Day 28: Roswell, NM - Carlsbad, NM

A day short on distance but long on Kulture.  I only did about the distance from London to Birmingham and only that much because Carlsbad Caverns are a fair way from the town city of Carlsbad.  Which, doubtless due to its proximity to said Big Holes in the Ground, has some of the most ludicrously overpriced accommodation I've yet to find on this trip. Or, indeed, any other.

First port of call was the International UFO Museum And Research Center in Roswell.  I ponied up my five bucks in anticipation of a cheap morning looking at tqt¹ and then spent twenty-two on a T-shaped shirt.  Pshaw and, moreover, fiddlesticks.  Some highlights:

Mayan camera bike, c. 683 AD.  Derek von Heineken has his own theories about this, but they're a Rubbish...

Some aliens, looking for the Gents.  They do actually have arses!

Woman looking for the form guide for Newton Abbot

Klaatu is unable to work out why he's having trouble hailing a taxi

Anyway, here is what I have managed to deduce about the "Roswell UFO Incident".

• No two "experts" can agree on what, if anything, was involved.
• No two "experts" can agree on where anything took place.  If it did.
• No two "experts" can agree on when anything happened either.  "Summer 1947" is a bit vague.
• No single "expert", or team of "experts", has the faintest idea of how to design a legible web site.
• The "experts" are, by and large, totally Hornchurch² sorts who think The Illuminatus Trilogy is a true story and/or that The X-Files was a documentary³.

Fortunately we at the Ministry of Lies and Filth have a contact who knows someone who knows someone else who was actually there.  He consented to talk to us, and spake, and said:

Borag Thungg, Earthlets!
Here's the Truth (which is, of course, out there):

• Something SEEKRIT, but not very scrotnig, crashed
• Or possibly more than one Something SEEKRIT but not very scrotnig
• The US Army didn't want the Soviet On!on to find out about it
• The US Army organised a cover-up, which is not unheard of
• But they didn't do a very good job of it, which is also not unheard of, the great grexnixen
• Some thrill suckers told lies in a quest for fifteen minutes of fame
• There were no alien bodies
  
• There are no black helicopters either
• David Cameron is not a lizard

Splundig Vur Thrigg
Tharg the Mighty, Quaxxann (near Betelgeuse)

["Are you sure we can trust this bloke?" - Ed.]

No mention of The X-Files chiz so I cranked up the Mudstang and wandered lonely as a person sharing a State Highway with a few other people down to Carlsbad Caverns.  These hav a very interesting history if you are interested in hist. which few boys are.  The main cave is home to a myriad of bats, who come out at night to hunt insects; this being how it was discovered in 1898 by lonesome cowboy Jim White.  Obviously the Native Americans had been aware of the place since forever but they never bothered to tell anyone.

You can get in via the "Natural Entrance" and the Batcave (srsly) but that involves more walking than my feetses care to do these days, especially with it threatening to chuck down.  Alternatively you can go down in the lift, from the bottom of which I joined up with the guided tour of the King's Palace, ably led by Ranger Jim.

Ranger Jim tries unsuccessfully to get his torch to work

This area of the cave has been guided-tour only since, IIRC, 1992 as pikeys kept breaking bits off the speleotherms (look, I learned a new word!) as souvenirs.  You can also do the Big Room, but as the name suggests, it's Big and takes longer to do than I would have preferred.  Also it's not warm down there.  But it's got some groovy rocks:

This is supposed to resemble an elephant's bum, but I can't see it myself

I had to swap both the memory card and the flatteries in the camera while down there, which must be some kind of record.  A set of four AA lithiums normally lasts me for an entire USAnian trip; this year they lasted less than a week and I've gone through four sets of boggo Duracells as well.

It wasn't raining when I got out, but this lot was on the horizon

and the bats' agent won't allow them to be photographed when they come out, so I made my excuses and left.  As noted above, Carlsbad is a tourist trap and the place I'm in now is charging about twice the price I paid in Kremmling for a similar level of nastiness.  Anyway, it's time for Proper Tea, so it's a good job I wrote half of this rubbish last night.

