Day 7: Battle Mountain NV

Alarm went off at 05:15 uwk usw¹ because the timing kit is now resident in thee Nissan ov Doom when it's not being used or the spiffy new all-in-one power supply gadget being charged; we have a spiffy new power supply gadget because the old collection of Things To Supply Voles To The Timers went home to Eureka with its owners of record last year.

Spiffy new power supply gadget

Further windy weirdness as the weather deity kept the gain turned down low for the qualifying heats, the first of which saw Toronto's bike Cyclone makes its debut this year with Erin Price putting in a legal 38.49, followed by Ken in ARION 8 with a promising 43.17.

Ken in ARION 8

Calvin gets Erin under way

OK, this is squarely in the Land of Odd.  Yesterday, and indeed since forever, Blogger has allowed me to put the pretty pictures in by pasting a url pointing to the said picture on Flickr.  And now it doesn't.  In two different browsers.  Anyway:

The second heat had Cyclone doing its second run of the morning with Harrison Walker clocking 38.65 and Nathan Walker (no relation) a 41.40 in Woohoo.  Ethan Elbaz again failed to get Eta Prime launched chiz but there has been even yet more practice on Poo Road this afternoon...

07:55.  Note angle of streamer...

Nathan & Woohoo

In the third qualifier Cobus ran Mint Sauce to a genuine 43.84 mph and Karen Darke in ARION 8 clocked 38.97, though by the time she ran the wind had edged up to non-legal levels chiz.  Claire Nolet was down to make Cyclone's third run of the morning but was thwarted by a loose cassette lockring doing its level best to prevent power reaching the road.

Barney fell flat on his face a fraction of a second after this photo...

Then out to the long course start for a further two heats, livened up by another moton running the road closure at the south end of the course.  We think this was due to inattention rather than malice bu we still ended up with another broken "STOP" sign after flagger Mason dropped it into the moton's path while jumping out of the way.  No legal winds for the first of the five mile runs; Ellen in Orange Bullet ran 52.47, Bill in the Milan RS 58.12 and Peter in the Milan SL 47.35, which experience he described as being "like riding in soup".

Peter showing rispek for the course officials

Gongoozlers. Nevada. Tuesday.

As we'd hoped, the wind died again for the final set of runs, which François duly smashed with an 85.84 mph pass.  Two or three minutes later it had crept up again, rendering David's 68.23 hors de combat.

Fleg-noncing 1: France

After which I spotted Twed doning a Journalism:

Twed interviews François

Tuesday is Show'n'Shine Day, or Free Lunch Day if you are for e.g. Larry Lem:

Note blur induced by high-speed motion...

Lots of opportunity to poke our noses into the assembled machinery before the local third-graders came over the road to do likewise with their chocolate-smeared paws, plus more unseemly fleg-noncing:

Fleg-noncing 2: The Netherlands

Fleg-noncing 3: BRITAIN
No roundabouts to paint round here...

Wild Bill has turned the Milan RS umop-ap!sdn to keep jam and chocolate out of the gears

Not strictly fleg-noncing: Canada.

Conditions were rather less clement for the evening runs, to the extent that no-one had legal wind.  At all.  Not that there were many takers anyway; Ellen and Slash ran in the first heat with 57.26 and 54.56 mph respectively.  Slash said he'd hit a wall at about 55 mph.  In the second heat Adam was a DNS after three unsuccessful launch attempts leaving Karen to round off the vening with a 38.50.  Because everyone scratched from the final heat in spite of the wind approaching legal levels.  Thus causing a game of Musical Cars as volunteers and team members were reunited with their transport at the opposite end of the course.

Sorry Adam...

A word about wind speeds: for a run to be "legal" the wind has to be below

• 1.67 m/s, which is
• 328 feet per minute, or
• 10,018 furlongs per fortnight.  Which Calvin actually knew.

1. You are not expected to understand this unless you are Miss von Brandenburg