Day 21: Battle Mountain NV

This 'ere list of runners & riders may prove useful:

Team	Country	Vehicle	Rider
Cal Poly San Luis Obispo	USA	WooHoo Two	Jaden Squibb
Cal Poly San Luis Obispo	USA	WooHoo Two	Justin Strahm
HPT Falcon	Australia	Dark Star	Adam Hari
HPT North	Canada/Netherlands	Titan	Calvin Moes/Ellen Van Vugt
HPT North	Canada	Titan	Calvin Moes/Ethan Elbaz
Team Hermus (Université de Sherbrooke)	Canada	Beluga	Alexis Imbeault
University of Toronto	Canada	Eta Prime	Christopher Koehlmann
University of Toronto	Canada	Eta Prime	Erin Price
University of Toronto	Canada	Eta Prime	Harrison Walker
University of Toronto	Canada	Typhoon	Ethan Todd
University of Toronto	Canada	Typhoon	Frank Fang
University of Toronto	Canada	Typhoon	Justin Tangpongprush

Or maybe not, because it looks a bit shit in preview mode.

Still no Cal Poly on the start line this morning and still no complete run from Team Hermus chiz.  Beluga nearly got going and I was actually ready in the chase truck before the team pulled the plug.  The bike is apparently a pretty evilly-behaved device, to the extent that they've strapped a GBFO metal billet behind the seat in an attempt to tame it.

I somehow ended up back at catch, where we had some time to kill:

Bit of political stuff Missis Thatch my name's Ben Elton...

Well, it's like a rabbit! He's got a head on him like a rabbit!

Christopher got Eta Prime down the road successfully at 49.51 mph before losing his breakfast out of the van window on the way back up to the start würg and, moreover, kotz.

Christopher, Eta Prime and Christophe's breakfast arrive in catch

More mechanical woe for Typhoon and no completed run.

Then out to the long start.  Successful run for Adam and Dark Star at 55.08 mph.  I joined HPT North for Titan's first scheduled run with Ethan occupying the rear cockpit.  Theywent off the line like a stabbed rat, but the P*nct*r* Fairy visited the rear tyre just under 2 km into the run and down they went.  Copybook rescue by the team to extract the (undamaged) riders.  No chance of fixing the bike so no run for Ellen this morning.  Legal wind for both Christopher and Adam was a bonus.

Apropos nothing at all, our Nevada Department of Transportation Traffic Control Supervisor Josh is a dead ringer for my erstwhile chum Quentin Fontana from forty-mumble years ago, but unless Q moved to Las Vegas...

Tuesday is Show'n'Shine day, which means three things:

1. Free lunch
2. A second free lunch
3. A horde of jammy-fingered third-graders descending on the Civic Center

Nik had dressed for dinner...

Al fresco conference room for Team Hermus

I snapped some photos of the bikes, and of this brass husky:

in case they might prove useful to Messrs. Slee and Tweddle in keeping the covers of the BHPC mag apart and did a runner before the preserve-coated infants showed up.

Another thing that showed up was Jun's missing luggage.  It's at the Civic Center.  No, wait.  According to the AirTag it's in a dumpster next to the Maverik petril™ station.  An hour and half later it appeared at the Super 8, presumably after the Shite Courier™ had parked his van at the Maverik before strolling off for lunch somewhere.

Evening runs were scheduled to be one three-bike short course heat followed by a brace on the long course, both featuring Eta Prime and Titan, but the latter decided not to appear.  Bah!  For the first time this week all starters in a qualifying heat actually got through timing OK though there were no wind-legal runs this pm.  Ethan T in Typhoon (42.84 mph) and Harrison in Eta Prime (51.20 mph) both reached catch too, but Alexis and Beluga crashed in the post-timing slowing-down  phase of a wild run, the bike zig-zagging furiously across the road all the way down.  There may be video.

Ethan leaves the start

Back to the long course start where I had nothing to do except deliver a radio back to Larry and hang out with the Toronto PSOs.  It all got a bit too exciting for Frank:

Erin got away successfully but something got messed up at timing and no speed was recorded chiz.  Meanwhile, Christopher started his warm-up:

Obligatory down-the-road-at-sunset shot...