On Business Opportunities: On Wednesday morning a chap bearing an uncanny resemblance to my former cow-orker Mr Wyatt strolled up to the motel reception desk and asked if there was a marijuana shop in town.  Colorado, y'see, legalised the sale and use of cannabis sativa on January 1st.  I am given to understand, however, that the sellers are having a hard time investing their not-inconsiderable profits.  The Feds regard such monies as being the proceeds of CRIME and will, I'm told, not allow it to be deposited in any bank ultimately insured by the Feddy-Bears.  Do any Readers know anything about USAnian banking La?

1. Sheddi abbreviation for "top-quality tqt"
2. Half a dozen stops beyond Barking
3. Usual disclaimer about Lie...

Day 27: Alamosa, CO - Roswell, NM

I ought to like New Mexico too.  Based on the bits I've seen on other trips.  Except Los Alamos, which was shut (it was a Sunday).  However the unrequited dulkness of today's trip takes some beating, especially considering that there were only a couple of miles on I-25 out of the whole 330 covered today.  Also it rained.

A measure of the route can be given from the edited highlights:

• The northern terminus of the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad

Loco #487 having a good steam, Antonito, CO

• Some roadworks at Clines Corners
• The never-ending traffic lights in the 'burbs of Santa Fe
• A 1957 Chrysler 300C
• El Jefe

El Jefe - a public artwork to enliven the tedium of US-285

With temperatures struggling to reach twenty degrees and rain after Santa Fe today was the first of the trip on which the roof stayed up all day.  By the time it was warm enough to put the thing down it was:

• Only ten miles to Roswell, and
• Raining again.  Properly this time.

Given that it's downhill practically all the way from Alamosa I was rather hoping for a dramatic change in elevation like you get between, say, Flagstaff and Phoenix over there (points as arrows scramble Blogger's little brane). Instead you get gently undulating and generally downward-trending grassland, with scarcely any Beefs. On it.

Remove signposts for true representation of scenic glories of this part of NM

Roswell, as any fule kno, is mostly famous for the 1947 Roswell Incident.  Which initial happenings took place "near" Roswell¹.  X-Philes, UFO buffs and conspiracy theorists have since put the place on the map, to the extent that there is a UFO Museum here.  I shall be visiting it tomorrow as it only costs five Earth dollars to get in.  I do not know whether one can pay with Altairian dollars, Flanian Pobble Beads or Ningis.  I suspect not, especially the latter.  The Mudstang's "trunk" is not large enough to hold a triangular rubber coin six thousand eight hundred miles along each side.  In fact, it will only just accommodate The Luggage, and that with a fair bit of pushing and shoving.

Edit: I just came across this story.  Even by the standards of the Forgers' Gazette (for which I can only apologise) that's tenuous.  But "Pissed and possibly concussed blokes wander around for a bit before having a nice lie-down" doesn't really have the same ring to it.

On Aliens, and why they tend to crash around here: The obvious reason why alien spacecraft have been involved a Several of high-profile accidents around here is due to all the SCIENCE conducted in New Mexico during the Second Great Unpleasantness.  Much research into atomic weaponry took place at Los Alamos, while the first Bomb was tested at Alamogordo.  Both practically next door by local standards.  The real reason, however, is simply that they fell asleep at the wheel while navigating by following US-285.

1. FSVO "near" - 30 miles as the crow flies and more than 80 by road if you can get there at all.  I don't think I'll bother.

Day 26: Cortez, CO - Alamosa, CO

I like Colorado.

Ignore, if you will, the rubbish in the foreground and concentrate on the luvverly mountains...

Breakfast was nice too.  The omelettes were, as befits cheese omelettes, dead cheesy.  Back onto US-160 and over those ^^^^ mountains to Durango.  It came as no great surprise to find the descent into the latter Spoiled by Roadworks, just like Page yesterday chiz.  Hordes of roadies about though, even though it's a Tuesday.  One brave chap was on a recumbent and using the shoulder on my side of the road against the oncoming traffic.  Not as daft as it sounds as he was climbing out of Durango and the shoulder on "his" side had been co-opted by the Kings of Hi-Viz.  New Half Man Half Biscuit album is due out next month.

