandemic's colemantator's annual pilgrimage to Abroad, where the FOREIGNS come from. Battle Mountain is when it is because:
- That's when it's least likely to be windy, and
- It's not snowing, and
- It's not the breeding season of the Mormon Cricket*
* An insect, not a variation on 20-Twenty**
** Wives
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Arellcat, that's a real shame (but does explain all the training you have been doing).
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I've just seen on Facething that Yasmin Tredell is to ride ARION 3 :o Something of a surprise as she's only just had an operation on the injured shoulder that kept her out of rowing and into "cycling" in the first place.
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Yas's injury was partly why she didn't apply for the rider selection at the tail end of last year. I'm bummed about not going to BM, but I'm pleased for her that she's getting another crack at the record.
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Well, I'm here! Only met the Varna gang so far but suspect others are over at the Civic Center or being coerced into lifting Heavy Things out on the course. I shall go for a wander later.
If anyone's driving here from Las Vegas tomorrow Yasmin could do with a lift :o
Edit:
First piece of Shiny:
(https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4414/36737308880_f3f96778fe_c.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/XYmj2f)
VeloX 7 (https://flic.kr/p/XYmj2f), latest from HP Team Delft/Amsterdam
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They seem to have forgotten a window to allow the driver a fighting chance of going in the right direction.
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Windows are so noughties, dear boy. Cameras and video screens are where it's at.
Update: Yasmin has made it to Reno and should be able to scrounge a lift from one or other of the timing chaps.
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Looks very sleek, I hope Yasmin is of whippet-like svelteness
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That up there is VeloX 7, wot is Dutch and powered by lady cyclists. I aten't got a picture of ARION 3 yet, but it's probably a bit bigger since Yas is sharing riding duties with BRITISH Chaps' record holder1 Ken Buckley; she's originally a rower and somewhere north of 6' tall.
Spent the morning watching the Italians fettling their new machine Taurus. Brake discs and the rear (tubeless) tyre were causing some headaches; brakes now OK but tyre still playing silly buggers. Their solution to this? Have lunch ;D
Picture from this morning still squeezing through the very skinny pipe at the Super 8; shortly I'm going to head over to the technical inspections where I can point the camera at most of the rest of the machines. No sign yet of the Japanese, the Australians or the Canuckistanis but the BRITONS, the Dutch, the Italians, the French, the USAnians and the Mexicans are all here. No Russians this year chiz.
1: Though former University of Toronto PSO Trefor Evans has dual nationality and has gone faster than Ken has so far managed, but say's he's Canadian.
Edit: Morning photos now uploaded: https://flic.kr/s/aHsm4G2tdV
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The solution to every Italian problem is lunch, or coffee, or lunch then coffee. I can entirely relate to that, as my new triple front mech suddenly worked after having returned from dinner
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The solution to every Italian problem is lunch, or coffee, or lunch then coffee. I can entirely relate to that, as my new triple front mech suddenly worked after having returned from dinner
You took your mech out for dinner?
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Shiny smoothness seems to be de rigueur in the persuit of the fastness. Has sharkskin finish like that Australian chap Mr Thorpedo and his ilk use for going much fast through the water been tried on the windowless machines or should I be heading to the patent office?
This is a serious enquiry by the way.
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Great photos Mr Larrington 👍🏻
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Shiny smoothness seems to be de rigueur in the persuit of the fastness. Has sharkskin finish like that Australian chap Mr Thorpedo and his ilk use for going much fast through the water been tried on the windowless machines or should I be heading to the patent office?
This is a serious enquiry by the way.
Sharkskin/dimples are used to keep the boundary layer attached for longer, ie think golf balls.
But you don't want the boundary layer to ever detach, hence the shape is so critical.
So I would think any type of dimples would slow you down.
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The solution to every Italian problem is lunch, or coffee, or lunch then coffee. I can entirely relate to that, as my new triple front mech suddenly worked after having returned from dinner
You took your mech out for dinner?