Christopher, or 'topher as he is known by his fellow Oaves, got away at the second attempt and did 54.14.  However, in both heats the pre-launch proceedings took way too long and Chairman Hans duly read the Riot Act at the evening meeting, viz. if you can't get ready to launch in four minutes you don't go.  Though a gold star goes to the Toronto team for helping us take down the distance marker signs afterwards.

Day 20: Battle Mountain NV

Monday morning was teh Suxx0r.  Cold.  I put a jumper on.  And only two bikes made it as far as timing and only one of those got all the way to catch, wot is where I was all day today, with Bill being more than happy to cane the spaceship on his own.  Take a bow, Ethan^[1] Todd of Toronto, sole finisher in Typhoon with a wind-legal 38.87 mph.  Erin Price in Eta Prime was the other finisher; she did 41.15 mph, also with legal wind but drifted off the road while slowing down after the bridge and went down in the vegetation.  She also said her main camera system went down during the run.  Sub-optimal.  The bike wasn't too badly hurt, albeit that it'll need some fettling before the evening runs, and Erin was OK.

Perfect landing by Ethan. Note rufty-tufty Canadians in Arctic survival gear.
"The wrong sort of cold", apparently.

Cal Poly and Team Hermus (Sherbrooke) both had launch issues while Typhoon later developed chain-retentionitis when Justin^[2] Tangpongprush was a mile or so from timing.  Not really a classic morning, that.

But we all cheered up when we got back to the Civic Center, for Lo! There was Swag:

Swag!

Stickers, postcards, a water bottle, a multi-talented USB cable thing, coffee table book, pen, festival-stylee wristband^[3] and more.  Thanks to the Lander County Convention & Tourism Authority, the Battle Mountain Chamber of Commerce and the Civic Center, who have really pushed the boat out to look after the teams and volunteers this year.

Late breakfast/early lunch with Admiral Sir Duke Timelord Jun Nogami and his indispensable timing assistant Danny Guthrie, followed by some advanced loafing back at the Super 8.  Enlivened by the passage of a pair of ridiculously oversized loads on the I-80 entry slip road.  A brace of gigantic cylinders which we think have something to do with processing the output of lithium mining, on ten-steerable-axle lowboy trailers and with a heavy-duty Kenworth truck at each end.  Larry and/or John Jackson have has pictures which I will try to blag off them later, coz at the time of writing they've bogged off to the Ming Dynasty restaurant he sent me via FB messenger thos afternoon and which I've only just seen.

In previous years we haven't had qualifying heats in the evening session but with the dearth of qualified bike/rider combinations so far it seemed the sensible thing to do; two of them followed by a single heat on the long course.  Both WooHoo Two and Beluga scratched.  Typhoon had more chain issues.  Did Eta Prime even try to launch?  Communications were a bit flaky too, thus we only learned that Titan, with Ellen in the stoker's chair, had launched when the headlights of the chase vehicle became clearly visible.  A quick shufti through Nik's binoculars... wait, WHAT?  They're almost at timing!

It seems that SOP for Titan is to come in fast and brake hard and the inexperienced and short-handed catch crew weren't quite able to arrest the vehicle's progress before it toppled over onto its right side.  Extracting two riders from a supine tandem isn't easy but both wriggled out just in time before the road reopened.  Kudos to Team Hermus for lending a couple of bodies to HPT North to crew their chase truck.  A longer break to shift officials out to the long course, during which I discovered, while ferrying Joyce and the two borrowed Sherbrooke PSOs up to the start, that for all its "Sport" badging and paddle shifters, the Honda maxes out at a feeble 125 mph so it's only getting used for sweep if Bill's spaceship runs out of voles.  Bad Swears on the way back when the thing announced low tyre pressure on the right rear.  Checked it with Bill's track pump.  OK.  Reset the monitoring system and so far the warning hasn't come back.

E'en as Bill was whooshing up the closed road, this:

Knob'ead, Nevada, Monday

To be fair to the driver, they did stop fairly sharpish and back up.  Probably on the phone or under the influence of ["Begins with 'M'" - The Invigilator].  Anyway, the honour of being the first rider on the long course fell to Adam.  51.84 mph and a nice easy catch.

