Speeds in RED indicate a new world record 200 meter speed!

Wind speed rules: 
IHPVA rules state 1.66 m/s max wind speed in any direction. 
.deciMach rules state 1.66 m/s is illegal if the direction exceeds 85 degrees left or right following wind. Headwinds are OK.

WHPSC2002 in Retrospect

After recovering from the effects of the 30 hour drive home from Las Vegas and Interbike, (the USA is a HUGE country), I'm able to offer the following remembrances of the Battle Mountain trip. The people of Battle Mountain Nevada were very friendly and willing to go out of their way to help us out. Heck, we closed the main North-South highway in the state of Nevada for a half hour every evening for a week, and they were still nice to us. Usually when we race, the locals put up with us, but are not overtly friendly... 

There were a bunch of records broken this year. Sam broke last years record, and now the fastest human powered speed on earth stands at 81.00 MPH. Andrea broke the women's record, and now the women's is 64.74 MPH. Also Tanya is now the fastest Jr. Woman at 52.295 MPH, Mackie is the fastest Jr. man at 60.75 MPH and the Bearacuda (whom I refer to as Ursacuda for obvious reasons) team of Andy and Lance broke the tandem record at 68.05 MPH.

I went to Battle Mountain thinking that I would be doing well if I went 50 MPH, as I had never done more that 42 MPH in a 200 meter sprint before. Now I wish I had brought gears for 62 MPH, as I went 58 MPH in my fastest sprint and was cranking at at least 130 RPM, I just couldn't spin any faster! If I had a 75 tooth chainring I am confident that I could have gone 60+ MPH. That's amazing to me! 

All of the fastest racers had "cue sheets" to remind them what speeds they should be traveling at what mile marker. From my perspective, I just cranked it up to 40 something, which took about a mile, then went through several iterations of gradually building up speed and resting, until the 1.5 mile marker when I spun it up to the highest RPM I could manage and held it there through the traps. The faster riders had to accelerate the whole way.

Event organizer Garrie Hill did a great job of keeping the events moving and organizing the various volunteers, and apart from launching mishaps, the events moved along like clockwork. When you can only close the road for two 15 minute periods per day that is very important. He and Paul Gracy worked together to provide separate rider and wind speed measurements to ensure the runs were IHPVA compliant. 

There is plenty of hotel space in BM, this event could grow quite large and we would not fill all the hotels. The restraunts would certainly be overwhelmed... We ate at the Mexican restaurant way too many times, because the only other choices were "family" restaurant, smoke filled casino/restaurant, or the ubiquitous McDonalds.

Why all the crashes this year? Two reasons. The first reason was that weather was extremely unusual for this time of year in Northern Nevada. It was cold and wet, when it is normally warm and dry. We raced one day when the road was slickened by a rain just before the races, and several riders went down in one section of the road where later NDOT discovered there had been a diesel spill. Two of the bikes that went down, the White Hawk bikes, were running special racing tires which were notoriously slippery in wet conditions. I noticed my front tire sliding around while racing in the wet too, and moved from the smooth tire compacted line, which appeared drier than the center area between the tire tracks, to the center area where the road was rougher and did not feel the tire squirming any more, but I wasn't pushing it very hard either. The second reason for crashes was high speed instability in the Mango. The Mango was designed for the hour record, and because of that it was made tiny in every dimension, including the wheelbase. The short wheelbase in combination with a front geometry with almost no trail caused the Mango to become unstable at speeds above 60MPH. Rob English did an excellent job of keeping it stable to 70MPH, and it wasn't until he gave it the 100% sprint at the timing traps that the bike started wobbling, went astable, and crashed. All the rest of these bikes, with longer wheelbases and trail designed for high speeds, handled nicely at high speeds. One of the reasons that we race at dusk is to insure that there are no winds to cause a high speed HPV to be blown off the road. 

Why were the speeds generally lower this year? Because the temperatures were lower. The temperatures were about 15 degrees lower than last year, which increased the air density enough to cause the lower speeds. Sam went a bit faster this year because the Varna Diablo II was cut down by about 1/2" in width, and had the canopy significantly narrowed. 

Interbike was cool, and huge. There were boat loads of BMX and mountain bikes, as well as a lot of scooters and electric bikes. There were 8 or 10 recumbent manufacturers represented, as well as lots of interesting parts, but nothing really new or groundbreaking. There were at least 5 different manufacturers of compact long wheelbase bikes in the BikeE mold. 

Plans are to hold another WHPSC next year at about the same time, and using what we have learned this year, it should be another exciting event. NDOT bent over backwards to work with us, and one evening we were able to launch 12 bikes, in two 6 bike groups to handle everyone who had qualified to make the runs. Since nobody went 82MPH this year, Garrie Hill will once again be running the WHPSC event as a .decimach race in 2003. Think you can build a bike to go that fast? It may be worth $25,000 to you to build and race it next year! 

-Warren Beauchamp