Day 12: Battle Mountain NV

Stumbled bleary-eyed and craving Brown Drink into the motel reception.  It is raining and, moreover, has been doing so with varying degrees of enthusiasm all night.  Aerovelo's Cam Robertson pokes his laptop and concludes that things are unlikely to improve in the short term.  Al Krause sticks his head out of the door, sniffs the air and calls off the morning runs.  The early birds return to their rooms, that they might wake their team-mates to tell them that they can go back to sleep again.  Sun's out now...

Updates to follow as and when.  Also Erika's name was spelled incorrectly.  This has been corrected and the offender incinerated in a dumpster behind the Wol Club.

Edit #1: I've just fiddled with something under the bonnet and it all looks a bit different.  Please let me know if the gibberish has turned into illegible gibberish.

Edit #2: I have been golfing the BBC's webby SCIENCE this morning in a vain attempt to hose teh Stupidz that is Fox "News" out of my brain.  I see that Jeremy Corbyn is getting grief for not singing the National Anthem.  He's an atheist, and a republican.  Why would he raise his voice to implore an invisible sky pixie to come to the aid of an hereditary monarch?  Disrespectin' tha pilots who flew in the Battle of Britain, you¹ say?  Which ones?  The Czechs?  The Free French²?  The Poles?  Better to stand in silence than to gurn at the cameras like some members of the Lizard Alliance.

Edit #3: Jonathan tells me that those who had not yet done a qualifying run went out later in the morning once the sun came out.  Data will be Forthcoming.

Edit #4: Velox V has finally run successfully with both Lieske and Robert getting down the short course this morning.  Meanwhile, here is a picture of a wol:

Wol.  USAnia.  Wednesday.

Edit #5: Just back from dinner/debrief/evening runs.  It was none too warm but the wind was much less beastly than expected.  "It's totally random" said a bewildered Cam Robertson on seeing the wind speeds at timing.  Yes.  Yes, it is.  Todd Reichert had believed the forecast and opted not to run tonight; he may well be kicking himself over that.

Chris lives!!1!

The teams had pressed the Organisation to try to run as late as possible as the winds always gets less the closer you get to sunset, yes?  Not tonight it didn't; we ran three bikes in the first heat and four in the second and only Tom Amick in Beagle had a non-legal wind.  None of the four machines in heat three had a legal one.  Plus it was almost dark by the time everyone was through, which made life interesting for the catchers and the riders unfortunate enough to be using old-skool transparent window technology - the camera bikes fare much better in low light conditions.  And PulsaR is a dark silver colour, so blends in very nicely with the road.

Andrea Gallo listens to Verdi.  Possibly.  Or stripped-down Italian speedcore.

The BRITONS had a frustrating evening as both Dave Collins and Ken Buckley had problems.  The chain was skipping during Dave's run, keeping him down to 60.57 mph while Ken had some kind of camera issues.  He trundled through at 31.64 and was nearly caught by Lieske Yntema in Velox V.  Fortunately both teams have a plentiful supply of PSOs so neither rider was obliged to ride back to town in the dark.  Top speed of the evening was Jan-Marcel's 75.31, so the Official Team Cygnus will be taking the morning off.  The Provisional Wing³ will be out in the desert doing Other Stuffs.

The Scousers run through their well-practiced launch routine before sending Dave on his way

I think I am going to have to reintroduce the downsquishing of photo sizes prior to uploading them to Flickr as the Super 8's pipe is not fat enough to cope.  If you would like to see a picture in its full hi-res glory you will have to let me know by comment, e-mail, carrier pigeon  ect. ect. as I would like to have a nice cup of tea and go to bed instead of thumb-twiddling waiting for the cones to be removed from the Information Superhighway.

1. Where "you" = the Murdoch press, the Daily Heil⁴ and the Hitler Channel.
2. Remind me again of the French stand on hereditary monarchs?
3. Me.
4. Remind me again of the Forgers' Gazette's stand on fascism?