He was followed by Calvin and Ethan Elbaz in Titan. 52.28 mph and this time we managed to keep the bike upright at the finish.  Neither had a legal wind chiz.

Shortly before your intrepid reporter jumped smartly out of the way...

So we do at least have one more qualified bike/rider combo in Calvin and Ellen.  Hopefully things will be a bit less crap tomorrow.

I'd forgotten how uncomfortable the "office" chairs are here, so I'm going to have a nice sit lie down with a cup of tea.

1. We have two Ethans riding this year
2. We have two Justins riding this year
3. Will not allow me to meet Howard Marks^[4], because he's dead
4. In-joke for Half Man Half Biscuit fans

Day 19: Battle Mountain NV

Some sterling work by Larry means that our distance marker signs are now metric and count down on the full course from 8 to 2 km, followed by 1000 and 500 m as before.  This is mightily confusing for old-skool members of Officialdom.  Even ones from metric Canada😈

With only two machines have passed tech inspection yesterday the first road closure was pushed back an hour, to hours 08:00 of the clock, but early rising still advisable before the breakfast area gets rammed with Canadian PSO^[1]s.  Nice Man Bill Thornton let me drive his Tesla Model S Plaid out to the start.  Waited until we'd got round the corner and out of the view of the lurking deputy sheriff on the road out of town.# before pressing the loud pedal.  There's fast, and then there's this.

Bill's spaceship

There ensued some hanging-around practice and coffee drinking before the first road closure.  We have a fancy viewing platform down at catch this year:

Built by Nik Runner & Battle Mountain Mike, with pegs

MC Hans

Nice Man Bill let me drive for the first sweep run, since he's only been here as a competitor before.  Took it up to ~100 mph until we'd passed timing, then nailed it.  Hit the limiter at 204 mph.  Eeep!  Bill has a plug-in module in the post which, when fitted, will add another 100-odd horespowers.  Double Eeep!

Only one machine in the first heat, viz. Calvin Moes & Ethan Elbaz in Titan.  Loading the beast is a lengthy process and more practice is required for when the heats get a little more crowded, but they got away OK with Larry performing launch duties and ran 46.43 mph, hindered a little by a loose crank for stoker Ethan.

Bill drove the spaceship for the second sweep run. 204 mph again.  Alas I hadn't figured out which button to press to get my shiny new camera to do these new-fangled Moving Pictures rather than stills.  First away was Adam in Dark Star, with Niklas performing launch duties:

43.49 mph.  Calvin was back for another go, this time with Ellen in the back, but the brute fell over at launch and they decided not to try again.

Calvin still strapped into a burning bike

This perforce concluded the morning's activities out on the 305, so back to town, this time with Adam driving the Tesla.  He was very restrained and spent most of the trip with the thing on autopilot.

All remaining machines are expected to pass inspection this afternoon, but with tonight having:

• only two bike/crew combinations qualified, and
• a red alert for high winds

we're skipping tonight's runs on the long course and will instead have a full programme of runs tomorrow morning.  Starting at the usual time i.e. 07:00 hours würg kotz.

Update on Sunday afternoon: went back to the Civic Center for a bit to watch the PSOs hard at work and the Politburo at play:

Professor Admiral Viscount Timelord Jun Nogami tries the lightweight racing velocino
Cal Poly rider Justin says he wants to do a century ride on it, the crazy mixed-up boy...

For Russ: Titan without the crash panels

1. PSO = Penniless Student Oaf, as any fule kno

Day 18: Battle Mountain NV

Lazy day, what with the likes of Adam Hari, Larry Lem, John Jackson and divers folks from town having done all the heavy lifting already.  Things wot I have learned since yesterday:

• Long-time competitor and all-round Top Chap Peter Borenstadt is absent this year for health reasons.  GWS, Peter!
• The moulds for SeventySeven, which Russell Bridge was giving away earlier this year to free up space in his garage, are now with Niklas Bostelmann, who's over here crewing for Adam this year.
• The team from Quebec's Université de Sherbrooke rocked up late last night; some of them having done a 50-hour drive.  Sensibly, a lot of them flew instead.

After breakfast I wandered over to the Civic Center.

