It was an exciting week of racing, with five world records set. The story of the week was the smashing of four arm powered records by the University of Liverpool. However, there was also some degree of frustration as well, with Delft/Amsterdam not achieving their goal of breaking the women’s record (and in fact going slower than last year), and Policumbent just missing the european record. Hopes were high early in the week with plenty of fast runs in the last heat on Tuesday night (where a world record was also set for Junior Men’s Multitrack), but as it turned out, that was the high point for several of the competitors.
The big issue was wind. Although we didn’t lose a single session due to rain, there were only 49 wind legal runs this week, compared to 53 last year, and 63 the year before.
Here is a team by team summary, more or less in the order of my BM2018 Preview post.
Aim93: London South Bank University
This team had the absolute worst luck, with DHL not delivering the bike until very late Tuesday night, and the bike being picked up in Reno on Wednesday, finally getting to Battle Mountain midday. To top it off, DHL had damaged the bike, and there were frantic repairs done on the bike late into the night.
When the bike finally arrived, the tech judges expressed some reservations about the safety of the very thin fiberglass shell, and were also not particularly impressed by the fact that Russell would be somewhat protected by a motorcycle jacket. Nevertheless, the bike was allowed to qualify, and Russell did well to get it down the course at 53.81 mph. The bike had play in the bearings, and was judged to be unsafe to ride again. The team went home having learned quite a bit. Glen Thompson said that their next bike will likely have a monocoque construction similar to many of the other bikes.
Update: Russell has posted this video summary of their week:
University of Liverpool Velocipede Team
This team came in well prepared and executed perfectly, with riders Ken Talbot and Karen Darke absolutely smashing the existing arm powered records for both men and women, also both for flying start (over the 5 mile distance) and the 600/200m standing start sprint. Ken achieved his secondary goal of going over 50 mph, and Karen was not too far behind at 46.54 mph, higher than the previous men’s record held by Greg Westlake. The team says that Arion 5 will be a trike. It will be interesting to see how they do next year.
Adam’s Folly
You can see from the picture how pleased Adam was at finally going over 50 mph after several consecutive years of trying.
As he drove away, I asked if he was going for 55 mph next, and he said that WHPSC was an exciting but expensive addiction.
Team Wahoo
Larry was back with a new bike with considerably smaller frontal area than his previous bike, Super 8. He was frustrated with the power numbers he was achieving, and he did not reach the speeds that he had gone with Beagle. Still searching for that 70 mph hat. He and Adam were the only ones upholding the honoured tradition of the garage bike builder.
Team Policumbent
This team had done a lot of development on their bike from last year, Taurus, and were hoping for the european record, a speed that other parts of the world called the “non-Todd record”. They fell just short, with Andrea ending up the fourth fastest human, just a blink away from the speeds of Sam Whittingham and Sebastiaan Bowier. Paolo told me that Andrea’s speedometer was reading low on Tuesday, and so he didn’t sprint all out, but that run ended up as his fast time of the week: 82.8 mph. They spent the rest of the week searching for more speed, including two almost all nighters to alter the rear wheel opening to accommodate the wider Michelin blue tires.
Congrats to the team for finishing first on the men’s podium. As their website says, the extra 0.53 kph that they need is only a matter of time.
Greg Cantori
Greg came with a tweaked but production velomobile and fell just short of 60 mph, with a fastest run of 58.48 mph. He finished first in Men’s multitrack, and he reached his stretch goal of going 58 at age 58. He was also extremely generous in allowing Russell Bridge to ride the Milan SL, who earned a 55 mph hat.
It also should be mentioned that he had to fly back and forth to Maryland to attend to his boat which was being threatened by Hurricane Florence. I imagine that in the next few years we will see a velomobile break the 60 mph barrier.
De La Salle Velo Team
This team showed up with a new trike, but also with a complicated linear drive similar to last year. My understanding is that some parts failed during testing under load, and the trike was never able to be ridden. We wish them better luck in the future, perhaps with a more conventional drivetrain.
Team Elan
Hans and Ellen were quite satisfied with their results. Ellen went over 70 mph, just missing her personal best from several years ago, even though she had not trained much this year. Matthias showed a lot of potential, finishing just off the men’s podium with a speed of 78.95 mph. Hans says that he will be building a faster bike for next year.
IUT Annecy
It was obvious that the rider/bike combination of Fabien Canal and Altair 6 has serious potential to contend for the men’s title next year. The French team practiced their launches quite a bit early in the week, and ended the week with a series of flawless launches. Considering that Fabien went 79.48 mph with the periscope indicates that the bike can get even faster with the camera hatch. Furthermore, his fastest time was 80.83 mph, exactly the same as Calvin’s run to a thousandth of a second, but the wind was not legal. Finally, Guillaume won the unofficial title of the fastest faculty advisor with a 55 mph run where he coasted down from 2.5 miles to get some performance data. He had gone 68.51 earlier in the week.
Human Power Team Delft/Amsterdam: Velox 8
It looked like this team had the women’s record in the bag, with Lieke De Cock clocking 74.24 mph on Tuesday night. However, that turned out to be her fast time of the week, and Jennifer Breet had the worst luck with wind until her second run on Saturday morning of 72.42 mph.
One can only speculate as to why the team was slower than last year, but perhaps part of the reason was that the riders ran twice (or even three times) a day, whereas last year’s riders only ran once a day.
Team Gee Bee
This team came with the goal of breaking the junior men’s trike record and they did just that. Ishtey has one more year of junior eligibility left, and Garrie said that he will be back with a two wheeler next year to go after the absolute junior men’s record, currently held by team GeeBee alumnus Florian Kowalik.
University of Toronto
This team fielded just two riders this year: Calvin Moes in Eta Prime and new rider Valina Sintalova in Bluenose. Calvin achieved his long awaited 80 mph hat, and Valina did well to go 55 mph given that she had not ridden the bike before coming to Battle Mountain. The team has probably pushed Eta Prime as fast as it is likely to go given the team’s limited resources, and they plan to build a different bike for next year.
I’ll take timer’s prerogative to once again thank my friends who helped out at timing. Firstly my buddy Danny who was a bit delayed in arriving since he had to tend to his father whose summer house was being threatened by a wildfire.
(photo: D. Guthrie)
Secondly Marieke, who is pictured here standing in her magic spot, the spot where the radio reception was least worse.
Blogger Dave Larrington helped out early in the week before Danny’s arrival. He also did a stint at 200 m. Perhaps if he gets a faster rental car, he will be back doing his regular duty as sweep next year.
Finally, Garrie manned the 200 m station for all but Thursday. He said he liked the vantage point that provided a clear view of all the bikes as they approached timing, and we kept him happy with a steady stream of timing information as the bikes went by.
Next year should be exciting with several new teams rumoured to be coming, including two from down under, and perhaps one from Japan. Also George and Carole Leone had several Cal Poly students in tow who were thinking about building a bike for Battle Mountain rather than ASME.
Thanks everyone for reading, and see you next year!
NB: sorry for the comparative lack of team pictures, but they are on my other camera that I left behind at the Civic Centre. Thankfully it is winging it’s way back to me by post, and I will update the pictures when it arrives.
Update: now updated with team pictures from the other camera. Regrettably, many of them are blurry. Sorry about that.
Thank you, Jun, as usual for doing a fantastic job keeping team friends and family up to speed with your regular reports and photos!
so happy for Calvin. His 75 mph hat was looking really faded.