I went back I to the house for dinner, left the front mech in the shed to think about its attitude. Obviously "tough love" worked in this case.
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Photos from this morning's qualifying runs (https://flic.kr/s/aHsm4TgU9y). Nearly all from the start coz that's where I ended up after driving the sweep car. About 156 mph, since you ask.
FTD to Eta Prime/Calvin Moes (University of Toronto) at 68.32 mph - this with only a 2.5 mile run-up. Only other bike over 60 was Andrea Gallo in Taurus with 65.45, Yasmin Tredell in ARION3 next up with 58.03. Nearly 5 mph quicker than Ken Buckley :demon: Wind started to pick up for the later runs though - a crosswind to boot.
First day jitters got the better of not a few people with Toronto have a pretty torrid time. Five starts in two bikes, 3 DNFs. Iris Slappendel managed to deck VeloX 7 at both ends of her run. The machine from Mexico's De La Salle Universidad b0rked its transmission very early in the run and new rider Shinsuke Kouzai fell with his first start attempt in Super Ketta Machine 162, restarted and then went off the road near the 1 mile marker, bloodying his nose and scarring the bike somewhat. Even Barbara Buatois and Ellen van Vugt had a few wobbles at the start.
But we did get a new world record, with John Mumme cranking his unfaired handcycle to 27.6 mph with only a 600 metre run-up :thumbsup:
Lovely and warm this morning, no woolly jumpers needed and it should be Scorchio! this evening. I'm going to have a snooze now coz I only got four hours last night because poxy slow Internets...
(https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4338/37172347315_7cecfd569e_o.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/YCMZMV)
Taurus (https://flic.kr/p/YCMZMV) by Mr Larrington (https://www.flickr.com/photos/mr_larrington/), on Flickr
This is the most beautiful bike I have ever seen here, bar none. Sooner or later I'll get a good picture of it or die trying.
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Not much to add from this evening. Only two bikes in the first heat; Ken Buckley got away OK in ARION 3 but blew the rear tyre halfway down the course when doing about 65 mph. Not too much damage to the bike and none to the rider. Bill Kong in Toronto's old warhorse Bluenose did 67.8 with non-legal wind and blew straight through catch at some ludicrous speed. Not sure how they managed to stop him coz I was still up the road at Ken's incident.
We closed the road for the second heat but it started raining when I was still four miles from the start area. Not heavily compared with what we could see over the mountains but enough to cause us to halt proceedings for the day. At least we get an early night tonight.
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Shiny smoothness seems to be de rigueur in the persuit of the fastness. Has sharkskin finish like that Australian chap Mr Thorpedo and his ilk use for going much fast through the water been tried on the windowless machines or should I be heading to the patent office?
This is a serious enquiry by the way.
Several years ago, When Mike Burrows was famous for designing Chris Boardman's Lotus bike, we (my boss used to organise the lectures) got Mike to do an evening lecture at Cambridge's Cavendish Physics lab. Someone asked him about laminar flow, and he gave a great explanation, including golf ball dimples, why you can't acheive it on a jumbo jet, but almost can on a (streamlined) bicycle, and used an analogy of crowds walking along Oxford Street, with interesting shop windows, as an explanation of what was happening to airflow. He suggested the satin finish of the lecture theatre's whiteboard was good enough - no need for polished gloss surface, and pondered that a headbadge might save you a second on a 10 mile time trial...
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Shiny smoothness seems to be de rigueur in the persuit of the fastness.
Someone asked Mike Burrows about laminar flow, and he gave a great explanation, including golf ball dimples, why you can't achieve it on a jumbo jet, but almost can on a (streamlined) bicycle…
Shiny smoothness is good, as long as you can keep the laminar flow attached to the surface for lower skin friction, but keeping it attached is the tricky bit. Whenever the flow breaks away, it becomes turbulent. Fortunately bicycles don't go very fast, compared with jumbo jets, although BM speed bikes are a whole other league from domestic bicyclists. A highly refined body(shell) shape that operates in reasonably well standardised conditions, that is, IHPVA-legal wind velocity and air pressure, on a road surface that is without curves, can be expected to behave more predictably, although the conditions are equally no substitute for a wind tunnel, but on balance there is less need for micro-textured surfaces a la golf balls.
