It was a week with high expectations, but only a few of them met. The story of the race for the women’s record was compelling. Delft/Amsterdam can claim victory since their riders were the fastest two women, but they must have felt a bit frustrated by falling just short of the record. I have no doubt that if Aniek had gotten a few more legal runs, she might have done it.
The other story was the weather, with two evenings completely wiped out, another mostly cancelled, and many sessions with almost no wind legal runs. We had 53 wind legal runs this year, compared with 63 last year (and last year we lost all of Tuesday to weather). This put pressure on all of the riders.
It also affected the rankings. For example compare the fastest runs versus wind legal fastest runs for the following:
- Ken Buckley: fastest 77.40 (would have been a British record, and would have put him in 2nd place) vs. fastest legal at 73.37
- Shinsuke Kouzai: fastest 76.82 (would have put him in third place behind Calvin and Ken) versus 67.16 (from the 2.5 mile)
- Iris Slappendel: fastest 71.8 mph (would have given her a 70 mph hat and a speeding ticket.) versus 69.33
- Yasmin Tredell: fastest 71.48 (faster than Iris’ wind legal run, Her best from last year was 71.05) versus 66.66 mph. At least wind doesn’t count for traffic violations so that she and Iris got speeding tickets for their efforts on Saturday.
Here is a team by team summary, in order of their presentation at the awards banquet.
Team Super Ketta
It was a bit surprising to see this team return since their funding last year seemed to come mainly from the production of an NHK. Given the fact that they did spectacularly well last year, I think they arrived with high expectations. However, it appeared that their new rider, Shinsuke Kouzai, was having problems getting used to the bike. He had a crash earlier in the week that was severe enough that he was thrown clear. He had facial cuts from sagebrush. After that incident, they were encouraged to put in a seat belt, and my understanding is that they rigged something up. Friday and Saturday he reeled off three consecutive 70+ mph runs, but unfortunately none of them was wind legal. Otherwise he would have reached the men’s podium. Word is that they hope to be back next year with a new bike if they can get enough financial support.
Natasha Morrison
Natasha rode with Liverpool two years ago, and was back to set a WRRA record on a Barcroft Oregon supplied by Garrie Hill. She was frustrated at going quite a bit slower than she expected from her training. Later on in the week, she rode a carbon low racer supplied by Mike Mowett and went faster, resetting a couple of WRRA records. Given her power output, if she can find a ride in a suitable streamliner, she will be very fast.
Team Varna
Barbara was having trouble with launching the camera bike, and more surprisingly, she continued to have issues with qualifying Tempest. On the last two days, she practiced and was launched by Todd Reichert and things seemed to go more smoothly, but the new bike just didn’t seem very fast. Now that she has a rival within a hairsbreadth of her record, she’ll want to find a way to come back with a fast bike.
Team Elan
Always great to see Hans and Ellen. Hans continues to refine Ellen’s bike, which was the fastest bike with a windshield this week.
Team Policumbent
This team came with a beautiful new bike, built from the ground up as a camera bike, with a new shape that had substantially less drag than PulsaR. Drivetrain gremlins and other things appear to have kept Taurus and Andrea from achieving their full potential as they were slower than last year. However, if they improve the bike in the same way that the did with PulsaR, they will be very fast next year.
Adam Ince
Great to see Adam and his crew again. His trike was substantially lighter than the one from last year, but it didn’t seem to go faster. I’m sure that this is the first time that this event has seen a trike converted to a two wheeler and then back to a narrower track trike during the single week. He’s thinking about a new vehicle for next year.
The Mexican teams
Both of the bikes from Mexico were based on an extremely complicated arm and leg linear drive. I didn’t follow all the details of their troubles, but they did not manage to get either bike through the traps. One hopes that if they return next year, that they come with a simpler, perhaps less original but more reliable bike.
HPT Delft Amsterdam
As per usual, a large and well organized team with a fast looking bike. Both Aniek and Iris took a little time getting used to the bikes, but by the end of the week, Aniek was seriously in the hunt for the women’s record. She was dropped during launch for that final run, and perhaps without the resulting scratches on the shell, she would have gotten the extra 0.2 mph she would have needed to break the record. As per their website, it appears that they are planning to return again with two female riders. One hopes that both Iris and Annie will be back next year, and if they can train all year on Velox 7, that would be even better.
John Jackson and friends
John managed to get his bike together to ride it down 305 with the bottom half on. He then rode the bike without the shell and went a little faster. He’ll need to sort out how to properly mount the shell and how to see out of it before he can run it as a streamliner. It was great to see the Lem siblings all helping him out.
Peter Borenstadt
Nice to see Peter out again with his DF velomobile. He made some refinements from last year: he closed the nose vent and added a small windshield vent, and he put some fabric on the spoked rear wheel to decrease internal drag. He went 55.45 mph, a nice step up from last year’s 51.76 mph. We relaxed the 60 rule for evening heats, and it was interesting to see him approach the traps with the one headlight blazing.
University of Liverpool
This team was returning with two strong riders, a new bike, and high hopes. Arion 3 had a shell pulled from the same molds as last year, but they smoothed over the body length seam and cut a smaller hatch towards the rear for the driver. They also had to make a new drivetrain that could be removed from that hatch. They had issues with the drivetrain all week (at least it sounded that way as they rode through the traps), and Ken was certainly performing below where he was last year. With some adjustments to seating position, Ken went over 70 for two runs, with the final run being a personal best. If the wind had cooperated, it would have been a new British men’s record. Word is that they will be making a serious run at the arm powered records next year.
MQ Speed
This first time team acquitted themselves quite well, especially considering the fact that their rider Charles was switched in at the last minute. Al showed me a photo of the underside of their fairing where there was blood from Charles’ knees rubbing on every pedal stroke. I know that they learned a lot, and I hope to see them again. Several people also commented that the team was low key (in comparison to some other Australians that have shown up in past years).
Mike Mowett
Mike was a bit of a ghostly presence this year. He arrived late, and ran Norus down the course three times, as well as supplying Natasha with his velociraptor low racer. However, he wasn’t around at the awards ceremony to pick up his award for the best landing gear.
John Mumme
John is a Reno based hand cyclist who started interacting with this event on the FB page. He came out and set a world record for the 600/200 meter hand cycle record for men. He had to leave early, but it was a pretty good few days work. One wonders how fast he could go if he had a shell around him.
University of Toronto
I’m proud of how our team dealt with adversity during the week and managed to place Calvin on top of the men’s podium. Bill and Isaac got new hats and Alan upgraded his by 10 mph. Thomas was a bit slower in Bluenose than he was in Vortex, but that was because the bike was a very tight fit. Bluenose was knocked out of commission after many high speed crashes, but I think everyone will agree that we build a very safe bike. Bluenose will be repaired and used from now on as a trainer. We’ll be back next year, perhaps with a faster bike.
Bluenose used as a packing container.
Once again thanks to Al and Alice for running the event, and all of the other volunteers as well.
Special thanks to this year’s timing crew.
Danny and Marieke.
Brad at 200m. This year he brought along two friends, Bruce and Keith, who helped out for parts of the week.
Also Frank from SLO, who helped out on those occasions when I stepped away from the timing table.
Special thanks to Arnold who did a bang up job programming macros into the timing spreadsheet to simply record keeping.
Safe travels, everyone! Signing off from Battle Mountain until next year.
