Battle Mountain Record Runs

Battle Mountain Record Runs

At this time of the year the International Human Powered Vehicle Association (IHPVA) holds the World Human Powered SpeedChampionships (WHPSC), an annual event that is taking place in Battle Mountain, Nevada.  The local conditions at this time of the year are perfect to attempt world records.  For one week, a five-mile (8km) section of state highway is closed to traffic twice a day in order for human powered land vehicles to attempt to beat world records.

In the Battle Mountain area, the organizers found a place where the relatively high altitude, provides less air resistance, the wind conditions at this time of the year are calm at sunrise and at sunset, there is a long straight stretch of road that is flat with the maximum allowed negative slope (-0.6%) and the Nevada Transportation Department repaved the highway a few years ago to provide a very smooth road surface.

They do not compete for money, for their efforts all they receive is a baseball cap that indicates the speed they exceeded in 5mph increment. The Nevada State Troopers also come distribute speeding tickets to those who manage to exceed 70mi/h.  The winner gets to ride in the back of the police car!

This is a crop year when it comes to world records where several were achieved in several categories including for velomobiles.

The biggest new is the how Canadian rider Todd Reichert in his Streamliner ETA set overall speed record 3 times in the same week.  In the process, he did not only break the record, he obliterated he record reaching 139.21km/h an increase of 5.43km/h.  The team produced a nice video of their second record run.

Two of the world records pertain to velomobiles.  First Ellen van Vugt broke the multit-ract record for women in Trisled Completely Overzealous velomobile twice finishing with a speed of 87.63 km/h.  16year-old Florian Kowalik also riding Completely Overzealous broke the multi-track record in the junior category twice during the week finishing the week with a speed of 93.22.  Florian’s little sisters also set WR in their age categories with the Micro-Moby pink Streamliner; this is quite the family!  You can check all the results here.

Completely Overzealous at Battle Mountain

I would really like to see production velomobiles participating in the next event so they can measure against the record speed setting streamliners and velomobiles. ICB, Raderwerk, Velomobiel, you want to prove that your design and riders are the best, here is a place for you to prove yourself.

I find that it is very unfortunate that mainstream and cycling media are completely ignoring these achievements. We need people who get the attention of media.

Mike Mowett who has been following cycling records made an excellent analysis of the cycling speed record.  He also designed a chart that shows the evolution and the difference between categories and sanctioning bodies.

 

Chart by Mike Mowett

Mike Mowett - Top Speed Plot Progression.

Eta is causing things to shoot upward. Since the bicycle was invented, its speed remained relatively stagnant until the IHPVA was founded and the IHPSC competitions from 1975 to 1980 raised the speed record 20 mph in only five years, culminating with the Vector Tandem's mark in 1980. This two-person three-wheeled vehicle, was thought to be the ultimate human powered vehicle, and it was for almost six years. Then during the next 20 years, the record progressed rather linearly with the Vector Tandem's mark set in 1980, the Gold Rush winning the Dupont Prize in 1986, the Cheetah team setting their record in 1992, and finally Sam Whittingham and Varna making the first runs at Battle Mountain in 2000. The following year, the competition between Sam and Matt Weaver raised the record suddenly from 72 mph to over 80 mph. Over the next 8 years Sam improved his record incrementally. Then Human Powered Team Delft and Sebastiaan Bowier raised the record incrementally again, after three years of efforts. And now Team AeroVelo and Todd Reichert have caused us to rethink what is possible with human powered speed with their runs in the past two days! The limit of human powered speed is certainly not closed!

                                                                                                                              

Australian Pedal Prix

Last weekend was the annual 24hr Pedal Prix race  at Sturt Reserve, Murray Bridge.  The Aurora racing team won the race by 16 laps ahead of Team Trisled.  The covered 962km in the 21hr period and some 32km over the second team, averaging some 40km/h.  One interesting fact is the 226 entries for this race easily making this the largest velomobile race in the world.

Early September update

Early September update

Around here this is the Labor day weekend, a long weekend and this year the weather is very nice.  Unfortunately I have not been able to ride in the past few weeks since my 600k brevet.  This is unfortunate for me as the weather has been excellent in the past few weeks.  As I had mentioned in my previous post, I damaged the DF during the brevet and had to perform some carbon fiber repairs to the rear idler housing.  I performed the repairs and I’m waiting for a new idler from ICB to replace the rear idler I have.  The sides of the Ginko have been damaged and will be replaced with the Alligt idler. Looking at the front idler, I can see it should also be changed but it is not as critical as the rear.  