The dimples on a golf ball take laminar flow at the leading portion of the surface (and thus highly turbulent flow downstream, because the rate of change of radius after the leading portion is too great) and pre-turbulate it. This micro-turbulent layer is more stable than the laminar, even though the skin friction is higher, and so the overall drag is reduced. You have dimples all over a golf ball because every point on a ball can be the front or the sides. What is not commonly realised is that the dimples aren't all the same depth: those on the 'equator' are very slightly deeper. Given the correct positioning on the tee, and given the correct amount of backspin, this can net you a couple more seconds of flight time, which is good for an extra 20 to 25 metres on the driving range.
Shark skin, and its arrangement of dermal denticles, is optimised for reducing hydrodynamic drag by applying the same turbulising effect. You find that the crowns of the denticles are smooth and nearly flat on the leading edges, like on the snout or the fins, which helps preserve stability where the boundary layer is minimal, and relatively thick and pronounced elsewhere on the shark's body, and in addition, are naturally aligned to the flow direction. The reduction in eddies, which translates to reduction in drag, also means a reduction in the noise of eddies, which is critical to the success of being an oceanic hunter.
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Rain threatened this morning but didn't materialise on the course itself so we got a full programme run off. Still a few starting issues, notably from Barbara whose Varna camera back seemed to have developed an unnatural fondness for the right side ditch. After six failed attempts we ran out of time. Phenomenal save by Larry Lem diving under Macquarie Uni's MQ1 to bounce it upright when it looked like Charles Easton-Berry was going down - apparently the Italians have it on video so I'll keep my eyes peeled for the link. And Andrea decked the Taurus while starting, though happily damage is barely noticeable.
The Super Ketta Machine 162 has an equally perverted love life, but for the left side of the road, as Shinsuke Kouzai went off in much the same place as yesterday, and the Mexican String-Driven Thing has also yet to complete a full run even over the short course.
FTD again went to Calvin Moes in Eta Prime, whose 75.96 mph was into an illegally-stiff headwind. The wind calmed down for the final heat on the long course and Yasmin Tredell got the second-best speed of the morning with a fully-legal 66.66 mph in the repaired ARION 3. Ken managed to keep it on the road for a confidence-building 60.69 and the Liverpool PSOs will now be spending the afternoon painting, sanding, polishing and praying to the Weather Goddess for better conditions.
John Mumme improved his 600/200 arm-powered record to 28.87 mph, but he's through for the week, I think because Real Life.
Photos from this morning's runs and the Show'n'Shine at the Civic Center are at here: clicky (https://flic.kr/s/aHsm4Y2R6s).
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the Liverpool PSOs
Mostly P, probably. Keiran at least even has a car1 now.
1 There was much japery going on at Woodford, in respect of how many cylinders it had2 and "wottle it do, mister?"3
2 Three, which was clearly not enough, in the view of the other Liverpool PSOs.
3 Allegedly 85mph4, which was clearly not enough, in the view of the other Liverpool PSOs.
4 Which I thought was suspiciously good going on a 0.6th of a mile of runway.
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Give the ASBO full beans out of the catch area and it's doing 135 by the time you reach the timing traps. A Corvette with similar power but about half a tonne less mass did 150 ;D
Anyway, no runs Tuesday evening because rain, wind, thunder, lightning and four blokes on horseback making a bloody nuisance of themselves1.
- Last item may, technically, be Fake News
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Is there a translation engine or look up page to convert Larrington to human? Especially wrt the TLAs
I can usually work out something of meaning form the poetically constructed prose, but I'm stumped this morning. eg, what is a FTD, and who are the PSO?
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FTD = Fastest of The Day?
PSO = Penniless Student Oaf
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FTD = Fastest of The Day?