Ah!  There is Wal-Mart.  Shortly afterwards my wallet is thinner to the tune of a brace of twenty-dollar bills but I now own five new pairs of boxers and a pair of trousis coloured such that sand, dust and similar will not show.  On them.  Then back east on 160.  Lots of traffic does not bode well for Things to Come.  Doubly so when Git Truck Driver pulls out in front of me in a manner very similar to the day I went to Scottsbluff in 2011.  Except that this time we got over the crest of a small hill and found a line of stationary vehicles queueueueueuing at yet more roadworks.  Cars, heavy wagons and motorhomes.  Uck!  Do I really have to follow this lot up the Wolf Creek Pass?

No I don't, as it turned out.  I stopped to fill up at Pagosa Springs where, it seems, everyone else turned south on US-84 for New Mexico.  Also the west side of Wolf Creek Pass has two uphill lanes all the way to the top.  The east side is a different matter altogether.

Looking west from halfway up Wolf Creek Pass

They have replaced the sign robbed by pikeys when I was up here in 2011

Trees, mountains and alpine meadow at the summit of Wolf Creek Pass

Disappointingly, the pass turns out to be named after some bloke called "Wolf" and not because the area was chock-full of wullufs in the past.  Down the other side towards South Fork (no, not that one) and the first new Bridge Action for quite some time.

River is the Mighty Rio Grande!

Finally things flatten out big-stylee in the form of the San Luis valley.  This is hemmed in by the San Juan mountains in the west and the Sangre de Cristo range in the east and is mostly full of potatoes¹.  Except in the top right-hand corner, where you'll find this:

A great sand dune, Great Sand Dunes National Park

Alamosa is off to the left a bit.

On courses, and horses for them: Both on the way to, and back from, the above-mentioned sand dunes, Emily sent me along this road:

While the San Luis valley is not exactly short of dead straight and dead flat roads like this one, I strongly suspect that somewhere along here was where numerous HPV speed records were set before we went to Battle Mountain.  It's pretty narrow in comparison with the NV-305 we all know and love and twenty+ years have not been kind to the surface; it's rougher than the BEAR's arse.

I think I have worked out how to embed the video Mr Warren Shrimpboat posted on YouThing


The comment "the envelope of speed for mankind has come to a close" looks a bit previous in the light of subsequent history.  More than thirty riders have gone faster than Cheetah's 68.7 mph at Battle Mountain (I got a headache when trying to count the tandem crews, especially as Fast Freddy has done it in a tandem and solo).  Also, look at the size of the thing I reckon it's taller than Teagan...

I am wearing the above on a T-shaped shirt today.  I wonder whether that counts as heresy round here...

1. All fakts are korekt for a change

Day 25: Cedar City, UT - Cortez, CO

So there I was, enjoying a post-prandial cup of Brown Drink and a fag outside the hotel this morning when my curiosity is piqued.  Just what is it that those two Germans are so earnestly photographing?  Then I recall that the Mudstang is concealed behind that SUV.  Yes, Gentlespoons of Team Cygnus, they are taking snaps of the graffiti thereupon.  Soon the Turner Prize judges will come a-knock-knock-knocking on your workshop door.  It rained this afternoon too, but fortunately neither long nor hard enough to remove the muck.  Or the scrawlings of various Tall People (I cannot imagine that Erika had anything to do with it).

I chose Cedar City for the first night back on the road due to its proximity to Cedar Breaks National Monument.  Cuddle the cognac, top up the Person of the Appropriate Sex, chuck another log on the radiator and I'll explain.  In the Gulag one of the exercises we were given was something call "Quality World" - if I have this wrong I'm sure my fellow zeks will pile in and correct me - in which each zek did the following:

• Act out an instance of a Good Time through the medium of interpretive dance
• Write a paragraph or two on what said Good Time made them feel¹
• Write another paragraph or two on what one wants from recovery

I stood open-mouthed in the middle of the room slowly turning my head from side to side.  Natch none of my fellow zeks could guess what I was doing or where I was doing it; it was, however, seeing for the first time this:

Like, wowsa!

