Day 12: Battle Mountain NV

That was the last relaxing day we'll have for a while...  The morning was spent watching fettling going on outside the Super 8, mostly Team Policumbent working on their brakes and rear tyre.  They were fitting new brake discs which, although the same six-bolt-pattern as the old ones used in testing back home, had a bit more meat around the bolt holes and thus wouldn't fit the hub.  Synchronised filing...  Meanwhile Paolo was attempting to iron the creases out of the (folding) rear tyre, a 406 Schwalbe Pro One and persuade it and the sealant goop required for tubeless operation to stay in place.  When it didn't a very Italian solution to the problem was called for, viz. have lunch.  I think it's all sorted now, but I still haven't seen it fully assembled.  John Jackson and Larry Lem were also hard at work trying to knock some sense into John's ride, named REO Speedwagon.  Hopefully after the car rather than the band.  Lots of Bondo.

Larry Lem gets busy with the Bondo

Andrea Gallo (R) supervises the Team Policumbent filing-and-graunching crew

Marieke Ligtvoet wearing a skirt, "because it's Sunday"

In the afternoon I strolled over to the Civic Center where Arnold Ligtvoet and Hans van Vugt were doing the inspections.  the University of Toronto gang had appeared by this stage; they're running Eta Prime - a clone of the world record holder - and old warhorse Bluenose.  Liverpool University had also appeared with ARION3, which is to be their last leg-powered machine as they're already scheming an arm-powered machine for next year and have already signed up Paralympic gold medallist Karen Darke to drive it.

Hans (L) and Arnold (with fondleslab) grill the Liverpooligans

The team from Mexico's De La Salle University have a new device with an arm- and leg-powered linear drive, which looks ever so slightly likely to kill its rider utterly to DETH in the event of a crash.

De La Salle University's String-Driven Thing

I then tagged along with the Liverpool team as the conducted some low-speed testing on the strip of Tarmac known as "Poo Road".  Some surgery was required to the seat to get Ken Buckley low enough to get the lid on but Yasmin Tredell - freshly arrived from her peregrinations around half of USAnia having blagged a lift with Professor Frank from Caly Poly who happened to be passing Reno at the time - fitted in with nary a problem.  She had a very low-speed tumble while distracted by something making an odd noise from the rear end but both riders pronounced themselves happy.  The returning Super Ketta Machine 162 was also out testing with new rider Shinsuke Kouzai, but far enough up the road that we couldn't see how they were getting on.  Though we did spot their sk8r d00d take a tumble into the undergrowth.  We shouldn't have laughed, but we did.

Yasmin does The Twist to load herself into ARION3

Whoopsie...

Success!

Back to the Civic Center for the introductory meeting, which some of use old stagers can probably recite in our sleep by now.  While I was away the team from Sydney's Macquarie University had also arrived, as had Peter Borenstadt running an almost-stock DF velomobile again, so I think everyone is actually here.  As usual the meeting went on just long enough for us get to El Aguila Real for Mexican eats after it closed.  Wol Club it is, then.

First sighting of the very solid-looking machine from Macquarie University.

Alarm set for 05:30.  Time for Bedfordshire; today's photos at BM2017 - First Weekend.  These will be the last full-fat ones on Flickr as they take so long to upload.  Sorry.