PSO = Penniless Student Oaf
Ta.
I thought the F might be fastest and the D day, the T had me stumped and questioning my thinkings.
PSO had me completely stumped ;D
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I thought the F might be fastest and the D day, the T had me stumped and questioning my thinkings.
Fastest Time of the Day.
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Young Keiran's pithy phrase used to describe a fellow Oaf's attempt t find $IMPORTANT_ITEM in the back of the Scousers' truck this morning, viz. "like two monkeys trying to fuck a football" might almost have applied to the whole day. Starting when the Oaf responsible for the care and feeding of ARION 3's transmission failed to plug the derailleur's battery cable back in. Yasmin made a faultless start in perfect conditions and then couldn't change gear. Spun out after 200m, coasted the rest of the way and still did 42 mph. Ken went down at his first attempt and a communication cockup led to us thinking he wasn't going to run. When he had another go he went down again and then really packed with "something rattling" in the bottom of the bike.
Bad luck settle on Toronto as well; Isaac Chung didn't start because of "something rubbing" around the rear wheel of Bluenose, Mr Sir Lord Professor Jun Nogami decked the same bike three times and DNS'ed and Thomas Ulph snapped the old dog's final drive chain. Then the timing system went wonky for current fastest rider Calvin Moes in Eta Prime. Which fate also befell Aniek Rooderkerken in VeloX 7, though the bike's on-board GPS had her at over 70 with legal wind. Jun is going to try to salvage data from the depths of the timing box of tricks for both riders this afternoon.
The luckless Japanese team didn't start for reasons unknown while the Mexicans made two unsuccessful attempts to get their bike down the road, and Barbara Buatois yet again failed to get the new Varna off the line, going down a further six times. She's going to qualify the old Tempest tomorrow morning. Fastest of the session was Andrea Gallo in Taurus with a wind-legal 75.15 from Alan Petit in Eta Prime at 67.63. The Aussies are improving, with Charles Easton-Berry doing a 55.77, though this was only a whisker ahead of 60+ year old Peter Borenstadt in his almost-stock DF velomobile. Hot and sunny at the moment; should be OK for tonight but the forecast for tomorrow morning looks a bit iffy.
Stay tuned, kids!
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Wednesday night continued Toronto's piss-poor fortune with Bill Kong decking Bluenose shortly after a near-69 mph run, Calvin Moes unshipping Eta Prime's chain again and Alan Petit falling into a dry stream bed only a few yards from the start. Liverpool's main sk8r d00d is on the sick with heat stroke, so Ken nobly sacrificed his run to launch Yasmin instead; she was close to 70 mph in spite of "something rubbing". Fastest run of the evening was Andrea Gallo in Taurus at just under 76, and currently we have more thunder, lightning, rain and a wind Mighty and Rushing enough to have ripped the Customs paperwork off one of HPT Delft/Amsterdam's shipping crates.
And we had a surprise visit from Axl Rose1:
(https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4427/36403119553_8c702515cd_o.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/XsPvbi)
Axl (https://flic.kr/p/XsPvbi) by Mr Larrington (https://www.flickr.com/photos/mr_larrington/), on Flickr
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This morning we did the five mile runs before the short course ones, because wind. The wind, being fickle and capricious, failed to do as it was told. Barbara finally managed to get the Varna camera bike down the full course with a respectable 65.81 mph while Shinsuke Kouzai completed his first run of any kind with 67.17 on the short course in Super Ketta Machine 162. He then locked the brakes coming into catch and slid into the brush yet again. Isaac Chung in Bluenose managed to crash while slowing down too, taking his eye off the ball to change gear! "No" said long-suffering team captain Calvin Moes, "you can leave it in top after timing..." Calvin was fastest again today, 73.22 with non-legal wind; Aniek was also over 70 but with similar wind issues and Ellen and Iris both did legal 68s.
"Was it rubbing or burning this time ha ha" I asked one of the Liverpool PSO's after Yasmin's ~65 run. "Both" quoth he. Ken decided not to run.