Chassis of the Adachi family's work-in-progress
They hope to have a multitrack entry next year

So, your guitarist used to be in Evil Gazebo...

Pointy end of Sherbrooke machine, with Pinion gearbox

Larry Lem and transplanted BRITON Ben Bowlby discuss hockey tape

Ben is also planning to have a multitrack machine ready for next year.

Some time later the Cal Poly San Luis Obispo crew showed up, with the result that Joyce Lem now has a new hat:

Use your Junior Pocket Microscope (model 3a) to make out the words
"Girl ENGINEER"

What does this button do?
Cockpit of WooHoo Two

Joyce's magic wand for extracting entry fees from competitors

Mid-afternoon saw the arrival of experimental University of Toronto side project HPT North and the cunning amalgam of bicycle and bacon slicer that is Titan.

Titan already holds the tandem record but captain Calvin Moes and stoker Ethan Elbaz reckon there's more to come.  Plus the beast is going after the mixed tandem record (has anyone previously set one, Mike Mowett?) with Ellen Van Vugt in the back; Ellen is hoping to do her 100th competitive run on the 305 this week.

While some of the official Toronto team were also on-site by mid-afternoon the rest of the team, together with their machines Typhoon and Eta Prime, came through the door about five minutes before the opening meeting kicked off.

Half a wretched hive of scum and villainy, plus Danny Guthrie in the front row

The meeting was very much the same as it has been for my previous twenty visits, this time delivered by Politburo members Hans Van Vugt (who is Head Honcho this year), Joyce (herder of money, paperwork and cats) and Jun Nogami (Timelord).  Jun is sans luggage, because idiot airline.  Apparently his missing Stuffs may be here by late Tuesday.  WTF?

Back to the Super 8 for a nice cup of tea and a sit down.  But soft!  Some, or more, hungry-guts has et all the free cookies in the lobby.  Serious outbreak of FUMMIN avoided by presence of backup cookies brought all the way from North Dakota without melting or turning to crumbs.

Tomorrow morning's qualifying runs on the short course should be a relaxed affair since only Titan and Dark Star have passed scrutineering.  This also means not having to get up at audax o'clock.  Hurrah!

Edit: Forgot to change the time zone on Blogger.  Again.  Why can't it default to the system time on the wossname you're typing on?

Day 17: Battle Mountain NV

First item on the agenda: do some washing.  I have been religiously saving my quarters all trip, that I might feed the washing machine and the drier.  Now I can go out in public with a clean T-shaped shirt.  Yay!  Go me!

Item 2: Coffee.  Oh look, here is Joyce Lem eating breakfast and relating a tale of software-related woe involving her wee anbaric Chevy, which required a tow to the dealer in Boise ID to be reset after it suddenly refused to play nicely with one of Space Karen's charging stations.

Item 3: Contact National to sort out the business with the POB wanting its tummy tickling oil attending to.  The instructions on the phone in my room are clear and straightforward.  Press 8-1 and then the 800 number.  Pressing "8" causes a nasty noise.  More than once.  I go to make enquiries at the front desk.  "Did you press 9 first?"  Why, no!  No, I did not, because it clearly states "8" on the phone in large friendly letters.  Try with 9-1-800 and shortly thereafter have made arrangements to take the POB to Elko airport, there to swap it for, well, something else.  They are expecting me between 1 and 2 pm, thus allowing me to hang around the Civic Center with Joyce, arranging T-shaped shirts into neat piles and tracking down errant boxes full of Useful Stuffs.

Seiran, formerly ridden by Teagan Patterson and reworked over the past year by Larry Lem for donation to the High School, if the can find a rider small enough to fit in it...

Dark Star, Adam Hari's new bike none the worse for having
had an unscheduled two-day stopover in Fiji on the way to LAX

Then away to Elko, after first restoring the POB to factory settings in case it dobs me in to Homeland Security or sells my data to Peter Thiel.  Elko airport is not a major transportation hub and thus the choice of replacement vehicle is somewhat limited.  I can have a Jeep Wagoneer, an SUV only slightly smaller than Basingstoke.  Or a Honda Odyssey, which is a 7-seat van with windows.  Or a Honda Civic, which is at least an actual car, has the word "Sport" written on the back and a set of fairly spiffy alloys.

