Day 4: Battle Mountain NV

I could have had a nice long lie-in this morning, because reduced competitor numbers meant a later than usual start, but instead I woke up and smelled the coffee.  Literally.  Also the Super 8 now does sossidge, egg & cheez-flavored food product croissants (sic) which get heated in the microwave and are more addictive than crack.  Out to the course via the Maverik gas station, which charges a whole buck less a gallon than the robdogs at the Chevron in Topaz Lake did on Friday.  In the absence of Paul Gracey and his Tesla (140 mph) it looks like me & the Blackstang are on sweep duty for the duration chiz.  Like its predecessors (except the V8 in 2017) this one is limited to ~122 mph, but then even Arnold's pikey old Beemer is limited to 132, so we're not losing too much time.  And some bikes went down the road in almost perfect conditions, except for the odd one or two.

Aaaah, back in the desert!

Heat one saw Guillaume de France open the batting in Altaïr 6 and a respectable 51.28 mph.  BRITAIN'S Russell Bridge next up in the Seventy-Seven, clocked 53.53.  He still had the gearing used for testing back home fitted, which limited speed somewhat - this was deliberate to remove the temptation to goo too fast at the start of the week and crash or something.

Russ & shiny paintjob on their first run here...

Third up Wild Bill Thornton in the Milan velomobile, with 51.14 mph.  Last to go, from the 600 metre mark rather than the full 2.5 mile mark, was 11 year old Alyssa Miller in Teardrop.  Hers was the only run with an illegally-high wind speed and , to add insult to injury, the timing system ran out of voles at the critical moment so she didn't even get a time chiz.

Alyssa waits for Wicked Great Uncle Robert to fit the lid

Heat two was a bit more dramatic as Titan, the record-holding tandem from the University of Toronto, fell over shortly after launch.  Twice.  They had to pull the beast off the course to investigate which bits had deranged themselves.

Titan after it all went terribly wrong

In contrast, Adam Hari in Larry Lem's bike Wahoo, got away cleanly for a 45.90 pass.  Martina Stirano in Team Policumbent's TaurusX had a minor starting hiccup, got going at the second time of asking and did a 37.96, a speed scarcely diminished when she arrived in catch.  Panic braking, locked wheels, aerobatics.  No apparent damage to the bike - which still had the Kevlar crash panels in place, though the unfortunate pilot seemed more than a little upset after she was extricated.  No such fuss or drama from Peter Borenstadt's DF velomobile, with a 51.1 mph run.

Martina before it all went terribly wrong

Heat three was the one which should have had fireworks, but Andrea Gallo ran Team Policumbent's new machine Phoenix off the road shortly after starting.  Instead it was François Pervis in Altaïr 6 who threw down the gauntlet with 69.95 mph.  Slightly slower than Andrea's short-course record from 2019 but still an impressive debut.  Noah Philips in the London South Bank University machine, which is pronounced "Marlow" but possibly not spelled like it, did 35.36 with, or so it seemed, the bike's landing gear down for the whole run.  Last up was the third Policumbent machine - the Cerberus handcycle - in which Diego Colombari hit 31.36 due to being stuck in bottom gear for the duration.

Diego & Cerberus

We hadn't intended to run a fourth heat but had plenty of time in hand to fit one in for Titan and Phoenix to have another go.  Something was awry with one of the latter's video displays, however, so it was just Calvin Moes and Bill Kong in Titan.  They decked at launch again, were righted and finally got away successfully.  Except that a chain came off the drive to the front wheel, leaving Bill as sole engine to propel the mighty beast to a whisker under 50 mph.  We can't be more precise because the timing system went bugarup again.  Still, at least the new wind meter (purchased on Ebay from a bloke in Doncaster and sent to Mr Sir Admiral Professor King Timelord Nogami via me, and for which I have now been paid - thx Alice) behaved itself and we were all done and dusty by 10:00 hours.

The post-race meeting was less slick as we discovered the hard way that we'd forgotten how to do the allotment of start slots for tonight and tomorrow morning.  Sorted in the end - thanks largely to Due Diligence by Larry Lem - and away for second breakfast/early lunch with the Ligtvoets and Laidback Bike Report's Gary Solomon and Tray Burgoyne.  And relaxxxxxx...  Well, I did.  Team Seventy-Seven discovered that their intended replacement final drive cog was 1/8" rather than 3/32".  Grinding ensued.

34 degrees and pretty calm when we went back out to the course in the pm and there was much anticipa...

...tion of the runs to follow.  Alas, 'twas not to be.  Noah, the sole rider in the first heat, decked Marlow only about half a mile into his run.

Noah before:
a: it all went terribly wrong, and
iii: the wind picked up

By the time the bike had been recovered and the sweep car - me - gone all the way down the course and back again the wind had reached levels of, er, windiness seldom seen with bikes actually running.  Especially as it was trying hard to rain too.  Russ went first and clocked 57.02, Adam second with 60.05 and Martina third with 50.93, none with legal wind.  Martina was particularly stoked after her mishaps of this morning.

Adam about to clock the highest speed of the evening

We held back the start of the third heat by about ten minutes, in the hope that the wind would drop, and matters were further delayed by the Blackstang being held up behind a law-abiding citizen doing 70 mph all the way up the course.  By which time François had decided not to run and thus, with Titan having already scratched before things even started, Peter in the DF was the final runner of the night.  57.6 mph with a tailwind only twice the legal limit.  At least this meant the wrap-up meeting was short.