The second Mexican bike made its debut. Not sure if they were using both arm and leg power but we had to pull it off the course. The ASBO does 10 mph when in gear at idle. I was having to brake to avoid getting too close, and we needed to re-open the road. I do not see either of the Mexican bikes even completing a qualifying run.
Weather forecast for tonight: windy
Weather forecast for tomorrow morning: bloody freezing
Weather forecast for this afternoon: not torrential thunder and gale-force hail. Guess which idiot left his car parked with the roof down just now... Big shout-out to John Jackson for being handy with a tarp.
Edit: Have a shufti at Larry Lem's Save of Awesomeness at the start of this vid (https://www.facebook.com/MQSpeedTeam/videos/1619997181394283/). Hopefully no Farcebok login needed to view...
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(https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4333/36835666590_ab9b76bf9f_o.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/Y83qkQ)
P9150290 (https://flic.kr/p/Y83qkQ) by Mr Larrington (https://www.flickr.com/photos/mr_larrington/), on Flickr
This came a-visiting just about the time we were supposed to start the first heat, and brought some of its friends too. Match abandoned. Bah!
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Pretty calm but bloody freezing this morning. Like 6 Celsius. Send thick woolly socks. Calvin Moes once again quickest with a wind-legal 79.28 mph, no doubt inspired by the presence of Todd and Jenny Reichert in catch. Shinsuke Kouzai seems to have got the hang of the Super Ketta Machine 162 with a bangin' 76.82 on his first run down the full course. Early runs were all a bit too windy as well as cold and neither Ken nor Yasmin got a legal run in. Isaac Chung continued his investigation of the local flora, once again putting the much-crashed Bluenose into the brush after going through timing.
Sadly Barbara Buatois still hasn't regained her starting mojo and was unable to make a run in either bike. More Bad Gallic Swears ensued. Forecast for the remainder of the event is no rain, low winds, moderate evening temperatures and even colder tomorrow morning, with riders filling just about every available starting slot for the final three sessions. No further short course runs unless we can find space to squeeze in Natasha Morrison's unfaired bike in the 600/200 class.
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How does unfaired work then? I thought the roolz sed that the pilot had to be protected?
Looking about 8C tomorrow when I plan to be heading out
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How does unfaired work then? I thought the roolz sed that the pilot had to be protected?
Looking about 8C tomorrow when I plan to be heading out
Teh roolz is that more or less anything goes so Natasha has been running a couple of unfaired bikes (Barcroft Oregon Ti and Morciglio Velociraptor) over the short course and/or from Badger Ranch Road, which fits neatly into the 600/200 metre category - 600 metre runup to the start of the timed 200 metres. She may be able to squeeze one more run in tomorrow morning.
Tonight was not as windy as we'd feared but all runs were into an illegally high headwind. Which didn't seem to hinder Calvin Moes in Eta Prime, who got 79.3. The 80 mph hat beckons if a half-decent bit of weather can be had. Shinzuke Kouzai in Super Ketta Machine 162 now also appears to be over his earlier problems, with 74.94 mph. No-one else was over 70, so that's all a bit meh by current standards. Of the BRITONS Ken decided not to run, partly because of the wind - he was down for heat one when it was strongest - and partly because he is a Gentleman and didn't want to break the bike before Yasmin had a go. She did 68.27 in the penultimate run of the night. At the moment, though, it looks like Aniek Rooderkerken in VeloX 7 is most likely to break the women's record of 75.69 mph.
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Came across this article wot has some relevance http://www.strongher.cc/news/hpt2
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Lot's of weather frustrations around this year. It must be disappointing for people who have planned, at some cost too, to make their way down there only to be met with circumstances they can do nought about.
Sadly Barbara Buatois still hasn't regained her starting mojo and was unable to make a run in either bike.