The USAnian south-west is full of rock formations that don't just make your jaw drop but actually require reconstructive surgery to put it back in place, but Cedar Breaks stands out for me because it doesn't make a big fuss like, say, Bryce, Zion or the Grand Canyon.  Even if you see the signs, they're pointing to something of which you have never heard.

Plus it's even easier to avoid paying than in DETH Valley

After which you see the signs for Navajo Lake.  Like Cedar Breaks, the signs are wossnames I had passed more than once in the past without being curious enough to have a shufti.  Today I did.

In a Quality World it'd have a bit more water in it, but hey...

There is also Wildlife.  At first I though the tiny specks dancing in the air were merely dust kicked up by a passing motorcar but no!  They are very very tiny insects.  Time to leave before breathing any in. Less breathable and altogether easier to photograph was this chap:

Closest to a shot of Wild Turkey I'm getting on this trip...

US-89 south to Kanab and then east to Page was new to me and dead nice too, especially the first bit down the valley of the Virgin River - the same one that provides the interesting gorge on I-15 encountered previously.  I did actually stay in Kanab in 2003 but approached it from the other direction, having taken a foolhardy route south from Kodachrome Basin on dirt roads barely marked on the map and with no signage.  If I'd become stuck my exposed skull would still be out there, a perch for the quartering crow.

The woods ran out after Kanab; back to MMFD².  Made worse by the part from the Glen Canyon Dam to Kayenta being a straight retrace of the outward leg.  And the eleven miles of roadworks leading to the Utah-Arizona state line, stuck behind an erratically-driven camper.  Doesn't that thing have fucking cruise control, I yelled as its speed varied randomly from 28 to 47 mph.  More frustrated even than I was the chap in a Roush-tweaked Mustang.  He'd sat behind me for longer than I'd have done had our positions been reversed (there was plenty of room for him to pass so assume he was reading the back bumper) before overtaking in a glorious outburst of V8 thunder.  Then he got stuck behind the camper...  Anyway, most of the afternoon looked like this:

This is actually quite a good bit as the bushes are bigger than a housebrick and there are Rocks in the background.  There might even be a corner up there too.

Things finally turned green again after passing the Four Corners Monument, where Utah, Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico meet.  These days the place is administered by the Native Americans which is ironic with it being just an arbitrary dot on on an arbitrary map created by the white man.  Actually, it took a teensy bit longer for the green to get going properly, which it did just as his His Bobness, courtesy of the iPod's resident platter-spinner DJ Random, finished belting out Desolation Row.

If you look out of the window of this room you can see Proper Rockies.  When it's not dark, obv.  Tomorrow I will continue the tradition established in 2010, which is to say buying boxer shorts at Wal-Mart in Durango.

1. Feelings are very important in the Gulag and if you have difficulty in expressing them you are automatically suspect in the eyes of The Party.  Or something.
2. Miles and Miles of Fucking Desert

Day 24: Battle Mountain, NV - Cedar City, UT

It is rarely easy to make a swift getaway from Battle Mountain unless you do an Eric Ware and leave the Super 8 at twenty-five to dark. I was out of the shower by 07:30 and on the road by ten.  When in nomadic mode it'd take half that time at the most, but then in nomadic mode one tends not to keep bumping into wandering FOREIGNS whom one will not see for another 51 weeks.  I must have bidden farewell to Team Cygnus at least three times this morning in addition to twice last night.  Except Sjaak, who has been loaded into the luggage compartment of the Wielermaker's outsize camper van to get down to the national parks of Utah prior to three weeks of touring.  Hope the weather holds, mate.

