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Report is compound of e-meails, sent to friends:
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We arrived last night at 1 AM. Dave's car ran good, I believe it will be very useful for carrying stuff around for the race. We got a room. It's raining slightly, but will be better weather for the rest of the week.
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Monday
Today I did a test ride for the road surface. Very little power for 65 mph in my bike. At 2 miles to go I noticed an aggressive bump (Sam too). I negotiate that NDOT change metal posts from that point all the way to 1 mile to go with plastic ones, for safety. Then I would risk more. The parachute is installed. It doesn't bother me at all.
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Tuesday
I did what I wanted today. I tested bike at a higher speed on a safe way. The metal posts are changed with plastic ones from a good 2 miles to go all the way to the finish. I marked the spot that has the worse bump with help of Sam. It looked the left lane was better there. So I moved to the left lane there and came back to the right at 2 miles to go. I apparently avoided of that bad spot. (Sam didn't change the lane, so he could confirm that we marked the spot right.) Bike accelerated good again. The tires must be very fast. I was careful and after I reached 113 km/h at 1.5 miles to go, I didn't accelerate much more. Anyway in the timing area I felt a slight resonance, caused by my short finish and a small bump, that warned me I should better stop pedaling. My measured speed was something above 71 mph. I think bike is much more stable than the last year, I know how to make it even more stable. I'll try tomorrow with that improvement. If I pushed hard it would go about 80 mph I guess, or at least 77.
PS: Rob Hitchcock had problems at the spot that I marked with a flag. His main monitor disfunctioned so he stopped somehow with a reserve one.
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Wednesday
I reached today's goal again. Unfortunately the new configuration of the bike + badly adjusted launcher caused two failed starts, but I succeeded on the third time. Bike was slower than yesterday, but I am done with instability. This was the most smooth ride in my life. I pedaled harder at the last section of the run. I went faster than yesterday, although there were scratches on one side from two failed launchings and the fairing halves had a small gap between them. IT IS A NEW EUROPEAN RECORD HERE: 120,64 km/h = 74,96 mph! I'm going to ride harder tomorrow. I hope I will be able to publish one video on my web-site tonight ( www.eivie.com).
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Thursday
It was cold and very windy yesterday here. But I reached a part of the goal anyway. I had the fastest speed from all other competitor's runs. Sam did it carefully with only 60 mph, I went 69,69 mph. It was press there, they recorded mostly Sam, our launching and catching... I am proud, because my bike handles so well in windy conditions. The center of gravity is very in front of the bike. That helps too. Too bad, tomorrow might rain here and in Saturday the temperatures will stay pretty low. You can notice it easily when it is cold. The bike stops accelerating at lower speed because of the thicker air. So I don't believe I will go faster than my own best in the rest of the race.
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Friday
We had drag races on Friday morning. I was the fourth although my left shoe unclipped twice during acceleration. So I did 400 m with my street recumbent in about 33 seconds. In the evening we didn't ride on the SR305 because of the snow. We rather went to the hot spring 100 miles to the south. You can take a bath for free in the wild desert nature. I slept really well last night. Today in the morning we had 1h criterium race on the parking lot. I won! I did 111 laps, with quite good advantage. Sam didn't run, I guess because he has no street recumbent with him, only a road bike. It was very cold (about 4 degrees Celsium) so I couldn't use my full power. I am glad to Larry Lem, who lent me warmer gloves. Today in the evening will be lower temperatures, but not too windy for the fast run on SR305. The last chance on that road this year, maybe even for ever, as they might repave the road and make it slower.
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I forgot to tell you, that I expected to have at lest two tries on the drag races, but we were short in time and they didn't give me a chance to repeat it. Otherwise I would tape my shoes to the pedals. Besides I wanted to test my Eivie II on 400 meters with standing start too.
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Saturday
I'm back in California and I'll explain better what happened on Saturday. After 1-h criterium I felt sleepy and it was hard for me to recover energy in short time before evening run. It was cold, so I didn't expect any remarkable run. We had problems with pumping, my assistant reminded me very late that we should pump the tires. In short time we couldn't pump up the front tire more than for 8 bars (I bought a new pump-pipe-adapter, but somehow it didn't work good on that day). Because I didn't feel quite focused on the run, I didn't pedal very much. My heart rate in sprint even slowed down, that was probably caused with a little fear too. In first place I wanted to end the race with no crashes at all and with still good front tire, which is very hard to get for me. Speed was 115 km/h, the speed curve was not steep at the finish of the run. I attach three speed curves: Tuesday's, my own best on Wednesday and Saturday's one.
Conclusion:
This year was a lot of talking about the BM road - is it still suitable for fast runs or is it too bumpy. So I risked a lot to attend the race again. That's why I prepared my bike with less effort than usually. The bike was the heaviest so far - 30 kg, the fairing was not perfectly smooth. (Only the top fairing weighted 8 kg.) If I counted on this year's BM event, I would make a bigger chainring with 120 teeth instead of 108. That would save my power in second halve of run up. It looks like I don't feel good to go more than 113 km/h if I want to save my power for the sprint. At that speed I have to turn pedals at 98 RPM. I wished to turn them at 85-90 RPM at the same "aerobic" speed. On Tuesday this year I already reached that speed in 5,9 km measured from start and that wasn't big effort for me. The RPMs now are simply too high for optimum run. It is easier to control bike at lower RPMs. Besides Sam's bike Diablo 3 is now the lightest ever, with only 21 kg. My bike used to be like that before I put all the filler, resin and paint on it to smooth it back and make it structural after crashes. I added some weight for stability reasons too (front fork), with some more technical support I could make it lighter. My fourth gear is still not very efficient because I can't afford to make a better rear wheel with custom cassette hub and special positioned sprockets. So angle of the chain becomes big in the fourth - last gear. If I had better bike this year and at least one more day with nice weather, I could go around 127 km/h (118 aerobic + 9 anaerobic km/h), and become second fastest in the World for instance. Well, If I made perfect run in meaning of power distribution. I add one more graph with heart rate only on my very good 1-hour training. It is obviously, that I could pedal stronger. With lighter and smoother bike probably close to the world record, which is 130,4 km/h. But main goals were reached: European record, no crashes, recorded measurements, very stable bike. I don't regret I was there at all.
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Although my bike was heavier than Sam's for about 9 kg, they measured I did the whole 5 miles run up in shorter time than him. They measured the same thing last year. So I probably accelerate better because of the better shape of the bike (or less likely because of better power/weight ratio in aerobic part)
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I noticed recently that on Saturday my highest gear was the third one, with 12 teeth sprocket. So I had to pedal with 109 RPM to go 115 km/h. By the way, on Wednesday I pedaled with 105 RPM to go 120.64 km/h, fourth gear, 11 teeth.
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