But what's happened to Barbara? I can't imagine she's any less the athlete she was, but It's like I'm reading about somebody whose never been in one of these things before. Is the new Varna, just so different from the old one, as to make handling verging on the 'not possible?. Is it built by George [sorry I've forgotten his surname]?
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Lot's of weather frustrations around this year. It must be disappointing for people who have planned, at some cost too, to make their way down there only to be met with circumstances they can do nought about.
This has been one of the worst years I can remember for weather; there is talk of making it a bit longer and/or moving it it to before Labor Day (1st Monday in September). And Kieran from the Scousers has suggested that the European teams pool their resources in getting bikes and bits air-freighted to, say, Reno to cut transport costs and hassle. Tourism Nevada have been hanging around looking for suggestions today too.
Sadly Barbara Buatois still hasn't regained her starting mojo and was unable to make a run in either bike.
But what's happened to Barbara? I can't imagine she's any less the athlete she was, but It's like I'm reading about somebody whose never been in one of these things before. Is the new Varna, just so different from the old one, as to make handling verging on the 'not possible?. Is it built by George [sorry I've forgotten his surname]?
Mostly lack of practice, according to Julius (Mr Barbara). Plus they reckon the camera on the new bike wasn't pointed 100% straight down the road. They spent some time getting the alignment just so yesterday afternoon, and have had the multilingual Todd Reichert launching the bike too. Neither last night nor this morning were up to the standards we'd come to expect from Barbara but she didn't go down or off the road.
Very cold and initially quite breezy this morning, so much so that the riders scheduled for the 07:30 heat decided not to run. It never got properly warm but the wind died for the later runs. No wrecks and nobody drownded; fastest run was Shinsuke Kouzai with an non-legal 76.22. Best wind-legal run was Andrea with 73.72, just ahead of Ken's 73.37. Both the Dutch women were over 70 too; Yasmin's 67.96 was thus a little disappointing, though both BRITONS will be running this evening when it's forecast to be warm and not windy.
Photo op and visit from the Highway Patrol afterwards, which saw Calvin, Aniek and serial offender Barbara cuffed and led away in disgrace. For some reason the Scousers wanted me in their team photo afterwards. I have no idea why.
Final runs tonight, plus the awards bash. Things this Unit would like to see:
- World record for Yasmin
- 80 mph from Andrea/Calvin/Ken
(Crosses digits)
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The wind refused to cooperate on the last night and only Aniek in VeloX 7 got a legal run in: 75.51 mph and just a whisker under Barbara's record. If she hadn't dropped it on her first start attempt, who knows? Ken got moved to the third heat after dropping three times in the second; fortunately there was a slot free. Calvin missed out on the chance of an 80 mph run after Alan binned Eta Prime bigly halfway down the course, losing his specs in the process. I drove down 305 on the way out of town this morning and they were back out there looking for them... Both Ken and Yasmin got their best runs of the week with 71.48 and 77.4 mph, leaving them reasonably happy but still a bit frustrated1.
Bit of a letdown all told, considering the possibilities, but if the weather hadn't been so shit things might have turned out better.
1: Although I think Yasmin got over it fairly quickly:
(https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4398/36478342033_1fe6028670_o.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/Xzt3cB)
P9170395 (https://flic.kr/p/Xzt3cB) by Mr Larrington (https://www.flickr.com/photos/mr_larrington/), on Flickr
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Will Bethany (7) and Bethany's mum be travelling also?
BN: Bethany (7) will not be appearing in this year's Automatic Diary.
GN: Bethany (8 ) and Bethany's Mum appear in the entry for Day 25. Crazy P Sagan gets a mention too.
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Updating The Cool Wall normally takes at least six weeks, but this year I have not been a Terrible Shirker:
(https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4502/36783335423_ed9254b8a5_k.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/Y3qd7k)
The Cool Wall (https://flic.kr/p/Y3qd7k) by Mr Larrington (https://www.flickr.com/photos/mr_larrington/), on Flickr
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You're gonna need a bigger wall ...
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Or possibly a bigger house. Anyone know of any converted ropewalks for sale ;D