Day 22: Battle Mountain, NV

Today is Friday which means that, because of the peculiarities of the edumacashunal system hereabouts, there is no skool.  Either that or the zombies got them.  Thus there is no requirement to wait for the skool bus in the morning.  Thus we can schedule our first road closure of the morning for 07:00.  Thus we can get up even earlier than normal.  Being eaten alive by wild dogs is preferable.  Weather conditions were sub-optimal too, in that while the wind was barely detectable, it was bloody freezing.  People had their own ways of dealing with this.

Fig. 1: Thick woolly socks to keep chill breezes off the toeses

Fig 2: Al Krause models his latest creation, sure to be a sensation on the autumn catwalks

Three runners on the short course - Alan, Teagan and Orin.  The latter has blagged a Monstah Chainring from somewhere.

Alice: Didya have enough gears?
Orin: Yeah, but I didn't have enough gas!

Then out to the five mile start.  Damjan got in a corker in spite of the chill, with a 75+.  Christien finally made it to the end of the full course and did a more than respectable 64.9.  We hear that she was selected on power but had little recumbent experience so getting into one of the world's fastest bikes - and a camera bike to boot - must have necessitated a steep learning curve.  Eta digested another spoke on its first run and took no further part in the proceedings.  Clicky for Friday morning results.

Teagan: Lordette of All she Surveys.  When she hasn't got her eyes closed, obv.

Oh dear!  BAD PSOs!  Not only did the Scousers leave their Mustang parked at the short course start all morning (with the door open), but those using the Civic Center are also guilty of Crimes Against Practically Everybody.  Making a mess of the stove, ruining tables, leaving the doors open when there's no-one in, etc. etc.  You young whippersnappers don't remember what it's like to work on bikes in the motel car park with the chilly desert breezes entwining themselves in the mossy glades of your krutty shins.  And now it seems that all HPV-related bobbins has to be out of the place by 15:00 tomorrow and the chances of our being able to use it again are, I think, non-existent. Nice one, Oaves.

As I bring things up to date on teh Intarwebs Robert "Mr" Barnett is running the drag races which, for the eleventh time, I have missed.  I've also missed Robert's lovely old Chevy truck; this year he and Linda have made the long trip in a new Nissan pickup instead.  BO-O-O-O-O-RING.

And to to the penultimate evening session of 2014.  A little hazy, but warmer than yesterday and, crucially, a metric fuckton less windy.  Only Vadim Dunayev had a non-legal wind speed and still ran 63.68 mph.  Other highlights included 76.3 for Jan-Marcel with a slow p*nct*r*, 60.08 for Peter Borenstadt - sixty mph at sixty years of age, a storming 82.18 for Rik Houwers in Velox 4 and a new trike record of 72.94 mph for Gareth Hanks in All Overzealous.  He had a communiqué from Ben Goodall last night reminding him of who was still the fastest Aussie.  Not any more, mate.  A good night - see more Stuffs and full results on Jun Nogami's blog.

Damjan checks Eivie's interior for snakes, scorpions, pikeys etc.

The top comes down on Teagan
Note cool bracelet and list of target speeds taped to the bars.

Trefor Evans in Eta has failed to get underway but is still upright.
Vadim Dunayev in Tetiva 2 is not so lucky...

On automotive firsts: today I had my first ride in a Toyota Pious (interior plastics akin to the casing of a cheap mobile phone), six miles in the load-bed of a pickup truck (thanks to Elko Anna who gave Pat the Scouser and me a lift back up to where we'd left our Mu(d)stangs) and my first taste of a foot-operated parking brake in the van Vugt's Chrysler minivan (which hurt my foot when I moved it ten yards before the start of Ellen's run).  And I ended up in the back of this:

Surprisingly quiet and better interior than the Pious but no rear legroom due to the thick shield required to stop Bad People from shooting or knifecriming the driver.  No, dolts, not in handcuffs.  We had co-opted Sergeant Aten and his fellow Judge officer to drive sweep on the second heat (also they wanted to watch events at the start) and someone had to ride back with one of our radios rather than theirs.  Walt did not, in the end, drive sweep today so my record is still safe for now.