You can't just sneak away from these people.  Especially not the ones with Guns...
L-R: Jan-Marcel, Sergeant Aten, Larry, Thomas, Officer Chavez

Emily soon started to protest about my choice of route as I knew she would.  She wanted me to head east on I-80 and then south to Ely.  There are a number of good reasons not to do this:

• I've driven that stretch of I-80 enough times to be fed up with it for a while, and
• It's full of road works, and
• The run south to Ely is dulk in the extreme, and
• The run to Ely via Austin isn't

So back along the course for the last time and down to Austin.  George Leone says that 305 follows, in part, the route of the former Nevada Central Railroad, opened in 1880 to take silver down to the main transcontinental line in Battle Mountain.  This is why the bit we use is as straight and flat as it is.  Austin is quite pleasant when it's sunny, as it was today, though the main street - part of US-50 - is a bad place to be caught behind a laden tanker truck as it's steep and winding.  Yes, since you ask.  It also has an establishment called the Wol Club.

US-50 in Nevada claims to be "America's Loneliest Road" and while it passes through an awful lot of not very much, the traffic on it was like the M1 compared with 305 (two vehicles in 90 miles).  It climbs over the parallel mountain ranges following the path of least resistance before striking out across another desert valley.

Mountains.  Nevada.  Sunday.

I stopped to replenish supplies of motor-spirit in Eureka, as the readout reckoned I'd run out nine miles short of Ely.  I've already found out that it's not 100% accurate, but nine miles from Ely is in the middle of bugger-all and a long walk from the nearest motor-spirit retailer.

Desert.  Nevada.  Sunday.

Eureka is bigger than Austin, and has an establishment called the Wol Club.  And a rather grand opera house, built by a madman in 1880 inna-Fitzcarraldo-stylee¹.  Ely, on the other hand, is big enough that any establishment called the Wol Club may be difficult to spot from US-50.

South of Ely US-50 and US-93 engage in an unholy sort of co-existence while poor lonely US-6 ploughs east on its own.  I took the latter as the former is also fairly familiar.  After Sacramento Summit I left US-6 to its own devices and headed south on NV-487, which turned into UT-21 after crossing a line on the map.  The Nevada end passes Wheeler Peak, wot is the highest proper point in Nevada.  Boundary Peak, apparently, doesn't count because its really a chunk of another mountain whose main pointy bit is in Stullifornia.

Wheeler Peak: 13,000 feet (almost 4,000 metres) of Nevada-y Bigness

After Minersville things turn unexpectedly green.  There is even dairy farming, complete with pong.  And now Cedar City again, for reasons which will become apparent tomorrow.  Probably.  Yes, this instalment may be late.  I am now back in the Mountain time zone hence today's seven hour drive took eight hours, IYSWIM.

On headaches: I have one.  Bah!  Pizza, Proper Tea and stroopwafels have failed to shift it, so I will go to bed instead.

1. This sentence may contain traces of Lie.  The date is correct, though.

Day 23: Battle Mountain, NV

Seven months ago, almost to the minute at the time of writing if you ignore the eight-hour time difference between Battle Mountain and Bury St. Edmunds, I was on a train and heading here.  I've managed to stay off the alcohol, thanks in no small part to everyone who has offered encouragement and support over those seven months, at home, here in Battle Mountain and from people who are not in Battle Mountain but damn' well ought to be (Hi, Frans!).  I was somewhat apprehensive about coming here given Al's description of the Usual Suspects as "a BEER-drinking club with a bicycle problem", so thank you all for helping to keep me busy and out of here.  Actually, I did go there on Friday night but only because their fags are the cheapest in town.  Yes, Annette and Miss von Brandenburg, I know.  One thing at a time, m'kay?

Last night World+Dog wanted to run in the morning.  Some of them twice.  With the good conditions of Friday, though, everyone went flat out like hell maximum attack and consequently many of the faster outfits opted to sit it out.  We poor unsung volunteers, though, still had to get up at five o'bloody-clock to accommodate the less bone-idle.  Bah!  It was warmer than Friday morning and pretty much flat calm over a lot of the course.  The important wind speed, though, is down at timing and there it was gusting above and below the limit.  Mostly above, sadly, as only Christien Veelenturf and Teagan Patterson made runs under legitimate conditions.  This was a chiz as Damjan ran a personal best 78.6 mph.