A whole new licence plate to try to remember...

Back to Battle Mountain to spend some of my Copious Free Time delving into the depths of the new motor-car's setup menus and trying to get it to talk to something - ANYTHING - with tunes on.  It wouldn't initiate a conversation with my phone via Android Auto unless the phone was plugged into the car's USB port with the cable that was on the desk seventy miles away, so no music on the way back chiz.  I got it to talk to the phone, then tried the USB stick.  "Unsupported!", it said.  Reformat said USB stick in FAT32 instead of NTFS, start copying files back again and twiddle my thumbs until it finishes.  Out to the car park, plug in, prod buttons... Yay!  Sonic Youth!  No more fannying around with Android fucking Auto!

It also has fair bit more space in the back than the POB did, but Bill Thornton is not racing this year due to injury and has instead brought his Tesla Model S which:

• is even more spacious and
• has all the bells and whistles that allow it to hit 60 only slightly slower than an F1 car and go on to 203 mph

So I expect that will be doing the lion's share of sweep duties this year.

The Nice People of Lander County have laid on dinner for all us early arrivals.  Burgers, salads, top-quality chorizo and about seven different type of CAEK.  This is why I am struggling to keep my eyes open rather than lying on my bed digesting my own body weight in sossidges.

Larry raising the fleg while Weibke supervises from a safe distance

Dinner is served...

Day 16: Pocatello ID -> Battle Mountain NV

To compound the sin of bleating about wanting a service the display on the POB's dashboard that is supposed to tell you what the current speed limit is has thrown a wobbler and kept furiously blinking "50" at me on I-86, with its 80 mph limit.  I wot not whether this is:

• a corollary of the overdue-by-a-thousand-miles service
• a software error
• a hardware bug, in the form of smooshed bugs affecting the gadget that reads the signs

but I wish it would stop.  The 25 mph limit here in town is being shown as 15 mph and the cruise control only goes down to 20.

It should have been a straightforward day from a navigation perspective too, given that I-15 is a hundred yards from last night's resting place and the junction with I-86 a mile up the road.  Turn left at Twin Falls and take US-93 south to Wells, I-80 the rest of the way.  No.  Instead I'm treated to a bewildering and convoluted route avoiding the centre of Twin Falls completely, including an attempt to send me down a road that was:

• closed, and
• dirt

Though I did get to cross this:

Carries ID-50 across the Snake River
somewhere not that near Twin Falls

Once off the Snake River Plain US-93 climbs over some not-insubstantial mountains - the road tops out at around 6,200 feet before dropping into the Great Basin at Wells.

Cliffs near Jackpot NV

Using your trusty Junior Pocket Microscope (model 3a) you will be able to see the lengths, or rather heights, some people will go to in order to tell the world that they love Ashlee.

And so to Battle Mountain, where it was blowing a hooley and trying very hard to rain.  I arrived at ye olde Super VIII just before the driver of this rather splendid '55 Chevy:

"Looks better without the dust and bugs!" opined the San Diego-based owner.  He's driven it to all states of the continental US too.

First sign of the event, apart from a billboard next to I-80 just west of Elko, was finding Larry Lem having an early dinner/late lunch in the foyer of the motel, and thus I learned that not only have the boards lining the bridge already been erected but that nine or a dozen hefty youths from the high school sportsball team have been coöpted to deal with the straw bales we scatter around the course to prevent wayward bicycles from falling in holes or demolishing ranchers' mailboxes.  Thus making the early arrival of this Unit rather superfluous.  So I can put off phoning the hire car folks until tomorrow and also do some laundry.

Day 15: Billings MT -> Pocatello ID

Travellers in USAnia!  Amuse yourselves on long journeys by pronouncing local placenames containing "ll" inna-Welsh-stylee^[1]!  Billings, Pocatello, Dallas, ect and, moreover, etc.

Mr Google suggests two basic ways of getting from Billings to Pocatello, viz.

• I-90 west then I-15 south, or
• I-90 west then US-191 and US-20 south until I-15 becomes unavoidable

Since the US-191 is seventy miles shorter and heads into the mountains I took that option.  There's still a hundred and twenty miles of Interstate to Bozeman - albeit with the lofty and SNO-capped Rockies off to the left - but then the route climbs the valley of the Gallatin River up to Yellowstone National Park, and jolly scenic it is too.

