BM2019 Preview

artwork by C. Michael Lewis

It’s time to review the entrants for this year’s World Human Powered Speed Challenge (WHPSC) that will run from Sept 8-14 this year. The initial racers’ meeting will be on the evening of Saturday Sept 7, and there will be racing starting with qualifying runs on Sunday morning. This means that the event will run one extra day than in the past.

The IHPVA website has a list of entrants registered as of August 19. Here are some brief notes on each team, in the order presented.

Human Power Team Falcon

Adam Hari flew all the way from Australia to attend WHPSC 2015. Since then he has been working to build his own streamliner, and to train as a rider. He typifies the old school build and ride. Wishing him the best of luck this week.

University of Liverpool Velocipede Team

This is a veteran university based team. They hold the British mens’ and womens’ records for single rider streamliners. To build on that success, they decided to build different vehicles to break world records in several different classes. Last year, they brought Arion4, a hand bike, and they set four world records (including the two for the 600m standing start). This year’s Arion5 is a trike, and they are going for the multitrack records. They are bringing back Ken Buckley and Yasmin Tredell who were their riders back in 2017, as well as new rider Milo Dixon. The current world records in multitrack are Gareth Hanks at 73.95 mph, and Ellen Van Vugt at 54.45 mph. Word is that next year, Arion 6 will be a tandem.

Aim93:London South Bank University

The team from LSBU is back this year. They struggled mightly last year, what with their bike arriving mid week, and damaged as well. Last year, the bike had a Mike Burrows chassis that had many unique features such as single speed gearing and landing gear. This year, it looks like they are using the same shape for their shell, but the internals are a monocoque construction. It will be single speed and will have landing gear once again. Russell Bridge is returning as one of their two riders, with the other being Noah Phillips. We’ll see how close they get to their stated aim of 93 mph.

IUT Annecy

IUT Annecy returns with their bike and rider from last year, Fabian Canal in Altair6. Last year, Fabian went 80.83 mph, the exact same speed as Calvin Moes, but the wind was not legal during his run so he didn’t get his 80 mph hat. He was using the periscope. If they have their video camera system sorted this year, he will almost surely go faster, and will give Andrea Gallo some competition. Update: they are also bringing a female rider: Illona Peletier!

Team Velox S

This year, Mike Mowett is back with an ex team Elan bike, and a strong junior rider, Ishtey Amminger, who reset the junior men’s multitrack record last year in team GB’s CO2. The 17 and under male junior record is 65.93 mph. Mike will also be riding the bike. He should be able to go faster than he did in the No Rush, and he should finally exceed 60 mph.

Land Speed Record LLC

This could certainly be one of the bigger stories of the week. When images of this five rider multitrack vehicle (Sprocket Rocket) first emerged on the web, there was understandably a very strong reaction. The launch video that the team posted as to be seen to be believed. The multi rider multi track record is 62.92 mph set back in 1980. Let’s hope that this team can push that record up a fair amount. During their last test run, they got up to 47 mph in 0.7 miles with only four out of the five riders.

Cal Poly State University, San Luis Obispo

Cal Poly has had a long history with human powered vehicles, and some of the students from this university have competed at WHPSC as part of the team run by George and Carole Leone. They also ran their ASME bike at WHPSC 2009, with Aaron Williams going 56.4 mph. This year, they have built they own entry with a chrome moly space frame inside a composite shell. They are trying for the single rider US Collegiate record, which is 61.3 mph. George and Carole will be supporting this team as their own new entry is not ready. Team Leone’s record is 70.4 mph.

60@60

Peter Borenstadt is back with his DF velomobile. Peter went 60 mph at 60 years of age in the CO2 trike back in 2014. By my count, this means that he will be 65 this year. He says he is going for 56@65. Go Peter!

Human Power Team Delft and Amsterdam

Once again, this powerhouse team is back and going for the womens’ record. Last year, Lieke De Cock went 74.24 mph and Jennifer Breet did 72.42 mph. The world record, set by Barbara Buatois riding a Varna back in 2010, is 75.69 mph. This year, Jennifer is back, and their second rider is Rosa Bas. Velox9 might look similar to past years, but they are running custom 24″ tubeless tires this year, as opposed to the 406 Michelins that they had been using since Velox2.

Team Wahoo

Larry is back with the same camera bike as last year. The big news is that his rider will be Denise Mueller-Korenek, who cycled to 184 mph on the Bonneville Salt Flats, behind a fairing attached to a dragster. If she can adapt to a streamliner, she has the potential to go really fast. Wahoo!

Team Elan

Hans and Ellen are back with Velox XS. Hans says that the bike has been improved with better tires, a new windscreen, and some internal tweaks. Ellen is fitter than she has been in past years. Ellen’s best is 70.8 mph back in 2014. Let’s see if she can beat that mark. She almost did it last year.

University of Toronto HPVDT

It’s been an open secret in this community that we’ve been working on a tandem. At the time of this writing, the team is still busy working on it, and I’m sure that there will still be bugs to work out while the team is at WHPSC. Just bear in mind that the first time Eta showed up, it went only 78 mph. No matter how the team does this year, they will be faster the next year they bring back the tandem.

Team Policumbent

Andrea Gallo has been going faster every year that he has raced at WHPSC, and last year he came within 0.33 mph of the European record held by Sebastiaan Bouwier (AKA the ‘non-Todd’ record). Their bike Taurus will have had one more year of tweaks. The other big news from the team is that they built a second bike for a female rider, Vittoria Spada.

Andrew Sourk

Andrew brought his trike, Triage, to WHPSC in 2016, but his vehicle had issues all week. He has had three years to work on it, so let’s see how fast he can go this time.

Tokyo Science University

Not much is known about this single rider entry, other than the name of the bike and the rider. The faculty member leading this team attended WHPSC last year. Apparently they also had some issues with shipping the bike, but they were sorted out in time for the team to be able to race.

Bill Thornton

Bill is bringing a Milan Velomobile. Last year, Greg Cantori ran his Milan SL to almost 60 mph, so it is a picture of his velomobile that I’m using above. Bill will be picking up a similar race hood just before the event.

Here’s an early look at the weather. Hope that the wind slows down from the current forecast. Right now Sunday evening looks particularly bad (the legal wind limit is 6 kph).

Between Vittoria, the two riders from Delft/Amsterdam, Denise in the Wahoo, Annecy, and Ellen, the race for the women’s record will be one of the highlights of the week. We also can’t forget Yasmin in the trike; could we have seven women going over 70 mph? Will Al and Alice have enough hats? Also, they will have to have 5 hats in stock for whatever final speed that the Sprocket Rocket achieves!

Finally, in terms of seeding which is done as a percentage of the world record, we have many categories where new records could be set during the week (women’s single rider, mens’ junior, multitrack multirider, mens’ or womens’ multitrack, and tandem). Given that there are only four vehicles per heat in the evenings, we could conceivably see the single rider mens’ and women’s categories largely blocked out of that crucial final heat.

Good luck to all the teams, and I’ll see you out in the desert in a week from now.