In addition, due to the difficult riding conditions caused by the drivetrain issues, I injured my ankle; since I did not have access to the large chainring. I had to spin the pedals at more than 130RPM to keep the speed up especially in descents and not having access to the lowest gears during climb put too much strain on my ankle.  I am just starting to walk without pain.  I hope to be able to start riding in a few days if I don’t have any setbacks.

Raderwerk

This is an item that went almost unnoticed.  A new Milan has been produced; it is the Milan RS.  The RS is even smaller than the SL but has larger “humps” to accommodate knees and feet.  The news appeared on the German Forum and you would not know looking at the company’s website that has not changed yet.  Is this velomobile going to be produced on a large scale?  I do not know at this time.  The company was supposed to launch the new website in time for SPEZI and make an exciting announcement… I guess we have a new velomobile but only limited info on it.  The new velomobile has apparently been designed for breaking new records and not necessarily for riding on the roads but I bet some riders will not heed to this advice.

From L to R Milan GT, SL and RS

Wejkama

A new hybrid velomobile could be introduced to the market soon; a Polish company Wejkama has developed the Cab-Bike Hawk.  This is not a new project, Kenneth reported on the project in 2013 here http://www.velomobiles.co.uk/tag/cab-bike/ While the project appear to have made some progress with a prototype on the road, there are still few details available but several pictures and an e-mail address to find out more about the velomobile and price.  From the pictures we can see that the Cab-Bike has been completely redesigned with a new top that is more aerodynamic. The Cab Bike Hawk resembles the Sunrider, Orca or Versatile that are also hybrid velomobiles.  The big question is if there a market for another velomobile that is similar to 3 others that are only moderately successful?  It is not clear where the molds came from but for the past several months, someone was looking to sell a set of molds for the Cab-Bike… maybe they found an interested party. wejkama.com/en/cab-bike-hawk-en

Paris Brest Paris

Last week I mentioned that Ymte was the first to finish in a velomobile but in fact it was Hajo Eckstein riding a Milan SL that finished first, however he finished 36^th overall. 

Marvelo

More pictures of the first production SKR have been posted pictures this week on the Marvelo Blog .  You can see the large cockpit access hatch and the front service hatch open. 

Byess

There are still no news on the Evo–Kx.  The prototype was to be unveiled in the spring at SPEZI but no information, or pictures have surfaced yet.  One would think that the company would be eager to inform potential customers of this exciting event but unfortunately like Raderwerk, Byess does not make communication a priority, there is no mention of the Kx on the company’s website.  While we do not know the reason why this project is so far behind schedule, hopefully we’ll see the Kx by the end of the year.

Velomobiel

Velomobiel.nl received 9 orders for velomobiles in August and 6 velomobiles were delivered.  Two of those were delivered to Velomobiel.  There were 2 Quest, 1 Carbon Quest and 3 Strada delivered.  August is normally a slow month with many people on holidays and this may be reflected in the number of deliveries.  At the end of August there were 47 velomobiles on order at Velomobiel.nl.

Someone pointed out that the new Carbon Quest now come with a carbon swingarm instead of the aluminum swingarm.  The carbon swingarm was an option previously but it is now available on all new Carbon Quest.  This will help address some of the stiffness issues that the old Carbon Quest had.

IntercityBike

Well deliveries of velomobiles were not affected by the holidays at ICB.  There were 16 velomobiles delivered in August 4 DF and 12 DF-XL.  This may be explained in part due to the issues with the unavailability of the original DT Swiss shock that stopped all deliveries for several weeks earlier this season.  On the order side, only a single DF was ordered in August.  At the end of August there were 47 velomobiles on order at ICB.

Drivetrain issues may force ICB to change supplier for the idlers.  Several riders have reported issues where the chain jumping the idlers when the drivetrain is under strain like when riders are climbing a steep hill in the lowest gear.  The chain appears to push on the sides of the idler.  The Ginko idlers have soft metal sides that deform and cannot hold the chain in place.  Ymte and Daniel have been testing idlers from a few manufacturers some with teeth some without.  Daniel posted pictures of the Next Generation DF with a double idler at the front.  It appears that he modified two Alligt idlers, one with teeth and one without to make this double idler.

Twin front idler in DF Next Generation prototype