Eivie's crappy old Ford van having to work hard to keep up

Christien ran twice; her first run was a personal best of 68.82 mph, putting her third on the Ladies' all-time list behind Barbara and Ellen.  Eta etanother spoke, which proves that there is such a thing as trying to be too clever.  Or something.  Alan Grace cracked 35 mph in what will probably be his final run of the event; time constraints mean that the Slippery Slug is unlikely to be fitted into the evening runs.

And now a word from just about everybody...

As per usual Dr No has the full SP.

With everything done and dusted by nine o'clock we had plenty of time in hand before the debrief to watch Al Krause eating pancakes.  At the Colt this time, just as a change from the Wol.  After the meeting it was the by-now traditional photoshoot in front of the spiffy electromagickal sign, which the Natives are wont to call a "marquee".  Or possibly a "marquis", à la Française.

The teams, L-R: 2 Out Of 3 (Orin Peters); Tetiva 2; Eta; Varna Tempest; Velox S2; Beluga; Cygnus Chronos; All Overzealous; Completely Overzealous; Velox IV; Eivie 4; Slippery Slug.  Adam's Folly seems to have gone home.  I will not attempt to name all the people...

Bram and Annette Wielermaker are here this year supporting Delft in general and #1 son David in particular.  To which end they have hired a substantial RV.  The creepy picture in one of the windows was asking for it:

They've probably got Sergeant Aten out with his book of tickets again at the moment but frankly I'd rather finish typing this and then sit lie down with the new Ann Cleeves¹. I expect the Scotsman did it.  Tonight I am hoping to escape the pressures of high office by pretending to be a dog spectator and thus may get to see the vehicles run flat-out for the first time in a Several of years.

I did hang out in the spectator area tonight.  The timing system played up to delay matters, doubly so when Jun found that the spare cable was 50 metres too short to reach the timing beam at the start of the traps.  And in any case the wind stubbornly refused to drop below the permitted level at timing; at start and catch it was flat calm.  Which was a chiz because Gareth exceeded his own day-old record with a 73.54 mph run and Barbara did 75.71 if I've read my writing correctly.  Yes.  Yes, she did; Jun has just put the results up.  Rik was unable to run as Velox IV had a Fairy Visitation during Christien's run and they apparently failed to get the offending wossname out of the tyre.

Ellen van Vugt at 63 mph.  Note ambient light and wind conditions, and this was in the second of the three sessions...

Back to the Wol Club for the Awards Bash.  Thanks to the door prize scheme I too now own a Tri-Sled water bottle.  Thanks to Team Cygnus I also own a packet of stroopwafels (only given to those held to be in Good Standing by, er, Team Cygnus) and also one of their latest T-shaped shirts:

Jan-Marcel is characteristically serious

The Wol Club has a new chef.  This is a Good Thing.  I had two dinners.  Scouser Ben (who isn't actually a Scouser) appeared to be taking the door prizes seriously enough to get riled when his number was repeatedly not called:

The Scousers: Pat is Interested while Ben gets Mardy...

The Polis did not hand out tickets for traffic violations this afternoon but Sergeant Aten did the necessary tonight.  Those who exceeded 70 mph got speeding tickets while the crash victims were cited for straying out of their lane.

The Crims L-R: Vadim, Alexey, Calvin, Christien, Rik, Damjan, Ellen, Gareth, Barbara, Jan-Marcel, Alan.  Todd concealed behind the Sarge.  Greg still hasn't had his from 2012...

The Presentation of Hats:

L-R: Teagan (50), Vadim (55), Alexey, Peter (both 60), Christien (65), Rik (80)

The Trisexuals Tricyclists:

L-R: Peter, Greg, Gareth

The Ladies:

L-R: Christien, Barbara, Ellen

Even without the heels Christien needs to be careful in case she finds herself accidentally married to Rod Stewart.

The Chaps:

L-R: Todd, Rik, Damjan

The Mgt and Supreme Rulers of the WHPSC:

Al & Alice Krause, may their House be Free From Tigers

And one of the most serious cases of seriousness yet seen in the fifteen years of the event:

Jan-Marcel, Thomas and Erika test the medals for CHOKLIT.  Scott Wilson gatecrashing in the background.