It is, however, not a good road for a semi-truck to try overtaking three vehicles^[2] while going uphill and approaching a blind corner, and only by dint of the oncoming traffic taking to the verge with smoking brakes was a head-on averted.  Anyway, Mr Garrison Transportation Services of Salt Lake City, it was likely one of your lot^[3] and he probably wants drug testing, or to be smeared with lard, tied to a tree and left at the Deer Creek Trailhead:

US-191 does actually cross into Yellowstone NP but you don't have to pay to access this bit.  Turn right onto US-20 in West Yellowstone village and keep going through the tree-ridden mountains until there's a long 6% downhill and there you are on the Snake River Plain, mostly flat and full of potatoes.  At least, Ashton ID claims to be the Seed Potato Capital of The Wurrrld.  Lots of this before hitting I-15 at Idaho Falls and heading south for another 50 miles.  During which the potatoes are occasionally interrupted by lava beds.

The North Blackfoot Rest Area has a handy Structure plonked on top of the building containing the Usual Offices of an Interstate rest area, so you can gawp at the lava beds in all their glory.

Pocatello is completely different to how I remember it the last time I stayed here but then again, that time it was dark when I arrived.  Mr Google thinks a bit over five hours from here to Battle Mountain, plus I gain an extra hour by crossing into the Pacific time zone, which will give me the opportunity to phone Mr National Car Rental to ask 'em what I should do about the POB grumbling about wanting an oil service.

1. But not where anyone else can hear you, obv.
2. Of which the POB being the rearmost.
3. Definitely one of their trailers, anyway.

Day 14: Bismarck ND -> Billings MT

Since arriving in Bismarck last night the wind has both tripled in intensity and switch through 180 degrees, such that it very much appears I will have a screaming headwind all four hundred and something miles to Billings.  This in addition to the 80 mph speed limit on I-94 all the way across North Dakota and into Montana plus it being generally uphill all the way means that the POB's petril™ consumption will take a turn for the worse.

And so it proved.  Yesterday: 330 miles with 310 remaining in the tank.  Today 440 miles with 30 left.  Fortunately there's a petril™ station at the end of the road.

Bismarck lies on the Missouri, which is crossed by this rather fine railway bridge:

and this rather dull concrete slab with I-94 on it:

After which it's onto I-94 to its bitter end - it merges with I-90 just outside Billings.  Lots of prairie, mostly, and passing by Salem Sue:

Photo from 2023...

Though like its southern neighbour North Dakota also has Badlands.  Unlike in SD, where they're a National Park, up here I-94 cuts straight through the middle of them.  Like this:

Eventually North Dakota gives way to Montana and the road does a brief downhill thing into the valley of the Yellowstone River, which it follows all the way to Billings.  And one of the first things the traveller notices is a Lewis & Clark Trail sign; on the way back from the Pacific the party split, with Clark following the Yellowstone down to its confluence with the Missouri somewhere over there ////.

Yellowstone River from Hathaway Rest Area, Montana

Not far from Bozeman lies another piece of Lewis & Clarkery, viz. Pompey's Pillar, which looks like this if you get close enough:

Getting that close involved a fair bit of walking chiz, because the gates were firmly locked.  On the other hand, not having to hand over $7.50 pleased the part of my immortal soul that is forever Yorkshire.  "Pompey", you may recall, was the nickname bestowed by Clark on Jean Baptiste "Son of Sacagawea" Charbonneau.  The Man has helpfully installed a flight of stairs round the back, so that halfway up you can see:

Junior Pocket Microscope (model 3a) will reveal the inscription
W Clark
July 25 1806

and amazingly he spelled all the words right too.  Trekking from the entrance to the rock and back took just long enough to allow bigly yuge black clouds to form over Billings.  Touch down, check in, go foraging and only on getting back to the motel do I realise that I've forgotten to buy milk, which means tonight's tea will taste 'orrible because non-dairy creamer muck.  Unless I forego the tea in favour of Run Wild 0.5% IPA.  Which I did remember to buy.