Day 4: Battle Mountain NV

 For once the alarm overrode my body clock and I actually slept through to 06:30.  Natch after this lamentable state of Early I learned that Adam had once again coöpted Annecy's entire stock of PSOs to help place straw bales in front of immovable objects, holes in the ground, etc.  Ergo there was nothing to do all day except mill around the Civic Center and watch as teams turned up and gave their machines the final last-minute tweaks or tried to get the front tyre on their fatbike to seat properly, which in Calvin Moes' case, it didn't.  And assisting Liverpool handcyclist Ken Talbot in turning a bunch of disparate bits into his Top End warmup machine, with more than a few cries of "Shit & Derision" as we realised it would have been more sensible to put part Y on before part X and having then to dismantle Stuffs again.

Calvin's fatbike, yesterday.  His plans for the week include riding it from town to the start via the top of Mount Lewis, slightly more than a vertical mile away.

Larry Lem and Calvin Moes did the tech inspection thing which this year has expanded to check how long it takes to prepare the vehicle for launch and how long to extract a rider strapped into a burning bike, as well as the now-mandatory two independent brakes following David Van Erd's escapades last year.

Additional stopping power for Orange Bullet

Barney Harle demonstrates how to extract an incapacitated Russell Bridge from a crashed Seventy-Seven

Slash points at things while a sceptical Calvin and Larry observe

Glen Friel supervising the extraction of ARION 8 from the van

Cat-herding proper started at hours 19:00 of the pm o'clock with Naming of Parts Introductions of Persons Present, Dos & Don'ts¹ and general Dissemination of Essential Information.  Working from a script prepared by Experts, Chairman Arnold got this down to an hour and a quarter, including the draw for the qualifying heats tomorrow morning and all appears right with the world.

2/7 of the Politburo: Jun Nogami and Calvin Moes with his 80 mph Hat

2/7 of the Politburo: Arnold & Marieke Ligtvoet

I shall therefore have another cup of tea before retiring to Bedfordshire because tomorrow is the start of the proper early morning Stuffs.

1. Do keep the Civic Center clean and tidy, don't let the sheriff catch you speeding, do as you're told by the Politburo, don't let the CO catch you wearing makeup on duty, etc etc.