I managed to extricate myself in an only slightly prolonged manner and came back to the Super 8 to Do Webby SCIENCE.  Unfortunately I went out for a fag while the kettle was boiling and thus met Mike Sova on the stairs.  Party in the conference room, says Mikey.  That is why this Diarisation is later than usual.  But I'm still having a lie-in tomorrow morning.

On Flagging: Many of the riders do this even before reaching the timing traps.  However...  A few years back it was Decreed that henceforth we would have to have properly certified people to man the road closures rather than just any old herbert in a hi-vis weskit.  Thus we have had, for a Several of years now, the services of the inestimable Kristi and Geri-Ann (did I spell those names right, Ladies?).  Following the odd incident involving arsey motons and the ranch roads, this year we have two new flaggers, Rebecca and Rose.  That they are Kristi's sisters is entirely incidental.  We wouldn't be able to run at all without these wonderful and very funny people, so thanks a million and I hope you'll be able to keep helping us in future.

1. "Thin Air", book six of the increasingly inaccurately-named "Shetland Quartet".

A Placeholder

Saturday's Automatic Diary entry does exist but it isn't finished yet, because I'm just taking a temporary break from the party to make some more tea.  Rest assured that it will appear eventually.

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.

Day 21: Battle Mountain, NV

The "We Hear" Department tells us that the reason Rik Houwers only achieved 75-odd mph yesterday was that the squished flies on the fairing were buggering up the airflow.  Pesky insects.

Thursday morning's extra half-hour in bed had this much effect: 0.  Dial 1-800-BRA-ANES for all your undead nutritional needs, coz the Brown Drink and crack-laced cinnamon rolls at the Super 8 ain't cutting it.  To the 305.

Wind.

Damjan banged in another 69+ while both the Russian lads were very wobbly at the start but got down successfully.  Poor Christien had an issue with Velox IV's video system; the lads fixed it but by then it was too late for her to run in the first session.  By the time the stalled traffic had been let through and the road reclosed, the wind had risen to unfriendly speeds again.  She didn't run.

Christien rues another missed opportunity

We ran the short-course runs after the long ones.  Often the wind drops again around 09:30.  Today it didn't, so while Teagan and Alan both improved their speeds marginally, no significant improvements were likely.

Alan tries to get BBC2 HD

Today is Tom Amick's 50th birthday.  There was CAEK.

Teagan has been testing her starting prowess with the newly-fitted 73-tooth chainring on Beluga.  The noises off suggest that Larry might sensibly have left the Kevlar™ crash panels in place for the time being.  At least she managed not to hit this:

/me want Shiny Thing

The author's sweep car speed record may well be in jeopardy chiz, as it belongs to Walt Tibbits a.k.a. The Phantom Starter.  He has said he'll run sweep in it tomorrow, so I think I should ride shotgun as an observer.

The evening was like the morning, only windy.  A fair few decided to sit things out again, including both Velox IV riders.  Christien still hasn't had a successful run over the full course.  Damjan's still banging 'em in in the high 60s in spite of the wind, and also seems to have got the hang of stopping Eivie now.  Jan-Marcel ran over 70 again and Gareth is right up with the rude boys with a similar speed.  At the time of writing Dr No is still out having his tea so you'll have to wait for the full list and "Upright" Mike Mowett's in-depth analysis.

Barclay Henry has a posse SHUVEL

Jan-Marcel brings Cygnus Chronos onto final approach

Plenty of folk joining the crowd of spectators / volunteers.  Once and future builders and/or riders around this year include Don and James Schroeder, Sven Jorgensen and George Leone, who appeared tonight with a thousand-yard stare and a mixed bag of Team Primal and Cal Poly chaps.  And yet more people seduced by the lure of the Toronto mob.  Do not go to Canada until after the weekend.  They're out.

Right, TEA, an early night and a prayer to the Wind Elves.  Note to self: the TEA experience will be greatly improved if you remember to switch the fucking kettle on

On T-shaped Shirts: given that the Russians are here and it's 9/11, perhaps I should have picked a shirt other than this one for today: