Adventures of Greg - Human Powered Vehicle 24 Hour Record

84.NEW SITE FEED!

Tue, 28 Feb 2006 08:59:43 -0700

The site feed for adventuresofgreg is changing to:http://www.adventuresofgreg.com/HPB/hpv.xml

83.WHY?? Feb 14, 07

Tue, 14 Feb 2006 08:59:43 -0700

February 14, 2007

WHY?

I was doing a presentation for a grade four class today at Elbow Valley Elementary School. I was having a hard time believing in what I was telling the kids. To be honest with you, I felt like a total fake. What the hell am I doing here, and what I am trying to impress upon these kids when I don't really know the first thing about going across a ocean in a 30 inch wide boat. I felt like a fool.

Andrew Mcauley is still missing and I am really bummed out. There is a photo in a New Zealand paper of his wife sitting by the side of his empty kayak weeping.

It brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it. There is also a photo of Andrew with his 3 year old son Finlay. He wanted to know how daddy was going to get home if he fell out of his kayak. This whole thing with Andew is weighing very heavy on me - it adds a ton of perspective to how I view this Pedaltheocean expedition.

During our question and answer session, one of the kids asked me why I do these things - why I built a human powered vehicle and set a 24 hour distance record, and why I am willing to face the risks to break the 43 day Atlantic crossing record in a tiny human powered boat.

He stumped me.

I couldn't answer his question. I knew the answer of course, but that answer had no words - none of my immediate thoughts about the simple and quite obvious question "why" would translate to English. I just stood there for a moment, smiled and said 'well, there is an old saying and it is, if you have to ask the question, then you wouldn't understand the answer". The boy smiled and immediately understood.

Suddenly, I felt a bit less like a fool.

Obviously, the answer to "why" isn't simple. If early adventurers weren't willing to explore what lay across the ocean, we wouldn't be living here in North America and the earth would still be flat. We need adventurers - in some way, they advance the human race. Some could argue that a crossing of the Tasman sea isn't doing anything to further our greater cause, but I am certain that Christopher Columbus was using technology and techniques that were developed by others who had less ambitious goals. Or perhaps I should say, had equally ambitious goals, but relative to a different time.

And then, there are the personal reasons. To push our boundaries and explore what we are made of, to test and expand our personal limits, and to motivate and inspire others to do the same. When you think you can accomplish something difficult, your confidence develops from what others before you have achieved. We feed on inspiration from our brothers and sisters in the human family. I believe it is our duty to make deposits to the inspiration bank when, where and however we can.

After the presentation, Matt filmed some kids chanting "Human Power Rocks!!!" to the video camera. I realized that if you want to make a difference in the world - you have to get people to listen to you. Breaking world records and ocean crossing expeditions give you a stage. No kid wants to be lectured about the obesity epidemic and physical inactivity from some grownup with a science degree. The speaker has to be someone they respect with a message they might be able to relate to. I'm still working on the message delivery, but I think it's slowly getting better and my warning about the health problems caused by physical inactivity just might be pushing through - who knows.

When I asked ocean rower and adventurer Leven Brown how he was dealing with Andrews death he counseled "I guess that's just the price we pay for living a life less normal."

I'm feeling a little better. Have a fantastic week and if you get the chance, don't forget to make a deposit to the bank of inspiration.

Cheers,

Greg Kolodziejzyk

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82.Andrew McAuley is missing Feb 10, 07

Fri, 10 Feb 2006 08:59:43 -0700

February 10, 2007

Andrew McAuley is missing

This is horrible news. I am deeply concerned, but still hopeful that Andrew will be found.

From the Sunday Herald Sun, Victoria, Australia:

"Search continues for McAuley
February 11, 2007 08:01am

NEW Zealand rescuers will resume their search this morning for missing Australian kayaker Andrew McAuley.

The adventurer's upturned kayak was spotted by a New Zealand Air Force plane late yesterday afternoon in rough seas about 75 km off Milford Sound in the south island.

There was no sign of Mr McAuley.

His emergency locator beacon was still in the kayak but a life jacket and immersion suit were missing, sparking hopes that he may still be found alive.

Mr McAuley had been expected to arrive in Milford Sound today after leaving Tasmania on January 11 in a bid to become the first person to paddle across the Tasman in a kayak.

Concerns about his safety emerged after New Zealand maritime authorities picked up a garbled distress message on Friday night."

Adrew McAuley set out on January 11, 2007 to become the first person in history to kayak across the Tasman sea from Australia to New Zealand. Andrew modified his kayak by adding a fiberglass dome he called "casper" that fastens over the opening in the kayak so he can sleep. He capsized many times during his expedition, and the canopy cover seemed to do it's job well, keeping the sea water out and popping him up after every capsize.

images from Andrew McAuley.com

Andrew was scheduled to finish his 1600 kilometer journey from Tasmania today. The latest news is that searchers are optimistic that Andrew will be found, as his life jacket and immersion suit were not found in the kayak. Authorities say that people have survived long periods in the ocean, such as Robert Hewitt, who was found alive 72 hours after going into the water last year. The visibility is good and the search involves a plane and helicopter.

Latest news on the search for Andrew: http://www.kayakquixotica.com/blog.html

Andrew's Tasman Solo Expedition blog: http://www.andrewmcauley.com/

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81.Calgary Science School kids say thanks Feb 4, 07

Sat, 4 Feb 2006 08:59:43 -0700

The Kids from the Calgary Science School sent me a package of cards they drew to thank my for the presentation. They all drew pictures of Critical Power, so I thought I would scan them in and post them here for you to enjoy! That just made my day!!!!! Thanks Calgary Science School.

80.The 24 hour Human Powered Boat Distance Record Within's deck is glassed Feb 3, 07

Fri, 3 Feb 2006 08:59:43 -0700

The 24 hour Human Powered Boat Distance Record
Within's deck is glassed

Check out this NIFTY Within boat speed calculator that Rick Willoughby whipped up for me:

You can change the cadence RPM, gearing for the prop, and drive efficiency and it will output an estimated speed and power requirement in watts. This is all based on the hull shape of Within's Nimbus Hyak hull shape, weight and an optimized prop.

Click here to download The Excel file is here

The 24 hour HPB record

The reason we are starting to run some estimates for speed and power for Within is because I would like to plan to make an attempt at the 24 hour human powered boat distance record this summer. The record stands at 168 km and was set by John Howard in his HPB called Pedalos. Some of you might recognize the name John Howard. He won Ironman Hawaii a way, WAY back in 1981. He's also a 3 time member of the Olympic cycling team, and owner of the 24 hour cycling drafting distance record of 539 miles.

I know from the 24 hour HPV record, that I can maintain an average output of 150 watts at 80 rpm for 24 hours, and with breaks and coasting, the overall average ends up at between 100 to 110 watts. My 100 watt speed in Within should be around 9 kph, so doing the math results in 216 km for 24 hours which is comfortably over the current record.

I would really love to take a shot at the record this summer - perhaps right here in Calgary, since all we need is a large, flat, calm body of water and a nice, sunny day. It will be a great opportunity to generate some PR for the Pedal The Ocean Expedition, and for me to get a better feel for cranking out the watts in Within (the power from Within!).

Within's deck is finished!

On Tuesday Ben, Matt and Greg Nuspel joined me in the shop to do the wet layup for the inside of the deck. It went way faster than I expected - we put down and wetted out a layer of Kevlar and the fiberglass woven roving. Then a layer of release film and blanket and it all went into my gigantic plastic bag. We used my vacuum cleaner to hog out the air to get it going, then two venturi's connected to my air compressor to pull the vacuum. The vacuum pressure wasn't very high, but high enough to press the wetted fabric tightly down to the decks edges.

I was very happy with the result - we were able to bend that heavy woven roving fiberglass fabric around a very tight edge and it came out nice and square.

I could not weigh it because I can't see the scale read-out under the large shape, but it feels pretty heavy. Definitely heavier than the Nimbus Hyak kayak hull that the deck will be bonded to. This will create a top-heavy boat, but we know that. The plan is and always has been to either add a ballast keel to Within, or to place a heavy plate between the seat rails on the floor of the deck. Well, that's what the prototype boat is for - to learn through trial and error in real, not simulated conditions.

Now, since I have Pat at RaceRecon to help me with the logistics of this project, hopefully I will be able to make some better progress in the shop with boat building. I think the next item on the agenda will be laying down a thick layer of fiberglass to reinforce the Hyak hull floor, then I want to get on the drive leg. Once the drive leg is completed, I want to build the drive leg bay in the hull, the seat, then the bulk heads. Then I'll join the hull to the deck and cut out the canopy.

Hopefully, Within will be ready for water testing in late April.

79.The new "Pedal The Ocean" video! Feb 2, 07

Thu, 2 Feb 2006 08:59:43 -0700

The new "Pedal The Ocean" video!

Dare I say that this video is now finished! After a million revisions and weeks or revising, creating 3D animations, filming, sound editing, etc, etc, etc. I think this is the last and final revision.

Luke at AmazingVoice.com kindly offered to sponsor the expedition by donating some of their top-notch voice talent. What a difference that makes!!!! It's amazing - really. I had their voice talent record voice-overs for all of my title screens that are too difficult to read on the YouTube and Google videos.

I also changed the logo animation to PedalTheOcean. Check out what a huge difference the voice talent makes:

..

Trimble Recon

I've talked a bit before about one of my equipment sponsors Trimble who make the amazing Recon PDA. You really need to watch this video of the running Recon PDA being tossed down the stairs of a stadium: Recon PDA rugged!

Trimble has started a BLOG called OUTDOOR RUGGED and recently featured yours truly.

78.New expedition name, logo and web site! Expedition management company RaceRecon is on-board Feb 1, 07

Wed, 1 Feb 2006 08:59:43 -0700

New expedition name, logo and web site!
Expedition management company RaceRecon is on-board

Introducing "Pedal The Ocean"
The Human Powered Trans Atlantic Speed Record Expedition

A big update today with lots of important news. First and foremost, I am signed a deal with Pat Brothers from RaceRecon, an expedition management company based in Sydney Australia, and the first order of business was a dedicated web site for the expedition, new name and logo.

So I got back to the drawing board and came up with PedalTheOcean, a spiffy logo and registered the domain name www.pedaltheocean.com which should be up in a week or so.

RaceRecon will be providing expedition support and expertise. I choose RaceRecon because they have some experience with expeditions of this type (see Crossing The Ditch.com , around Australia paddle expedition , circumnavigating Peurtico by kayak and one more very large expedition around Greenland which has not been announced yet), but mostly because Pat is a guy I can really relate to. He is a sub 10 hour Ironman triathlete and is a total geek like me. He digs watts and spreadsheets and aerodynamics and is a pretty decent web designer. He also 'gets' it when it comes to what we need to do to provide value to a sponsor and how adventure expeditions can be run like a business.

77.New expedition name and logos Jan 29, 07

Sun, 29 Jan 2006 08:59:43 -0700

Here are some concepts for a new expedition name and logo. All of these are available as .com domain names. The logos get the message across instantly - the globe with the red arrow shows the route across the Atlantic, the image of the boat "Within" is interesting and intriguing and the logo type is rough and extreme looking. The only thing that is missing in the logo graphic is any indication that the expedition is human powered - or pedal powered. This we could accomplish with the name. Finally, the sub text graphic "The Human Powered Trans Atlantic Record Attempt Expedition" leaves no doubt what this expedition is about.

As far as a name goes, I probably prefer 'PedalTheOcean.com" and "OceanCycling.com" because along with the image of the globe and the boat "Within", it is pretty dam self explanatory. "RecordCrossing".com" doesn't indicate that it is human powered, but does put the focus on the "speed record" aspect of the expedition which I like.

Note: The logo text graphic "THE HUMAN POWERED TRANS ATLANTIC RECORD ATTEMPT"
would be placed under all of these logo options. Also, ".com" could be added to all of the options.
(Click to enlarge)

76.Check out the new video! Jan 28, 07

Sun, 28 Jan 2007 09:00:35 -0700

I've been working on a new promotional video that will become part of a sponsor package. It's important, so I have been spending a lot of time working on it. I quickly outgrew Imovie HD and upgraded to Final Cut Express - wow, what an editing package! I am very impressed. You would not believe how long this 8 minute clip took to produce!

The YouTube version below doesn't do it justice because you can't read most of the small titles - much of it was shot in 1080i High Definition and it looks pretty spectacular on the big 1080i screen here. Much less so in Google Video or Youtube. It originally featured some really cool music from my collection, but I want to stay legal, so I substituted a Creative Commons tune that I liked - "What Planet Are We On" by Five Star Fall, as well as a cool number from my Brothers Band - The Plaid Tongued Devils "Miserlou".

...............................

A giant boat condom

I have been falling behind with the boat construction. Way too busy in the office trying to get this whole expedition mapped out - A budget, a schedule, an outline for a sponsorship drive, and this video. On top of that, training for Ironman Arizona is ramping up and I'm putting in about 3 hours a day on the bike, in the pool or on the track. Things are looking really good though - my fitness is starting to improve, I am making some headway with the expedition planning and we are slowing making progress on the boat.

I have a bit of an announcement to make soon regarding the direction and scope of this expedition. I have been negotiating with an expedition management team out of Australia that could take this whole idea to another level. I'll keep you informed.

Last Tuesday the team was over and we ended up goofing off and talking for most of the day. However, we did accomplish one thing and that was to build and test a giant vacuum bag for Within's next inside layer composite layup.

I have been really concerned about glassing the inside layer because all of the tests I have conducted to date resulted in disappointment. The edges of the wetted out cloth peel up and I wanted to wrap the fiberglass and Kevlar right around the edge of the deck. I discovered that the only way to get a nice, tight layup around that edge was to vacuum bag the entire deck. So, we built a giant plastic bag with Gorilla Tape, and inserted the boat deck into it, sealed up the end and pulled a vacuum. It worked great! We don't have much vacuum pressure, but the plastic sucked down to the form enough to press fiberglass and Kevlar fabric against the deck walls while the epoxy cures.

The plan for this Tuesday is to actually do the wet layup - a big day. Two layers of composite, tons of epoxy, wrap the giant boat condom over it all and vacuum all the air out. Then I need to get moving on the drive unit - then the bulkheads and drive bay and seat.

75.School presentation Jan 19, 07

Fri, 19 Jan 2007 09:01:05 -0700

School presentation and the Childhood Obesity Foundation

Presentation for the grade 5 class at the Calgary Science School

I was invited to speak at my Nephew Nicks school on Thursday - What a blast that was! I had a great time. It was whacky hair day which is why some of the kids in the photos look a bit strange. Didn't want you to think that was the current style in Calgary or anything...

I showed Critical Power and a short introduction video I have been working on which touches a bit on the 24 hour HPV record with Critical Power, my Ironman triathlon success and the new Trans Atlantic Expedition.

After the 10 minute video I talked about some of the science behind Critical power streamliner - like aerodynamics and gearing, etc. The kids really thought that was cool.

I finished my talk with a short discussion about the obesity epidemic. I have established a relationship with the Childhood Obesity Foundation, a registered charity whose mandate is to identify, evaluate and promote best practices to avoid childhood obesity.

The focus of my health warning is that we all need to start using our human power more to avoid the health problems that stem from a sedentary lifestyle. My message to the kids is that we are living in a sort of unnatural environment where we spend most of the day sitting in a chair, working, watching TV, in front of the computer or playing video games.

Since homo sapiens first walked the planet 100,000 years ago, our natural environment probably consisted of walking the distance of a marathon every day. Our environment has undergone a dramatic change over only the last 100 years or so (probably less), and evolution can't keep pace with this drastic change in lifestyle. As a result, we're getting fat and suffering from a host of diseases associated with our sedentary ways.

To put the last 100 years compared to 100,000 years of adapting to our natural environment into perspective, I showed the kids a roll of toilet paper. "If I unrolled this entire roll of paper down the longest hallway in the school, it would be a time line that would represent 100,000 years. Now, the last 100 years would be about 1/2 of one single square of paper at the end of the roll." In truth, we have been evolving for about 3 million years. 100 years of drastic change over 3 million years of evolution would be a single, tiny square compared to 40 entire rolls of toilet paper! How on earth can our bodies adapt in only one square!

Later, the kids sent me a list of questions. I thought the questions were good, so I reprinted them here with my answers:

1. Why are you doing this?

I like to experience nature in the natural way (through physical
effort). I want to live a long, healthy and happy life, and know that
to do this, I must stay active! What better way than to devote my life
to active challenges. To really 'feel' life is to grow, and personal
growth requires continually challenging myself by venturing outside of
my comfort zone. I live to inspire and motivate others. I would like
to convince the world that they can accomplish anything they put their
minds to.

2. Are you going to do any other feats?

Always!

3. How often do you race?

This year I will do 3 Ironman races and a marathon and a half-marathon
(maybe two). You can't really do any more than 2 or 3 Ironmans a year
- way too much

4. How long have you been planning to paddle across the Atlantic?

You mean "PEDDLE". Since I got back from setting the 24 hour record in
July of 2006 (not long). When I got home after setting the record I
was in the enviable position of asking myself "OK, now what next?" I
made a list of all the adventures I have ever thought about doing and
picked the Atlantic crossing.

5. How hard was it to make your bike?

VERY hard. Harder than you would think. When I started, I didn't even
own a single tool! I bought a TIG welder after about 20 minutes of
instruction from the salesman and learnt it all on my own by trial and
error and asking TONS of questions! I got a LOT of help. That is one
reason why I always offer advice to others (pay back and pay forward)

6. What made you want to do this?

I used to follow the stories of a friend of mine who rowed half way
around the world! His stories about the sea were mesmerizing for me
and I always thought that was something different that I would like to
do someday.

7. How long did it take you to build the bike?

About 2 years with plenty of learning along the way

8. Will you be doing any more record breaking?

I would like to take a crack at the human powered hour record someday
possibly. That's a tough one because I am getting older (I'll be 46
years old in March) and young guys have a definite physical advantage
when it comes to short distance speed (but not as much of an advantage
for long distance endurance)

9. How did you feel inside the bike?

Cramped! But it was pretty cool to be zooming around the track in that
space capsule doing 60

10. Did you have any sponsors?

No sponsors for the 24 hour record

11. Did you build more than one car/bike?

Yes, I built a velomobile to start with so I could learn more about
how to build bikes like this. Pictures of the "Rocket" velomobile are
here:

http://www.adventuresofgreg.com/RocketMain.html

12. What are you going to do after you cross the Atlantic Ocean?

Eat lots! And enjoy the things that we all take for granted: A warm,
dry bed to sleep in, fresh fruit, a roof over our heads, green grass,
trees and most of all I get to re-enjoy my family and friends!

13. What was it like to be in the Ironman Triathlon in Hawaii?

Pretty hard core! And humbling! The best in the world go there. I had
a 70 year old man pass me on the run. In the swim I was passed by a
BLIND person, then a one-legged man!!!!

14. Are you nervous about crossing the ocean?

oh ya!!

15. What was the hardest part of the bike invention and record breaking?

Well, probably designing and building a bike capable of breaking the
record. There was plenty of trial and error and many very frustrating
moments! But, you learn how to persevere and finish what you start!
I'm glad I did because there were many, many times I wanted to give
up.

16. How much will your boat cost?

I think the whole expedition might cost between $100,000 t0 $200,000

17. Do you consider the dangers of crossing the oceans?

Yes. I did an assessment:
http://www.adventuresofgreg.com/HPB/09-27-06.html and
http://www.adventuresofgreg.com/HPB/09-29-06.html

As I said in my video: sitting on the couch and watching TV or playing
video games eating junk food all the time is WAY, WAY, WAY more
dangerous!!!!

18. Do you get paid for breaking records?

Nope - I wish!

19. What do you do to train?

Ride my bike, ride my bike, ride my bike, ride my bike. Then I ride my bike.

20. What is the top speed of the boat?

We don't know yet, but we hope that it's cruising speed will be about 9 kph.

21. Will Critical Power be used again? For what?

If I need to defend my record, I may take another shot at the 24 hour
record with Critical Power.

22. Once you are done the boat, what will you do?

Test it. I plan on taking the next couple of summers and going to the
ocean off Vancouver and Victoria to learn more about what it is like
to be on the ocean for extended periods of time. I also need to learn
more about how my boat Within will handle rough ocean conditions. This
knowledge will then be used to build a brand new boat that will be
much stronger and may be built by a professional boat builder.

23. Are you going to try anything out of the boat?

Sorry - I don't understand the question??

24. How do you get enough money to make your bike and your boat?

Well, I worked very hard for many, many years at a couple of
businesses that I started when I was young. I was lucky to be able to
sell one to a very big software company called Adobe.

25. Do you do anything else for a living?

nope

26. How do you feel about your upcoming journey?

Kind of scared

27. How do you go to the bathroom in Critical Power?

I have a bathroom right on-board! A flexible tube allows 'waste' to run into a collection bag which gets pumped out at a pit stop.

28. What do you like most about completing so many projects?

You know - it really isn't at all about the destination, but oh, so
much about the journey! Can you tell me what you think that means?

29. How did you feel about being very healthy compared to many other
kids that are not very healthy?

Wow - lots of questions! I want to help kids become healthy and more
importantly, to teach them that they have to start becoming more
active NOW, because it becomes habit forming at this young age. When
they get older is when the real problems start and it becomes very
hard to change bad habits.

30. What other adventures would you like to go on?

One of you nailed it yesterday: To build a human powered airplane!

31. Are you nervous to use the human powered boat across the ocean?

Yep!

32. Will you still beat more records after you go across the ocean?

I hope so!

33. Do you think you could get more world records?

I hope so!

34. Are you ever going to become a pro triathlete?

No - I'm way too old.

35. Are you planning to do other Ironmans?

Yes - I would like to continue to do them. I'm doing THREE more this
year alone and hope to qualify for Hawaii again. It's an addicting
sport!

36. Do you do any other sports rather than triathlon?

Marathons, 10 km races, 5 km races and half marathons.

37. What inspired you to design and build a bike and pedal for 24 hours?

This is really strange, but believe it or not, it was an article in
Popular Science Magazine that I read about 10 years ago. It inspired
me so much that I never forgot it.

This is a topic for another presentation: I believe that it is your
INSPIRATION that makes things come true for you. That Pop Sci article
inspired me and I was able to visualize myself winning a record
someday in a cool looking bike like the one I saw in the magazine. Not
only did that come true, but I also got into the magazine!!! And, I
never even called them. They contacted me out of the blue - they heard
about it off the news wire and initiated contact with me.

38. Do you have a trademark on your inventions?

No - probably no new technology worth protecting

39. Why do you make records and set challenges?

Like I said, we have to continue to challenge ourselves

40. Will you use your bike again and break your own record?

Yes, I would like to do that someday. I have VERY fond memories about
both record attempts

41. Will you build other things (besides the boat)?

Maybe an HPA (do you know what that stands for?)

42. Do you always think you can do it?

No, but I am not afraid of failing.

43. What will your boat be called?

"Within" because human power is the power from within

44. I wonder what you are going to do after traveling in the Atlantic Ocean?

sleep

45. What/who is the biggest inspiration you have or had?

Two fictional characters:

This is funny, but true:

1. Forest Gump because he wasn't afraid to try anything
2. Kramer from Seinfeld because everything he did, he did with ALL of
his heart and sole.

46. Where did your interest in obesity education stem from?

It is a serious problem and I feel like I can help make a difference
by inspiring others to become active.

74.Within Deck Progress Jan 12, 08

Fri, 12 Jan 2007 09:01:33 -0700

Within deck progress

The deck came off of the hull quite easily - we had lined the hull with plastic and some duct tape so that dripped epoxy wouldn't bond our deck down to the hull. The Nimbus Hyak kayak hull temporarily went into the garage to make room for the giant upside down deck.

We knocked down the stair step edges of the Styrofoam slats on the inside of the hull, then rough sanded the whole foam core to a relatively uniform thickness.

I had previously calculated all of the areas that would require hard points, and marked them off with a felt pen, then gouged out the Styrofoam in those areas.

Hard points are areas of the deck core that are filled in with a solid substance to prevent fasteners and other thru-hardware from crushing the foam core. They also add considerable strength to those areas. Hard points are the 4 points around the canopy where I want to add hinges/latches, an area in the rear where the rudder is mounted, the bow and stern tips for a no-crush zone, the bow and stern for mounting cleats, and areas where the bulk heads will be placed.

The illustration above shows the location of the hard points and the 4 bulkheads - 2 small bulkheads 24" back from both the bow and stern to seal off areas that will be filled with solid buoyancy (expanding foam), and two main bulk heads to seal off the sleeping compartment and the bow storage compartment.

Camera man Clamp (Matt) beside Within deck with hard point areas carved out and ready for micro

This stuff is a god send! Rather than spending an eternity mixing powered micro with epoxy resin, we purchased some pre-mixed fairing filler. It's just epoxy resin with micro-balloons already mixed in. It comes as a 2-part mix like Bondo and cures in a couple of hours. Great stuff!

Ben had the bright idea of testing the fairing compound first by filling in a typical 1/2" deep carved out Styrofoam hole to see if the exothermic heat created by the thick epoxy mix would melt the foam. It did as you can see. So, we ended up filling the hard point holes in layers to avoid dissolving any of the foam core.

The image above shows the bow tip filled with epoxy/micro

I pre-cut all of the 18 oz fiberglass Woven Roving and Kevlar for the inside layers. These layers will wrap around the edges and fully seal off the deck. I will eventually bond the entire deck to the kayak hull, and add another band of fiberglass to bridge the seem on both the inside and outside. The area where the top and bottom (hull and deck) join should be pretty strong!

The plan for laying down the inside composite plies is to fully wet-out the deck edges and foam core with epoxy and wait for 3 hours until 'green' stage - this is where the epoxy has cured to the tacky stage. Then I will lay on my Kelvar. The tacky epoxy will hold the kevlar tightly around the edges of the deck. Then I fully wet-out the kevlar and wait another 3 hours for it to get tacky, then I'll lay down my final 18 oz fiberglass layer.

Kevlar pre-cut and ready to go.

Here are some illustrations of the rudder. The rudder is a NACA 0020 airfoil 24" long x 4" wide. A 5/8" stainless steel tube is bonded into the rudder and runs up through the hull AND deck though a stainless steel housing tube. This housing tube is screwed and glues and glassed right into both the deck and the hull. The is a small bulkhead (not shown) behind the tube to enclose the solid buoyancy area. The tube is also glued and glassed to this bulkhead.

Control cables will be mounted to a swing arm clamped to the top of the rudder tube from ABOVE the deck (not shown). The cables will run through holes in the top deck to inside Within and run into the cockpit area.

I have a LOT to do, and I think I had better get moving on this. It's going slowly because I have only really been devoting one day a week to the fabrication. I've been busier training for Ironman Arizona which is in April - that takes up a few hours every day. Also I have been really busy working on a promotional video for the expedition designed to find some sponsors - along with a sponsorship package. That has been really great exercise for me, as it is forcing me to really think about the specifics of the expedition and what exactly I want to accomplish. Also I have started thinking about costs, other logistics and a rough schedule.

There is not enough time in the day! I've got to start getting serious about planning my time better.

Here is a rough schedule off the top of my head:

January - have sponsor package finished
February - start finding equipment and supplies sponsors, drive leg, canopy, cockpit
March - have sponsorship funding secured, Within construction complete
April - Ironman Arizona, Within pool testing, equipment installed
May - Within mini-expedition
June - TRAINING
July - TRAINING (second mini-expedition??)
August - TRAINING, Ironman Canada, equipment and supplies secured
September - TRAINING, 24 hour HPB record attempt
October - TRAINING, Ironman World Championships
November - TRAINING
December - Jan - Feb - Trans Atlantic record attempt?

I wonder if December of 2007 is too soon???..... Another year of development would be great, but I don't see the need to be sitting around. Might as well get the show on the road.

Cheers,
gk

73.How is your ride? Dec 31, 06

Sun, 31 Dec 2006 09:55:34 -0700

"'Life is not a journey to the grave with the
intention of arriving safely in a pretty
and well preserved body,
but rather to skid in broadside,
thoroughly used up,
totally worn out,
and loudly proclaiming,

"WOW! What a ride!"'

That's how I'd like to close 2006 - what a fantastic quote. That just says it all doesn't it? Thanks to Roz Savage for that.

And I feel like the way I lived in 2006 brought me one step closer to sliding in broadside. What a year it has been, and what a wild ride!

the Kolodziejzyk family

2006 started out with some difficulty - the winter months of January to April was spent making modifications to my human powered vehicle - Critical Power for a second attempt at the 24 hour human powered distance record that I had scheduled for some time in the summer. I had just returned from a November failed attempt in Alabama completely motivated to fix our problems and attack the record again.

The first item on the agenda was to repair the cracks in the fairing shell caused from my many crashes at the NCAT test track in Alabama. Those were patched with carbon and we added some ribs to prevent the shell from caving in again in case of another crash. Then I had it professionally painted sexy silver metallic with a new CP skull logo advertising that I meant business this time around!

Other mods included adding proper chain guides to prevent another chain derailment which derailed the last attempt, a new, smoother canopy bubble, and a quick-access food/hydration compartment.

The winter months were also spent training for Ironman Arizona. Getting ready for an Ironman in the middle of a Canadian winter is brutal! all my runs were circular loops around the track at the Talisman Center and all my rides were inside on the mag trainer. Needless to say, I was concerned about my lack of any serious distance on the bike as the April Ironman date approached. My longest ride was only 4 hours inside on the trainer. The plan, according to my coach Jason Yanota, was to seriously ramp up the intensity to increase my power. And that we did. My training started with a couple of months suffering through brutal Lactate threshold intervals, then got worse with 4 weeks of MAP intervals (maximum aerobic power - grueling sets of all-out maximum effort lasting a few minutes and repeating until vomit is imminent.

The work paid-off. Ironman Arizona turned out to be the race of my dreams. I missed 3rd place by 2 seconds and easily nabbed a qualifying slot for world championships in Hawaii finishing in 10 hours, 15 minutes. For the last 4 years, it has been a goal of mine to break into the top 5 in my division and qualify for Ironman World Championships in Kona, and I had finally done it - I was ecstatic!

After a post Ironman recovery holiday in Florida with my family, the next item on the agenda was a new training program for another crack at the 24 hour distance record. I would have to say, in looking back, that my fondest memories of the entire HPV distance record project - both attempts actually, were my ultra long training rides. These rides were the back bone of my training program - every week I alternated a super long training ride with a 100 miler fast time trial. The goal of the 100 miler time trials was to hammer as hard as possible and try to maintain 230+ watts for about 4.5 to 5 hours on the M5 lowracer. My course was typically a 50 mile out and back flat and fast section of highway south of Calgary. Those days were tough, but rewarding.

The main focus of my training was the ultra rides. I started out at 8 hours and upped the duration by 2 hours every 2 weeks. These rides were unforgettable mini-expeditions that typically took a few days worth of planning in advance. My choice of route was always important because if you are spending 16 hours out on the road by yourself, you need to stay stimulated. My route of choice was the Highwood Pass - a 320 km circular route that took me up to the top of the highest paved road in Canada and through 2 provincial parks. I saw bears, Mountain goats, a Moose, and many elk. My ultra rides peaked at a 400 km day where I started out at sunrise from my home in Calgary and ended as the sun set in Jasper, about 16 hours later. What a day that was!

And then, in the second week of July, my crew and I flew off to Eureka, CA for my second shot at the 24 hour HPV record. Man, what a special moment that was for me. I have many vivid memories of that entire trip - from preparing Critical Power in the days leading up to the record attempt and the record itself, to all of the celebrations after. On July 19th at 9:00 am, after 23 hours of circling the 1/2 mile Redwood Acres race track over 1000 times, I had tears in my eyes as I realized that I had finally done it - I had broken the existing record of 1021 km and had another hour to add distance to it. It's always nice when a plan works out, and extra sweet when you can say you are the best in the world at something.

Soon after the 24 hour record my family and I flew off to France for a cycling vacation through the Loire Valley. That trip definitely goes down as one of our all-time favorite vacations. When I returned to Calgary, I started back at Ironman training to get ready for Ironman in Kona, Hawaii - another dream that was finally going to come true for me.

The fulfillment of a 5 year quest to make it to world championships was finally realized on Oct 21, 2006 in Kona as I completed my 10th Ironman distance triathlon, the world championships. It was a very challenging day and I learned some important lessons. We had a very relaxing vacation and I am motivated to make it back to Kona for 2007 to see if I can improve my finish there.

We returned to Calgary and I realized that I was in an enviable, exciting situation - one that doesn't come around all that often - what to do next? I don't ever look at these cross roads moments as doors closing on previous goals, but doors opening for new ones. An optimist stays up until midnight to welcome the New Year, a pessimist stays up to make sure the old one goes away. I was faced with a choice of embarking on a new adventure! New challenges that I can leverage what I learned and what I was able to accomplish from previous challenges. This was truly exciting! I made a list of all the things that I've always thought about doing, and talked them over with my wife Helen. When I nervously told Helen that I was thinking of pedaling a human powered boat across the Atlantic, she said “oh, I hope you don't mind that I don't want to go with you!" Man - she is awesome! She is so supportive. If I told her I wanted to build a human powered rocket and go to the moon, she would start packing the TANG. Wait a sec... You don't think she wants to get rid of me do you? Hmm.... Seriously, Helen is incredible. There is no way I could do any of the crazy things I do if not for her unconditional support.

And so it was decided - I was going to cross the Atlantic Ocean by human power. Immediately, I got in touch with the real experts - members of the human powered boats group, and instantly made friends with Rick Willoughby who had some very interesting ideas about exactly what that kind of boat should be about. Together, we came up with a design, and now I have a partially finished fiberglass and Kevlar pedal boat in my shop!

So - what is in store for 2007? Well, I have Ironman Arizona again in April where I would really like to repeat my performance of last year and place in the top 5 in my division and nab my 2nd Kona slot. In fact, my goal is to place top 3. After that, I will have most of the summer to gain experience in Within - my human powered boat. I am planning on some ocean trips off Vancouver Island, and possibly some more aggressive sea-testing in rougher ocean conditions. Helen and I are both doing Ironman Canada in August - so if I do not qualify for Kona in Arizona, then I will have a second chance in Penticton.

As far as what the new year holds in store for the Human Powered Trans Atlantic expedition, it will be an adventure for sure! - Probably some difficult moments, surely some excitement, hopefully some fun along the way and certainly plenty of learning. I am looking forward to making some new friends and strengthening some old relationships. It will be quite a journey for everyone involved. My goals for the year are:

1. To solidify my mission statement - am I going for a crossing record, or going for a solo, unsupported first of some sort?

2. To secure a Charity to work with

3. To secure a major corporate sponsor for the expedition

4. To find supplies and equipment sponsors for the expedition

5. To finish fabrication and testing of Within - the human powered ocean boat to my satisfaction

6. To collect some awesome footage for the TV / documentary series. Building, pool testing, ocean testing, training, etc - should be pretty interesting!

7. To make an attempt at the 24 hour human powered boat distance record. I may use Within for this, or may have to use something specially built for a record attempt.

8. To solidify a schedule of exactly when the ocean crossing will take place

On top of all of this, I vow to resume my drums music lessons, support Helen with her new business venture, and help my kids accomplish their goals.

But what I hope the most for in 2007, is to see that YOU accomplish your goals! You can accomplish what ever you set your mind to - But first, you need a plan because how will you know when you arrive if you don't know where you are going? A plan starts with listing your goals, so let’s start there. If it helps you, feel free to email me with a list of your goals for 2007. I can help with advice and motivation, so use me!

I BLOG because I like to entertain, to inspire, to motivate, to show what's possible, and occasionally to show that even the impossible is possible. But the main reason I blog is for me. It's a great way to solidify what my goals are and to record my trials, tribulations, successes, failures and lessons learned. I'm getting older and I forget stuff all the time. I am finding it increasingly difficult to learn anything if I forget my mistakes, because you don't learn from your successes, you learn from your failures. If you write it down, and tell it to the world, then you have to do it. And if you do it wrong, then it's there in pixels forever so you will never forget - and won't make the same mistake twice. Or at least, won't make the same mistake any more than a dozen or so times...

So hey - I wish you and your family all the best for 2007. And remember to enjoy the ride!

Greg Kolodziejzyk

72.Within's deck is fiber glassed! Dec 21, 06

Thu, 21 Dec 2006 09:55:34 -0700

Within's deck is fiber glassed!

I can't believe how nice this turned out! I received some composites advice from some of you out there and I don't think I was paying enough attention when I read the emails. I thought you were recommending 3 x 20 oz layers of glass + a layer of Kevlar on the outside of the 1/2" foam core skin. After laying down my Kevlar first, then a single layer of 18 oz Woven Roving, I realized that this was super thick and stiff and heavy. So, I went back to the emails and realized that the suggestions were somewhere around a TOTAL of a 20 oz. outer layer. duh!

The advantage to using this really thick E Glass Roving is that it covered over all of the seems between my 1" Styrofoam straps very nicely! It also covered over all of the small holes and dents, etc. After it cured, I have a very smooth, very tough and strong outer skin.

The disadvantage to a single layer of this Roving, is that all of my weaves run in line with and at 90% to the deck. I am considering adding a second layer of this 18 oz Roving at 45 degrees to the first, but that is going to make for one VERY thick, heavy and strong outer skin. Not sure what to do on the inside of the 1/2" core...

Ben is pin-pricking the Styrofoam plug with a nail board.

Ben and Matt came over and helped. We started by filling in all of the small holes and dents in the Styrofoam plug with a thick mixture of epxoy/micro balloons. Then we pin pricked the entire plug and squeegeed a 1-1 (volume) mix of epoxy and micro over the whole plug filling in all of the pin pricks and seems between the foam strips. Then we laid down our first composite layer - a golden layer of Kevlar.

Then we put down the 18 oz woven roving e glass fabric and wetted that out. Since it is so thick, it took a TON of epoxy! I draped a peelply sheet over it all to leave a rough texture so that if we decide to add another composite layer, the epoxy will adhere properly to the cured layer.

Next, I will either add another outside layer (or not, depending on the advice I get). I'll pull it off the kayak hull, flip it over and take out the styrofoam ribs, leaving only the 1/2" Styrofoam core. Then I will remove areas of the 1/2" foam core and fill with epoxy or wood for hard points where I will be putting fasteners through, etc. Next, I'll add a layer of Kevlar to the foam with another layer or two of e-glass roving. This time, the layers will wrap around the deck edges and overlap a few inches to the outside. I would like to vacuum bag this one, as the foam sections will be out and we can put the entire boat in a large plastic bag.

The next step will be to make the bulkheads, hull floor reinforcements, and drive leg bay (and the seat rails and seat). I was thinking of making the bulk heads in two halves - the bottom half which could be bonded and glassed right to Within's hull, and the top half which could be bonded to and glassed right to the Deck top. When the two halves (the deck and the hull) get bonded and glassed together, it would be easier to glass together a straight seem between the midway point on the bulkheads that to try to glass in the upper perimeter.

71.More logo choices for Within - the human powered boat Dec 16, 06

Sat, 16 Dec 2006 09:55:34 -0700

More Within logo choices

Thanks for your comments on my previous Within Human Powered Boat logo ideas. Most of you thought that perhaps the logo wasn't strong enough and I agree. I was sort of going with a typical boat logo - you know, sort of scripty and often free-hand or brush stroke. Human powered boats are interesting, different and represent a new approach to water travel. The logo should say that, so I gave it another shot.

Let me know what you think, as your comments really do help the whole process.

Click to enlarge

I like the above two logos the best. They are modern looking, clean, will reproduce well and will be fairly readable and visible on Within's hull. The Within logo on the upper left represents a prop spinning - perhaps the i dots resemble bubbles that a spinning prop might produce. The dots the form a circle in the middle of the logo type focus your attention to the middle of the logo - or WITHIN the logo. The circular shape created by the dots also resembles a gear. The shape formed by the top of this logo resembles the shape of the boat travelling left with the flying dots forming the shape of the canopy.

The logo on the upper right is an exagerated version of prop spin. It looks more like a spinning prop, and the double concentric circles looks like two chain rings. You definitely think of circular movement - like the turning of pedals, the spinning of a prop.

These four logos self explanatory - the man forming his arms directing attention to within himself. Or, he is holding a gear above his head. I think this one is too complex

70.Why human power is important to you! Dec 15, 06

Fri, 15 Dec 2006 09:55:34 -0700

Why human power is important to you!

I'm on a roll now - somebody stop me.

Styrofoaming Within's deck is very tedious work - like assembling a giant three dimensional puzzle, and I've found that I need to take short breaks or I start to get sloppy. Unfortunately for you, the breaks are resulting in these daily treatises showing up in your inbox. This is good though, as it really gives me a chance to solidify my 'greater good' message that is the basis for the human powered trans Atlantic expedition.

Yesterday, I talked about why Human Power was important to me - today, my topic is why Human power should be important to EVERYONE.

Our fragile environment

United States burns 20.4 million barrels of oil per day. We are damaging our environment beyond repair by burning copious amounts of hydrocarbons into our atmosphere. According to Al Gore's "Inconvenient Truth", global warming is melting the ice shelf and global sea levels could rise by over 20 feet. Looking at the global temperature data and it's correlation to greenhouse gas emissions, I believe there is indisputable evidence that burning hydrocarbons is responsible for most of the global warming that is wreaking havoc on our weather systems.

Aside from the frightening global warming issue, I am also deeply concerned about our attitude with regard to consumption. Up until just last year, the US was the worlds largest consumer of natural resources. According to David Suzuki's "Sacred Balance" (I absolutely LOVED this book - everyone should read it), since 1940, Americans alone have used up as large a share of the Earth's mineral resources as all previous generations put together.

The real scary thing is, as of last year, consumption in China eclipsed that of the United States in all the worlds resources but oil, and China's 1.3 billion person economy is growing at a frightening 8% annually

Why is this concerning? There are around 6 billion people living on this rock today. Estimating future population growth at only 1% per year, the numbers are staggering. By 2015, experts estimate there will be 7 billion people on the planet. By 2050, there may be as many as 10 billion people living on Earth. Can mother Earth support this extended family? When will we reach the limit of our resources?

We live in a culture where incentives exist to encourage doing more with more - not doing more with less. Doing more with less is called "efficiency", doing more with more is called "Gluttony". Bigger, faster, more powerful vehicles that consume more fuel at faster rates, larger meals wrapped in complex, land-fill bound packaging, disposable products filling store shelves - you get the picture. Take the new wave of hybrid cars for example. Hybrid technology that was intended to produce spectacular fuel economy, was flipped around by car makers to instead, produce more horsepower for their new hybrid SUV's! Less green, more mean.

Human Powered vehicles are all about trying to do more with less. How to go faster or farther with less energy. Technologies Incorporated into human powered vehicles like aerodynamics, wheel rolling resistance, mechanical efficiencies and size and weight optimization are directly applicable to the cars and boats and other vehicles that we rely upon in these modern times. Most importantly though, Interest in human power represents an essential shift in basic philosophy from one of 'feasting on earths resources' to a 'do more with less' ideal.

Health

It is true that the world needs to pay more attention to human power as a step in saving the environment, but there is a far more important, pressing and urgent concern at hand here in North America and spreading quickly throughout the rest of the world. We are killing ourselves and human power is our only savior.

3 million years of evolution has produced an animal whose natural environment probably consisted of walking the distance of a full marathon each and every single day*. Now take that animal (also known as a "human being"), and stick him in a small cage, rob him of natural sunlight, make him sit in a chair all day and feed him a steady supply of chemicals and refined foods.

Is it any wonder that 60% of North Americans are over weight? Described by the World Health Organization as an "escalating epidemic", obesity is "one of the greatest neglected public health problems of our time with an impact on health which may well prove to be as great as smoking." Being overweight leads to many serious medical problems like high blood pressure, high cholesterol, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and many other health related issues.

An unnatural sedentary lifestyle causes chemical imbalances in our bodies which can lead to a host of psychological problems. Population studies have shown an inverse relationship between physical activity and depression, and there is evidence that active people who become inactive are more at risk of depression that those who remain active. According to a study from Duke University, aerobic exercise was MORE effective than antidepressant drugs in treating depressive symptoms in three study groups.

The cause of the obesity epidemic and skyrocketing rates of depression is obvious in my opinion. We need to become reacquainted with our "natural environment". Break out of our cages, get outside and get ACTIVE! Ride your bike, run, walk, swim, climb, row - whatever it takes.

Human power is the power to live. Use it or lose it.

* this refers to a Columbia University study published in early 2005 that suggested "you would have to walk 5.7 hours a day over fields and hills to approximate the energy expenditure of early humans". I have looked for the actual study, but all I could find was many references to it on the Internet.

69.Why I like human power and a name for the human powered boat Dec 14, 06

Thu, 14 Dec 2006 09:55:34 -0700

Why I like human power and finally, a name for the boat!

The day before the Las Vegas marathon, as I lay in my lawn chair trying to maximize my angle to the low December sun, I got to do some deeper thinking about why "human power" is so important to me. I mean, some people really get into WW11 history, some go nuts over collecting wooden toys and some guys build robots. What is it about human power that turns my crank?

Our passions are obviously related to our personalities. Being a typical male, I am hardwired to dig technology, physical activity is my life-blood, and I like the outdoors and to travel. I also like long walks on the beach and poking dead things with a stick.

As a young kid, I remember reading a National Geographic feature story about a team who rode their '10 speed' bikes from Argentina to Alaska. I was riveted by their story. This really spoke to me. The whole idea of riding my bicycle distances longer that we had ever driven our family car was something that resonated deeply with me. I read that National Geographic story about a dozen times.

I saved money from my paper route and purchased a brand new '10 speed' bicycle. Wow! It had 10 speeds and drop handle bars just like the ones used in the national geographic bike tour. I rode it everywhere. I duct-taped a transistor radio to my handle bars so I could listen to all the 1970's hits on CKXL Calgary radio station while I biked the daily 10 mile route from my house in Lakeview (there was no view of any lake) to my downtown paper route.

My passion for riding bikes returned just after I graduated from SAIT - a technical institute where I received a diploma in engineering, and an education in how to party almost every night, and still pass exams. Phil Evans talked me into riding our 10 speed bikes 100 km from Calgary to Banff. I almost died. I remember reaching the lake at LacDesArc and the lights started to go out. I had almost fainted. I think that trip took us a good 10 hours. Now I can ride to Banff, do a 15 km trail run, and ride back to Calgary in less than 10 hours.

We are the products of our past. Looking back, it's obvious that I would eventually become involved with the design, construction and application of human powered vehicles in some way. We are who we are, and I mean that LITERALLY! - check this out:

I got a really interesting email yesterday from Paul Kolodziej. in case you didn't know, my last name is Kolodziejzyk - only 3 letters longer than Paul's. Paul was reading my article in Popular Science magazine and noticed the similarities in our names. He informed me that in Polish, the name "Kolodziejzyk", and it's various derivatives mean "WHEEL MAKER".

Human power to me though, is so much more than travel under our own physical capacity. It's really about ALL of our power as humans. The power to choose, the power to create, the power to succeed, the power to cross continents, the power to cross oceans, the power to motivate, the power to love, the power to care, the power to inspire, the power to learn and the power to grow. Human power is the power within.

And with that, I have decided upon a name for the human powered trans Atlantic pedal boat.

I hereby christen the boat "Within". Because Human Power is the power from within. Here are some logo ideas. Let me know if you like one of them (click to enlarge).

68.Las Vegas Marathon Dec 12, 06

Tue, 12 Dec 2006 09:55:34 -0700

Las Vegas Marathon

My buddy Matt Hoffman, Helen and I flew off to Las Vegas over the weekend for the Las Vegas Marathon. Unfortunately, Helen couldn't run due to a hamstring tear, but Matt and I had good races. I was aiming for a 3:15 and ended up crossing the line a little over 3 minutes over that goal. Matt was aiming for a 3:20, but hit the wall with 6 miles left to go and finished in 3:29

The run was pretty nice - 16,000 runners with Blue Man Group playing at the start. It was mostly flat with a slight downhill grade and a tail wind for the first half with the inevitable upgrade/headwind for the second half of the 26.2 mile loop which made it a bit challenging. The first hour was pretty uncomfortable, as my right leg from the knee down went completely numb as I knew it would. I have no idea what causes this aside from an accumulation of training hours. It seems that whenever I reach 5 to 6 hours of running per week, my right foot goes numb for about an hour when starting a run. It's very uncomfortable, but usually goes away after the first hour, so I wasn't too concerned.

I knew when we first started out that the out-leg would have to be at a slightly faster pace due to the tail wind and favorable slope, so I reached the half way point with a 3 minute buffer on my time. Then I just tried to hang onto that 3 minutes for as long as I could on the home stretch. I thought I was doing a pretty good job though, as I was fluctuating between 1 to 2 minutes over my pace by the final 6 miles. That's when I started to really feel the soreness creeping into my legs and even though it felt like my pace was the same, my speed really started to slip.

That last 6 miles was very difficult and took quite a bit of focused mental effort just to maintain an aggressive pace. The agony you feel from shooting pains and fatigue in your legs during that last 10 km is hard to explain to anyone who hasn't experienced it. At every mile marker I would check my pace band, and be shocked to see that I had lost another minute! But that only fueled my determination to mitigate the time slippage and push through the pain.

I was pretty happy to cross the finish line at 3:18:52, only about 4 minutes slower than my goal. As it turned out, I would consider this a personal best marathon even though I ran a 3:16:46 at Tucson in 2004. Tucson was an all-downhill marathon and I finished in the top 20% of my 40 to 44 age group. In Vegas, I placed 22 nd out of 504 runners in my 45 to 49 age group which was a personal record top 4.3% finish.

Here is a chart that I keep showing my AG % finishes for all races since 2001:

I waited at the finish for Matt, who crossed about 10 minutes later. He was with the 3:20 pace group until the last 6 miles, then suffered the same bonk fate that I did and had to let his 3:20 dreams slip away. All in all, it was a fun weekend - caught a show, rested a bit and we both had great races.

Helen was sad that she couldn't participate, but she needs rest and recovery right now, as we both are committed to two Ironman races this spring and summer Ironman Arizona in April and Ironman Canada in August. Training for Arizona starts very soon.

67.Deck covering Dec 4, 06

Mon, 4 Dec 2006 09:55:34 -0700

Deck covering

Until just yesterday, I was calling the part of the boat we are making "the curved top part". Thankfully, Rick told me that it's call a "deck".

Here is a web page with a list of boat parts:

http://www.mum.edu/exss_dept/sailing_club/sail/learn_to_sail/lesson1.html

That goes a long way in demonstrating just how 'out of my element' I am with this trans Atlantic human powered crossing. Calgary isn't exactly the boat capital of Canada and I don't exactly stem from a long family history of maritime explorers. In fact, I know one guy who owns a boat and it's my brother in law Pat Lor - a ski boat that he keeps at our cabin in Whitefish, MT. We are welcome to use it whenever we like, but I'm always hesitant because I'm not a big fan of loud gas guzzling motors, and backing the beast and it's trailer down our steeply sloped driveway.

I do own two smaller boats, a pedal flippers powered Mirage Adventure and a pedal prop powered Shuttlebike which I converted to a human powered recumbent boat. My experience with these small boats, however, is limited to nice, sunny, warm days on an idyllic lake in Montana - not the open ocean.

Todays progress:

My official expedition training buddy Greg Bradley (right) came over today and lent a hand gluing down pink foam strips to the deck frame. Also in attendance was my other Ironman friend and expedition official video man Matt Hoffman (left).

Ben invented a pretty nifty tool to cut the foam strips with a 90 degree angle on one side, and a 15 degree angle on the other. We place the strips so that a 90 degree matches up to a 15 degree which allows a slight curve and it seems to work pretty well in almost every area of the mold.

Once the strip has been hot glued to the form, I hold them down with small concrete nails until the hot glue dries. This seems to work OK. I'll have a thousand little holes to fill with an epoxy/micro slurry before we glass it, but it should be smooth enough.

The tight curved areas of the nose and tail are way too small to bend the foam strips around so I think I will just fill them up with expanding foam and carve/sand the shape smooth. This will be far easier and more accurate than trying to mess around with these pink strips. Also, we plan on filling the bow and stern tips with expanding foam for buoyancy anyhow.

The foam strips are fitting together fairly smoothly. I sanding down an area to see how smooth we could get it after sanding, and it was OK - you can still see the joins, but they are difficult to feel with your finger tips. I would hope that the fiberglass fabric would 'drape' over these seems and smoothen them over. If not, we'll have to slather a layer of epoxy/micro over the whole deck after the fiberglass dries, then sand it smooth before paint. But, this isn't a streamliner, and it probably does not have to be perfectly smooth, so perhaps just leaving small imperfections in the surface will be OK. Maybe paint and primer will fill them in.

Here is the plan:

1. Finish gluing down the pink strips

2. Fill in the nose and tail areas with expanding foam

3. Carve and sand down the expanding foam

4. Sand down the entire surface of the mold to as smooth as possible

5. Fill in the holes with epoxy/micro (smoothen when wet - do NOT sand)

6. Cover deck with 3 (how many??) layers of fiberglass fabric and 1 layer of Kevlar (any advice on how many layers to do??) and wet out with epoxy resin.

7. After the Epoxy cures, sand down the sacrificial finish layer using more epoxy/micro to fill in any holes, divots or visible seems.

8. Pull the deck off the kayak hull and carve out the 1.5" thick Styrofoam sections

9. Rough sand down the inside foam

10. Lay down (how many layers?) of fiberglass on the inside (any Kevlar required here??) and wet out with epoxy resin.

11. Build the bulk heads and drive leg well and glass into the hull.

12. Build the seat and rails and glass down to the hull

13. Glass/bond the deck onto the kayak hull.

14. Cut the canopy top off

15. Glass in the top part of the bulk heads. I'm not sure how to get into the bow and stern compartments to glass in the other side of the tops of each bulk head wall? Perhaps I wait until we add hatches, then crawl into each space for some extreme fiberglassing.

16. Heat form the Lexan canopy window.

17. Capsize and stability testing

18. Prime, sand and paint

Matt (left) and Greg B (right)

66.Styrofoam skeleton. Nov 29, 06

Wed, 29 Nov 2006 09:55:34 -0700

The video clip above is a short 5 minute segment I put together using the footage we shot from the last couple of days. I wanted to preview how the light was in the shop and other areas of the house as well as how the Sony HDR-FX1 HD camera handled various conditions like hand-held steadiness, close-up focus, 1080i high-def image quality, etc.

It worked out kind of neat, so I uploaded it to YouTube.com for you to check out.

Todays progress:

I finished the Styrofoam skeleton today - it went pretty fast actually. The sections are hot glued onto the main profile. Next I will lay over narrow, 2" wide, 1/2" thick Styrofoam strips, then sand it smooth.

65.Shop day #1 - progress on the boat. Nov 28, 06

Tue, 28 Nov 2006 09:55:34 -0700

We made some decent progress on the test boat yesterday. Ben "BEAN" Eadie came over and built a hot wire cutter for the foam sections, and my Friend Matt "CLAMP" Hoffman contributed his expert filming talents.

I have not mentioned this yet, but I invested in a High Def video camera with the objective of filming this entire project which might find it's way into a documentary, TV series or film some day.

Matt "clamp" Hoffman is on board as our official expedition videographer.

We're all professionals here - so don't try this at home. Clamps history in the film industry is long and accomplished going back as far as a couple of days ago when he browsed through the Sony HDR-FX1 manual and learned where the record button was. And of course, you know some of my extensive maritime background which consists of driving over bridges crossing the mighty Bow river here in Calgary - at least twice per day - sometimes more!

Assembling the styrofoam sections:

I sliced up my computer model into 29 sections then printed each sections outline onto tiled letter-sized sheets of paper which I taped together.

For the main profile I had to tile together 88 sheets of paper and then cut around the perimeter.

The main profile section was traced onto multiple sheets of 2" thick pink Styrofoam, cut out and assembled into the Hyak kayak hull. After the main profile was secured into the middle of the kayak, I sanded down the edge with a wire brush to get the line smooth. The 29 perpendicular sections will be cut out of 1" thick Styrofoam and hot glued to both the main profile and the sides of the kayak.

To facilitate the Styrofoam cutting, Ben whipped up this nifty hot wire cutter which works pretty slick.

This week, I'll be in the shop alone and I will start gluing the sections into place. Hopefully, we can start fiberglass on the weekend or early next week.

64.The Hyak Test Boat. Nov 24, 06

Fri, 24 Nov 2006 09:55:20 -0700

I've been working with my 3D design software Strata 3d, trying to nail down a final design so that we can get started building it! Above is a short video of the design as it is now. After measuring the Hayak kayak hull, Ben made a very accurate model of the original kayak hull in SolidWorks. He sent me the 3D file for the hull and I created the rounded top section in Strata by skinning a row of bezier curves.

(click photos to enlarge)

The next step is to virtually (in software) carve the top section into vertical slices 18" apart. Then I will print these patterns out and use them to cut out 1" thick styrofoam sections. These foam sections will be bonded into the Hyak kayak hull and then 1" strips will be laid across and glued to the sections from bow to stern. After sanding the styrofoam, we cover with fiberglass and repeat for the inside leaving the 1" thick foam strips to act as sandwich core material.

The drive leg is shown is some detail below. I'm going with a mix of bike chain and the right angle gear box. The SRM cranks turn a chain that passes through two 1/2" stainless steel tubes down to the gearbox. The tubes will also be reinforced with cross braces and covered with stainless sheet. This will double as the structural member supporting the prop and gear box below.

Since this 'fin' is only a 1/2" thick, it only needs a 1/2" wide slot in the kayak hull to fit through. The slot has 5" tall walls to prevent water from flooding the boat. To remove the drive leg, the narrow slot leads to a larger square well in front of it that the gear box and prop will fit through. The drive leg will be fastened down to the seat rails and a through bolt in the well. A square plug will fit into the larger square opening in the well to seal it off from water and to smoothen out the bottom of the boat hull. I could further seal the narrow part of the drive leg well with two smaller, thin plugs that fit into both sides of the gear leg.

I have not yet marked off where the retracting canopy top will be cut-out, but I would need to make sure that once it is retracted, I can lift the drive leg straight up and out.

The seat is mounted to two 1" square tubes running length-wise down the hull floor and can be adjusted forward or back. I still need to figure out a way to move the seat out of the way to access the rear compartment.

Only half of the bulk head in front of the drive leg is shown - it will completely seal off the front compartment. I have NOT shown the rear bulk head which will completely close off the rear compartment.

We will probably start building the foam plug on Monday. I'll keep you informed.

63.The Nimbus Hyak kayak mechanical efficiency testing of 3 drive types. Nov 20, 06

Mon, 20 Nov 2006 11:48:29 -0700

The Hyak donor kayak from Nimbus Kayaks arrived last week!

It is in pretty decent shape, but does not include a top or any bulkheads - just the bottom hull. That's OK because I would have just cut out the top anyhow before adding my own top. Ben came over yesterday and build a little Styrofoam stand for the kayak, then proceeded to take measurements so he can model the kayak hull in SolidWorks. We'll use the Solid Works model to build the canopy top, and then use that 3D model to generate sections which we will cut out of foam.

Check out Rick Wianecki's Frank-n-liner streamliner at Warrens recumbents.com site:

This is exactly the male mold construction method that I plan to use for the test boat. I am a little concerned about wetting out fiberglass and not using a vacuum bag, as the vacuum would surely deform the thin foam strips, but Rick maintains that he never had any problems with the wetted glass bubbling or peeling up. I'm thinking we could use stretchy film wrap to press down the wetted fabric without distorting the mold.

TB-1 test boat ("TB" for 'Test Boat" - not a very inspiring name is it....)

Testing the mechanical efficiency of 3 types of drives

There has been some discussion at HPV boats forum regarding the efficiency, pros and cons of various mechanical drive approaches. The task with regard to human powered boats is to transmit the direction of power input from cranks which rotate in a plane that aligns with the boats length, to a prop which rotates in a plane perpendicular to the boat and the cranks. Rick Willoughby typically uses two right angle gear boxes and a shaft to transmit power from the cranks to the prop. Others such as Warren Beauchamp and Bob Stuart use a chain that twists 90 degrees from the chain ring on the cranks down to the prop.

The advantages to using two gear boxes and a shaft are mostly that it is structurally very solid and strong - probably a good combination for an ocean crossing. The disadvantage to this approach is potentially less mechanical efficiency than a twisted chain due to the heavy gear box.

The advantages to using a twisted chain is light-weight, possibly good mechanical efficiency and easy to replace standard bicycle parts if something goes wrong. The disadvantages to using a twisted chain is related to the fact that the chain isn't really designed to twist, and it may be difficult to replace a broken chain in the middle of the ocean. I'm just not certain how long a twisted chain drive will last.

So, at least with regard to the mechanical efficiency questions, I thought I would spend some time and conduct a few experiments designed to elicit exactly what the power 'cost' is for each approach.

To summarize, here is the mechanical power efficiency % for each drive configuration for average resistance of a prop spinning in water at 80 rpm at the cranks (relative to a straight chain at 100%):

STRAIGHT CHAIN = 100%

RIGHT ANGLE GEAR BOX = 94.1%

TWISTED CHAIN = 93.3%

THE STRAIGHT CHAIN

As a baseline - or control, I set up a drive that was a straight chain running from my 39 tooth SRM watts meter chain ring to an 11 tooth cog mounted on a bicycle bottom bracket. On the other side of the bottom bracket, I mounted a standard bike chain ring. A chain runs from the large 53 tooth gear to a 12 tooth gear on the rear wheel of a road bike on a magnetic resistance trainer stand.

The lower chain ring and bike wheel simulate similar resistance of a prop spinning in water. In this case, I am looking for an average resistance of around 150 watts of power to turn the cranks 80 rpm. The photo above shows a magnetic resistance roller and a wind resistance roller (red) on the rear wheel, but I found that neither was required to maintain about 150 watts of power to turn the cranks at 80 rpm. For this experiment, the rear bike wheel was freely spinning - this had the added benefit of being more consistent between drive leg configurations, as the magnetic and wind rollers change resistance slightly due to various pressures against the tire and temperature.

The control using the straight chain would be a best case scenario, as there is very little mechanical loss from a straight chain. Obviously, it is an unacceptable drive option because the direction of power transmission is in the same plane. (I would have to be sitting SIDEWAYS on the boat in order to use this).

Here are the results:

FREE SPINNING = 0 WATTS
No chains at all, just the main crank and pedals spinning freely. The SRM power meter was calibrated to measure 0 watts from this free spinning condition.

NO RESISTANCE = 2 WATTS
The bottom chain was NOT connected to the bike wheel. This test measures the no-resistance mechanical loss of the SRM 39 tooth chain ring with a straight chain to the 11 tooth gear mounted on the lower bottom bracket turning a pedal and chain ring with no chain or resistance.

RESISTANCE AT 80 rpm = 135 WATTS
This configuration is as shown in the photo above. The bike wheel is linked to the drive and simulates typical resistance of a prop spinning in water. It required 135 watts of power to turn the SRM cranks at 80 rpm.

THE TWISTED CHAIN

The chain twists 90 degrees from the 39 tooth SRM chain ring down to the 11 tooth gear mounted on a bottom bracket. The return side of the chain is tensioned and positioned with a chain guide (orange roller). A free spinning bike wheel with a 12 tooth gear provides the same resistance as the control. Note that gearing and therefore, the resulting resistance for both this configuration and the control is exactly the same.

Here are the results:

FREE SPINNING = 0 WATTS
No chains at all, just the main crank and pedals spinning freely. The SRM power meter was calibrated to measure 0 watts from this free spinning (same as the control)

NO RESISTANCE = 8 WATTS
The bottom chain was NOT connected to the bike wheel. This test measures the no-resistance mechanical loss of the SRM 39 tooth chain ring with a twisted chain to the 11 tooth gear mounted on the lower bottom bracket turning a pedal and chain ring with no chain or resistance.

RESISTANCE AT 80 rpm = 144 WATTS
This configuration is as shown in the photo above. The bike wheel is linked to the drive and simulates typical resistance of a prop spinning in water. It required 144 watts of power to turn the SRM cranks at 80 rpm. The twisted chain required 9 more watts of power than the straight chain to turn the cranks 80 rpm.

THE RIGHT ANGLE GEARBOX

The chain runs straight from the 39 tooth SRM chain ring to an 11 tooth gear mounted on one axle of a Mitrpak right angle gear box. A 53 tooth large chain ring is mounted on the other gear box axle which turns a chain connected to the 12 tooth bike wheel. Note that gearing and therefore, the resulting resistance for both this configuration and the control and the twisted chain is exactly the same.

Here are the results:

FREE SPINNING = 0 WATTS
No chains at all, just the main crank and pedals spinning freely. The SRM power meter was calibrated to measure 0 watts from this free spinning (same as the control)

NO RESISTANCE = 8 WATTS
The bottom chain was NOT connected to the bike wheel. This test measures the no-resistance mechanical loss of the SRM 39 tooth chain ring with a straight chain to the 11 tooth gear mounted on the right angle gear box turning a pedal and chain ring with no chain or resistance.

RESISTANCE AT 80 rpm = 143 WATTS
This configuration is as shown in the photo above. The bike wheel is linked to the drive and simulates typical resistance of a prop spinning in water. It required 143 watts of power to turn the SRM cranks at 80 rpm. The right angle gear box required 8 more watts of power than the straight chain to turn the cranks 80 rpm. The gear box required 1 less watt than the twisted chain, but 1 watt is easily within the margin of error, so I would consider both drives equally efficient.

The nitty gritty details

To start with, I used an old exercise bike with a roller pressing down against the rubber wheel. This didn't work at all because the bearings in the wheel are old and changed resistance periodically.

The SRM power meter computer showing crank rpm and power in watts.

This is a third drive option that I tested, but it didn't work at all. It's a flexible drive shaft from my Shuttlebike kit. There was far too much resistance and the shaft just twisted up inside the housing.

I had to fabricate a connection for the flexible drive shaft.

The flexible drive shaft connection to the SRM cranks and the lower bottom bracket

The Mitrpak right angle gearbox.

To make a collar to fit onto the gearbox shaft, I cut an axle from an old Shimano Octalink bottom bracket in half and inserted a smaller diameter stainless steel tube into it and welded it in place. This allowed me to use the standard spider bolt to mount the chain ring. The smaller diameter tube was a press fit onto the right angle gear box shaft. To hold the collar in place, I drilled and tapped a hole for a set screw.

The small 11 tooth cog fit onto the gearbox axle the same way - I welded a short tube to the back plate of the cog and press fit that onto the gearbox axle. It is held in place with a set screw.

62. Two ocean crossing events are happening now. Nov 19, 06

Sun, 19 Nov 2006 11:46:03 -0700

Two ocean crossing events are happening now

The Zeeman Ocean Challenge

Ocean rowers Ralph Tuijin and his brother Michael are just over half way across the Atlantic ocean on their way from La Gomera, Spain to Curaco. The expedition is a sort of shake-down leg for Ralph, as his main focus is to cross the Pacific Ocean at its widest point - solo.

The 16,000-kilometer solo Pacific crossing will not make use of any motor or wind-related power. This extreme challenge will take between 7 and 9 months to complete and will be non-stop, without re-supplies or any other support. After leaving from Panama in January 2007 Ralph will set course for the city of Cairns in Australia, where he expects to arrive in mid-September.

The brothers left La Gomera, Spain on September 27, 2006 and almost immediately ran into difficulty. After suffering seemingly endless sea sickness, they were struck by some very large 8 meter seas and their wind generator snapped in half. Ralph and Michael were relying on the wind generator as their main source of power for the impressive satellite communications system they were sporting. The plan was to transmit daily video and photos from the expedition using a state of the art Nera Fleet 55 satellite communications system.

Since early September, the duo has been suffering from unusual calmness. Flat seas and no trade winds make for a slow trip! Due to the wind generator malfunction, I am very disappointed that we are not able to enjoy the video coverage of the expedition that was planned.

You can follow the progress of the Zeeman Challenger on their nifty Google maps page.

Rames Guyane 2006

Today, Sunday, November 19th marked the start of the “RAMES GUYANE” event - the first transatlantic rowing race competed single-handed, non-stop and without assistance. Sixteen rowers - mostly from France will make their way 2600 nautical miles across the Atlantic ocean from St Louis in Senegal to French Guyana using a standard design 8 meter long, 1.6 meter wide rowing boat specially designed for this race.

The race is expected to take between 40 to 55 days depending upon weather. One of the main difficulties of “Rames Guyane” is the mandatory crossing of the “dol-drums” - an inter-tropical convergence area, where the trade winds give place to sporadic, uncertain and often adverse winds.

You can follow the progress of the RAMES GUYANE rowers at their Google maps "Cartographie"

61. An inspirational evening. Nov 6, 06

Mon, 6 Nov 2006 12:40:35 -0700

An inspirational evening

Helen and I attended Colin and Julie's presentation and documentary premier "Beyond the Horizon" last night in Canmore. What an inspirational event! Wow - it's absolutely incredible what Colin and Julie have achieved.

Colin Angus - the worlds first man to circumnavigate the globe by
human power and his wife to-be and Julie Wafaei

On May 20th 2006, after 720 days, Colin Angus and Julie Wafaei completed Expedition Canada - the first human powered circumnavigation of our planet. In my opinion, the human powered circumnavigation of the earth is one of the last great firsts. Colin travelled 43,000 km by rowboat, bicycle, canoe, ski, and foot - a journey that voyaged across 3 continents, 2 oceans and 17 countries. Julie travelled with him for most of the expedition, including rowing 10,000 km unsupported across the Atlantic Ocean, making her the first woman to row across the Atlantic from mainland to mainland and the first Canadian woman to row across any ocean (from mainland to mainland).

The team used zero-emissions travel to highlight issues with global warming and to inspire others to use non-motorized transportation.

Canadians Colin and Julie are currently travelling across Canada in speaking tour and film premiere. Colin's book, Beyond the Horizon, will be released in March 2007 (for those of you that can't wait he has two other books on previous adventures). An adventurer's resource centre divulging hard-to-find information (cold weather travel, ocean rowing, etc.) and on-line store offering expedition films and books will soon be available on this website:

http://www.expeditioncanada.com

The film was great! I HIGHLY recommend buying it when it becomes available through their web site. I can hardly wait to read his book.

I just love the way Colin operates - he just sucks it up and does what needs to be done. He makes me proud to be a Canadian. I think we all suffer too much from what I call 'analysis paralysis' - where you analyze something to death and then never get around to doing it because you have lost some self confidence, or have lost interest, or feel the need to study the issue ad infinitum. I think Colin does the necessary home work, makes minimum necessary plans, then just gets to work. He intuitively understands that there is more learning from doing than there is from studying.

Bravo Colin and Julie! - In this day and age of excessiveness where we strive to do more with more, your doing more with less approach to life is refreshing and inspirational. I hope the world wakes up and gives you the recognition you both deserve!

60. Sponsors and blatant self promotion. Nov 3, 06

Fri, 3 Nov 2006 12:39:48 -0700

Sponsors and blatant self promotion

On a whim, I blindly sent out some emails a few weeks ago to sort of test the waters with regard to how eager companies would be to sponsor the Atlantic expedition project by donating their products. I sent an introduction email with the above .jpg image attached. I have a macro set up in PhotoShop that mostly automates the insertion of the potential sponsors name and product image, then spits out a .jpg file like the one above.

I was a pretty good marketer in my former entrepreneurial life, and I know how important it is help your target audience imagine the benefits of what you are proposing. At Image Club (sold to Adobe, sold to Eyewire, sold to Getty Images, and now Veer), in our catalog, we always featured many great examples of what our publishing content software could do for a creative campaign. In my opinion, that 'creative inspiration' that we provided was largely responsible for the success of the catalog, and my company.

I have had some pretty good success with the blind email approach, and I really think I can get most of my equipment and supplies donated by companies who want to be involved with this project.

This is what I am offering sponsors in return:

1. Their company logo on the boat
2. A series of high res photographs and video clips of their product being used in the 'extreme' ocean environment while on the expedition which the sponsor could use as content for various advertising and promotional campaigns.
3. A testimonial from me regarding the applicability of their product and it's use during the expedition.
4. I managed to get quite a bit of press coverage for the 24 hour HPV record including the cover of Popular Science magazine, and I plan to aggressively seek as much publicity as possible for the Atlantic Expedition. A sponsor would definitely benefit from that kind of PR exposure. Imagine a sponsors logo on the side of Critical Power HPV in Popular Science Magazine that is distributed to over 7 million people!
5. Web site advertising content like the image shown above that the sponsor can take advantage of now, rather than waiting until I do the crossing.

I have not devoted much time to pursuing sponsors yet, but from the few 'feelers' I sent out, I managed to develop a few partnerships:

Nimbus Kayaks, inc.

Nimbus Kayaks is providing a Hyak Tandem Kayak that will be used as a base for the prototype human powered boat.

Trimble Corporation

Trimble is providing a Recon rugged PDA. These PDA hand held computers are absolutely incredible! Water proof and shock proof - perfect for an ocean crossing. I will be using the PDA to run a GPS with navigation software, and to BLOG text, photos and video web updates to the web site via a satellite phone. Trimble is sponsoring the expedition with TWO PDA's a primary and a backup.

Check out this video of the Recon PDA being
thrown down concrete stairs and run over by a tank!

Fugawi Marine ENC.

Fugawi Marine is providing GPS marine navigation software that will work with the GPS and Recon PDA computer.

Rugged Technologies, incorporated

Rugged Technologies is providing three of their top of the line water proof Cool series keyboards. The keyboard will plug directly into the USB port of the Recon.

I need your help

I think this approach to finding ways to fund an expensive project like the Atlantic crossing is really beneficial to both the sponsor and myself. I get the expensive equipment I need to complete my quest, and the sponsor benefits from valuable testimonial advertising content that is an important part of a robust marketing campaign.

I could use some help! If you have some free time and would like to become involved in the project, I could really use someone to help me find more equipment and supplies sponsors. I will provide you with a list of all the equipment and supplies that I require. You would need to phone the potential sponsor companies, speak to the marketing manager about a sponsorship in kind, and follow up with emails and various other information on the expedition that I will prepare for you.

From my brief experience, I have found that if I can connect with an actual person before sending emails, my chance of success is very high. Emails get lost and easily dismissed, whereas a phone call is taken seriously.

If you have a bit of time to spare and would like to get involved in the project, please send me an email or give me a phone call. 403-242-5482 greg@justgreg.com

59. The twisted drive, and Las Vegas marathon. Nov 2, 06

Thu, 2 Nov 2006 12:38:54 -0700

The twisted drive, and Las Vegas marathon
(click pictures to enlarge)

I have been SLOOOWLY cleaning up the shop over the last month or so. I gutted it, cleaned everything, then slowly moved stuff back and put it all where it could be found once again. I love an organized shop. I bought some new bins at Home Depot, and a bunch of blank sticky labels. Now I have a bin for everything - bottom brackets, headsets, clamps, hinges, velcro, tape, glue, funny shaped things that look like this, etc, etc... It really helps when you are building something or prototyping. To have a part, a special fastener or a piece of tubing that's already bent a certain way is very handy. I thing it's really part of the creative process - to be able to envision something and then just build it using stuff you have in a bin somewhere.

And this is what a well organized, well equipped shop will get you:

This is a drive leg for the prototype boat. I built it in less than a day using parts and materials from my many little magical bins. Plus, it EVEN includes a prop which I 'borrowed' from my Shuttle bike human powered bike kit.

The prop bolts onto a Shimano octalink sealed bottom bracket cartridge that is screwed into a bottom bracket shell. The BB shell is welded to the end of my drive leg shaft - a 2" x 1" rectangular Chrome Alloy steel tube. The other end of the bottom bracket cartridge is a Shimano Dura-ace 11 tooth cog from a bike rear cassette. I welded a round plate to the back of it, drilled a hole in it and bolted it to the bottom bracket cartridge.

The chain is Shimano 9 speed Ultegra which twists up the drive shaft to a 39 tooth chain ring on a Shimano sealed bottom bracket cartridge with two brackets welded to the BB shell. 4 bolts secure the bracket to the rectangular shaft allowing the chain ring / cranks assembly to slide up or down the shaft for various lengths

A take-up pulley guides the chain down to the small cog.

I can pedal forward or backward and because my main chain ring is adjustable, I can take out all of the slack in the chain and the chain stays on the gears.

The plan is to sand down the cromaloy steel and coat it with epoxy or powder coating. For extra water proofing, I could wrap a couple layers of fiberglass/epoxy around all of the tubing which probably wouldn't be a bad idea. The bottom brackets are sealed and should withstand prolonged periods of being submerged under water. At least, that is the experience of others who have used standard bike bottom brackets as bearings for props. Mountain bikes can take quite a bit of mud, dirt, water and torque and a decent quality bottom bracket cartridge will last for years.

The best thing about using standard bike parts is they are all easily replaceable. If the chain goes, it can be replaced with a new chain, or replacement links can be added. If a bearing fails, the entire BB cartridge can be removed with a standard BB wrench. I could carry 3 or 4 or even 10 spare replacement parts - they are all very light weight and take up very little space. This entire system could easily be overhauled - even on the water if required. Well, that's the idea anyhow - and one of the purposes of this first drive leg.

I will need to make a fairing for it to keep the water out of the spinning chain. Ill probably wait until I know exactly how this drive holds up under some decent abuse before making a fairing.

There are a few obvious issues with this first drive leg design. Mostly, it appears to be a lot wider than I thought it would be and that will make it less efficient as it slices through the water due to the extra width of the fairing that needs to cover it all. Since I wanted to keep everything 'standard bike stuff', the main chain ring is offset to the right (typical bike mechanical geometry), but the prop is directly below in the center. Therefore the chain near the top is further to the right than where the chain is at the bottom where it joins the prop. I'm not sure how to re-work this, or even if it's necessary.

The main purpose of this drive leg is to TEST it!! I Want to know for sure that the twisting chain will stand up to at least 500 hours of use in salt water. I am going to mount the drive over a large bucket filled with salt water and rig an electric motor up to the crank. I'm going to replace the chain ring / cranks shown with my SRM power meter so I can set the speed of the drill to approximate my typical power output which will be about 150 watts. In fact, I'd like to overshoot that for this test and run it 24/7 at 200 watts to see what wears out.

I am going to sand down the metal parts and paint a coat of epoxy over them to protect the steel from the corrosive effects of the salt water. My plan is to run the chain directly through the water and make sure that it is always well oiled via daily lubrication.

The drive leg that will be used on the boat will be mostly water tight and I would like to use stainless steel, so I don't expect too much salt water to ever even touch the steel or the chain, but I want to get an idea of what the worse-case abuse would be. What if my fairing cover over the drive leg is smashed, or develops a bad leak and everything gets permanently soaked in sea water? I want to have some idea as to what would happen and how all of the parts would handle that kind of exposure.

I'm going to run some numbers through JavaProp and design my own prop. Rick Willoughby has been making his own props by bending stainless steel plate like Cory Schaffhausen's home made prop.

Las Vegas marathon

I am recovering fast from my sub par performance at Ironman Hawaii - in fact, if it wasn't for my bad ankle, I felt like I could have done another Ironman 4 or 5 days after finishing Kona (not that I would want to!). I think that shows you how hard I really DIDN'T go in Hawaii.

Helen and I are doing the Las Vegas Marathon on Dec 10th. I've been slowing getting my running back - starting with plenty of elliptical trainer, then moving some volume to the soft tread mill, and slowly doing more track running. I'm at the point now where 50% of my running is on the track and the other 50% is split between the elliptical and the tread mill. But, my ankle is healing, so I think I'll be OK for the marathon.

My goal is to break 3:20. My best marathon time is 3:15, but all I need to re-qualify for the Boston Marathon is a 3:30. The deal Helen and I have is we will only both go to Boston if we can both qualify. She just did the Portland marathon and missed her 3:50 qualifying time by 2 minutes! I think she just might do it in Vegas, so I better do it as well.

58. Plans for the prototype human powered ocean boat . Oct 29, 06

Sun, 29 Oct 2006 15:25:13 -0700

Plans for the prototype human powered ocean boat
(click on images to enlarge)

Steve Schleicher from Nimbus Kayaks in B.C. has kindly offered to donate a slightly damaged Hyak tandem kayak that I plan on modifying to build a prototype human powered ocean boat. I plan on using this boat to gain much needed experience in ocean conditions, and to learn more about exactly what the final trans-Atlantic version of the boat should be like.

The Nimbus Hyak kayak is 19' 3" long, 28" beam, 15.5" depth and weighs 79 lbs. The plan is to cut off the Hyak top and fabricate the ocean boat canopy as illustrated in the rendering at the top. I will probably use the Styrofoam section male-plug method that I used to build both the Rocket HPV fairing and a Critical Power streamliner canopy top.

Basically, I will take the computer model of the curved canopy top, slice it up into 2" thick sections and project and trace each section into 2" thick Styrofoam. I glue the Styrofoam sections together and sand down the stair-step edges. Then I cover the foam plug with a combination of fiberglass, carbon, Kevlar and some type of sandwich core material like nomex to make it all stiff and strong. Then I will build the walls and floors for the compartments, install the drive leg, rudder (not shown), hatches to access the front and rear compartment, seat, etc. Then finally I will bond the one-piece top onto the Hyak hull and then cut-out the retractable canopy mid section hatch. Then I cut out the windows and fill-in with Lexan. And finally, add hardware, paint and other details.

The prototype boat is based on a design from Rick Willoughby with help from Stevie Smith from the human powered circumnavigation expedition Expedition360 and Leven Brown from his trans Atlantic solo rowing expedition Columbus Run. The drive will be a standard bike cranks/chain ring / bottom bracket to a twisted chain that turns a small gear mounted to another bottom bracket which turns the prop. Warren Beuchamp has a fairly simple and tested drive that I plan to base my design on:

A faired fin made from carbon or fiberglass will cover the drive leg steel tube and extend to 3 feet below the boat bottom. The prop will be only about 1 foot below the boat bottom and the bottom of the fin will hold 20 pounds of lead ballast. I calculated where the center of weight was including the 20 pounds of ballast and my own weight, and positioned the seat / drive leg unit exactly in the middle of the boat, 115.5" from the stern. I assume that the front half and back half of the boat weight approximately the same. If my center of weight is slightly off, or if I want more weight in the stern, then I can install movable ballast weights under the floor boards in both the front and rear compartments to balance the boat as required.

Stability is maintained from both my weight being fairly low in the boat, as well as the 20 pound ballast 3 feet below the boat and some additional ballast weights under the floor boards of the bow and stern compartments. The weight of the ballast keel should allow me to stand up and lean slightly over the side of the boat without tipping over.

Capsizes are prevented by:

1. All three compartments are water tight - the front, rear AND cockpit when hatches are closed.

2. The weight of the ballast on the end of the drive leg 3 feet below the boat

3. Additional ballast below the floor boards in the front and rear compartments and possibly even the cockpit floor if required.

4. I will be strapped down to my seat with a harness so my body weight stays low in the boat.

If the boat capsizes, it should roll upright even if the cockpit hatch is open and the center cockpit compartment fills with water.

The rear and front compartments are both water-tight with accessible hatches in the bulk heads. There are two sealed compartments filled with expandable foam in the bow and stern. These should prevent sinking if the hull is damaged and all three compartments fill with water.

The rear compartment could be used to store supplies, or used as a resting or sleeping cabin. The front compartment is for storage of supplies. I'm not quite sure exactly how to gain access to the forward compartment because the drive leg is in the way. It might be possible to add hatches to the top, but I don't like the idea of having to crawl up on the nose to get something from down in the front compartment.

I also have not yet figured out how to store and deploy the sea parachute (sea anchor). It needs to be fastened to the bow, and again, I do not like the idea of crawling across the nose to attach the sea anchor every time it is required. The sea anchor is very important because it prevents the boat from being pushed backward when travelling into strong head winds and rough seas. I could stow the anchor in the cockpit area with cables running outside the boat to the nose, but I don't like the idea of cables running outside the boat. I really want to keep the outside shell aerodynamically clean.

The efficient aerodynamic shape of this boat is not so much for speed, but to minimize the effect of strong headwinds which are a big problem with an ocean crossing. Most human powered boats are not designed with aerodynamics in mind because of the slow average speeds of the boats which might be as high as only 10 kph. However, when pushing through a 50 kph headwind, the 'air speed' of the boat is 50 kph, and a smooth, aerodynamic shape will absolutely help stop the boat from being pushed backward.

I have shown the canopy hatch as hinged to the rear and to the front. I am not sure which configuration is better. If the hatch flips backward, then it allows access to the top of the bow, but won't allow access to the top of the stern. Perhaps there is a way to fasten the canopy hatch with 4 hinged clamps (any such thing??). When all 4 clamps are closed, the hatch is secure. Buy un-clamping 3 of them, the 4th will act as a hinge allowing the canopy hatch to rotate away to the front, the back or either side. Or it could be removed completely and tied down to the rear deck. I like the hinged clamp approach, as it is the most flexible, but I am not sure if any such hinged clamp exists. When the canopy hatch is open, it is held in place with two lockable, removable struts.

The seat will rotate forward to allow access to the rear hatch. Although, I can see now that I could not access the rear compartment with the canopy hatch closed, as there would be no way of rotating the seat out of the way unless I could stand up - even then, it will be tricky. I can figure that out later after I have build the boat and can experience exactly how much room I have in there to move around, and how that seat could be moved out of the way.

Since this boat is designed to be operated with the canopy hatch closed, Adequate ventilation is very important. If ocean conditions allow, the canopy top could be opened slightly to allow some air flow into the cockpit. Aside from that, I will install a fan with fresh air intake and exit vents for the cockpit compartment (and the sleeping compartment if it is going to be used for that). The fans will be powered by lithium polymer batteries wired to solar panels on the top of the bow and stern. The small window cut into the canopy hatch is purposely small to avoid solar heating.

I'm not sure how to calculate the solar panel power production / battery storage / power consumption for the electronic equipment. I'm also not sure exactly how much electronics will be required on the test boat - although, I would like to run everything I plan on taking to the Atlantic to make sure that it all works exactly the way it's supposed to. Maybe someone out there in AOG land can help?

Electronics for the test boat:

1. iPod, a small amp and 2 speakers
2. Ventilation fan (used often)
3. Iridium 9505A Satellite phone (Used at least once per day to transmit BLOG updates, etc)
4. Tripod Data Systems Recon PDA Tripod has agreed to sponsor the expedition by donating TWO of their very cool water proof, rugged PDAs! Watch for more news on this development in the future. It will run a GPS and navigation software (The software is being sponsored by Fugawi Marine ENC)
5. A small 12 vdc bilge pump to keep the cockpit area dry when the canopy hatch is open. This could be manually powered if need be.
6. Auto steering system. I would like to power a simple, small compass slaved auto steering mechanism

For typical day trip uses of the test boat, the Iridium sat phone and the PDA with GPS could probably be powered by replaceable AA batteries and therefore probably don't require power from the on-board rechargable batteries and solar panels. I would think the items that need constant power would be the bilge pump, the auto steering system, the vent fan and the amp/speakers. How much power? How many batteries? How many solar panels? Can anyone offer advice with this?

If the rear compartment is to be used to sleep or rest in, then I should install 2 port holes to allow for lookouts and to let in some natural light.

The drive leg is inserted and can be pulled out of a slot cut into the hull for transportation and beaching. Since the drive leg includes a 20 pound ballast (maybe more), I am not sure how to pull it out while on the water. The ballast required to keep me stable when standing up is the same ballast that I would be pulling out of the water. I'm not sure how to deal with this. Perhaps the drive leg could be designed to rotate forward into a bay in the bow compartment. Then a paddle could be used to row ashore or to a shallow dock. A long slot cut into the hull would disrupt the smooth surface of the hull bottom though - I don't like that. Maybe a worm gear with a hand crank to raise it up would work. Once it has been fully raised, it could be stowed in the forward compartment or laid down flat on the deck beside the cockpit seat.

Advice, comments, suggestions, feedback ??

57. Ironman Hawaii 2006 race report. Oct 23, 06

Sat, 28 Oct 2006 15:25:13 -0700

Ironman Hawaii 2006 race report

"You must learn from your past mistakes, but not lean on your past successes." Denis Waitley

I learned a valuable lesson at the Ironman world championships in Kona, Hawaii last week. That bit of wisdom is best summed up by a quote from Thomas Carlyle: "A man without a goal is like a ship without a rudder."

Aside from simply finishing the race, I didn't really have a goal. As I've said before, the challenge for the past 4 years has been to make it to Kona - to finish in the top 5 (in my division) at any Ironman qualifying race in North America. After 7 Ironman races in 4 years, I had finally achieved that goal, and finished 4th at Ironman Arizona in April this year with a time of 10 hours, 15 minutes. I was ecstatic - I had finally done it. I figured it out. I had qualified to compete head to head with the best athletes in the world at the Infamous Ironman world championships in Kona, Hawaii. Participating in the historic, exalted event in Hawaii was to be my reward.

But as Ralph Waldo Emerson said "The reward of a thing well done is to have done it." My reward was received way back in April when I succeeded in accomplishing my goal - the race in Hawaii itself was no reward. It was just a really long, brutally hot and painful 12 hour slug through 140.6 miles of desolate lava fields.

Why? Because I had no goal in Hawaii aside from simply finishing. And from the moment the cannon went off to signal the swim start at 7:00 am on Saturday morning in Kailua-Kona Bay, all I could think about was the finish line. That's no way to do an Ironman.

Dr. Richter of Johns Hopkins Medical School carried out an experiment that attempted to measure the motivational effect of having a goal. The experiments involved placing rats into cylinders of water that were thirty inches deep by eight inches wide. After a short time, half of the rats were momentarily rescued by being lifted out of the cylinder for a few seconds, then put right back into the water. The other half were not. The group that was given hope swam for more than three days. The other rats drowned almost immediately.

The rats that knew there was a chance of being rescued again had a goal - to stay alive until the next rescue. The other group had no goal, so they just gave up. I think that's kind of what happened to me in Kona on Saturday - I didn't really have a goal, so I sort of just checked out. That's a very painful way to race an Ironman. It makes for one VERY long, VERY difficult day!

I learned about the necessity of a worthy goal. We are motivated by challenges that are only slightly out of reach. Winning Ironman Hawaii wasn't even in the realm of possible outcomes, and placing somewhere in the middle of the pack was the best I could hope for. After all, I was racing with the best Ironman triathletes in the world. I figured that just making it to the finish line would provide me with enough incentive to enjoy the epic event, but evidently, I need more than that.

Here is how my day went:

I woke up at 4:30 am on Saturday morning which wasn't a problem at all because Hawaii is 4 hours ahead of my mountain standard time zone here in Calgary. 4:30 am Hawaii time is 8:30 am for my internal clock. We were staying at the Sheriton Hotel which was about a 15 minute drive to Kona, so Helen drove me down to the Kailua-Kona Pier and dropped me off. I got my race number stamped onto my arms by some friendly volunteers and proceeded to the bike racks to pump up my tires. One of the big differences between Ironman in Hawaii and any other Ironman that I have done in North America is the number of volunteers. A regular Ironman race is extremely well organized with hundreds of volunteers available everywhere you turn - really, I must hand it to Ironman corporations Graham Frasier who truly produces a world class event. Ironman in Kona takes that to an even higher level. Long lines of yellow tee-shirted volunteers waiting for their chance to guide you through the transition area, help you find stuff, answer questions, etc, etc. Basically, it all makes you feel RFS (real f*ing special).

Having lived 45 of my 45 years north of 50 degrees latitude, I found it very strange to be walking around outside at five o'clock in the morning wearing nothing more than my tri shorts. 80 degrees is pretty comfortable. On the mainland, 5:00 am Ironman mornings are ccccccold!!! I spent the hour or so hanging out in the swim transition area chatting it up with as many others as I could find. It really helps with the pre-race nerves to strike up a conversation and make a new friend. One of those friends was Steve from Ontario who did the race last year and was a sub-average swimmer like me. He told me to stay with him and he would show me where to start and not get all tangled up with a hundred other swimmers trying to swim over and under you.

The swim was a definite source of stress for me. I'm not the greatest swimmer and I have always really relied on some buoyancy aid from a wet suit or pull buoy in training or racing. Wetsuits are not allowed in Hawaii, so I basically had to re-learn how to swim without any buoyancy aids. I wasn't sure how it would feel to have to swim the full 3.8 km in the ocean without the buoyancy of a wet suit - plus having to deal with the awful pummeling typically enjoyed at an Ironman swim start.

Another issue was the much larger than normal surf since the earth quake which rocked Kona the week prior to Ironman. Out hotel room at the Sheriton looks out over the Pacific and the waves were crashing onto the rocks so hard they were splashing up onto hotel room balconies 2 stories higher! The hotel restaurant even had to close off a part of their deck due to dangerous surf conditions. I wasn't too sure how or if that was going to effect my swim. In a practice swim at the Kona Peir two days before Ironman, the waves breaking just to the left of the swim area were well over 15 feet high. I had no problems with the practice swim though - big swells, and some breakers on entry and exit, but I found that I could swim absolutely comfortably in it all. Thankfully, I had no issues at all with the rough conditions.

Luckily, the ocean conditions at 7:00 am on Ironman morning in the Kailua-Kona Bay were very calm. I followed Steve out into the water when the announcer told everyone to get in. The swim start is a deep water start which means you have to swim out to the end of the pier where the start line is, and tread water until the start cannon blows. We stood back on the beach for as long as we could before officials made us swim off to the start. Steve and I swam out to the far left side near the breaking waves and the start cannon blew just as we were nearing the start line, so that worked out well.

The swim goes into my books as one of the best Ironman swims ever. Not as far as my overall times goes, but as as to how comfortable and enjoyable it was. I don't think I ever even touched another swimmer the entire race. In fact, soon after the start, I worked my way all the way to the right hand buoys and swam a pretty tight loop without any interference.

About 15 minutes into my swim I started to learn my second lesson of the day:

Lesson 2: HUMILITY

The understatement of the year to to say that it is humbling when a guy with one leg passes you on the swim. And then you are passed by someone tethered to a guide and you realize it's the blind girl. Yep - I was passed by a blind girl AND a one-legged guy in the first 15 minutes of the swim. I rock.

When I reached the turn-around point - a sail boat that was 1.2 miles out into the bay, I took a quick glimpse of the time and discovered that it had taken me 40 minutes. 1:20 is about what I was expecting, so I was happy. However, there was a pretty strong current on the return leg and I ended up finishing the swim in a 1:33!! That's VERY, very slow.

After a slow four and a half minute transition, I eagerly headed out on the bike course. My goal on the bike was to average 220 watts on the SRM meter and hopefully finish with a overall average of 195 to 200 watts. My 198 watt bike ride at Ironman Arizona got me 2nd place on the bike in just over 5 hours. I figured that the same power average on the windy and somewhat hilly Kona course should get me around 5:15 or so.

Wrong.

I rolled over the bike finish tape at a disappointing 5:36. To be positive about this, I would have to summarize the bike leg as pretty darn brutal. At first, maintaining my 220 watts wasn't difficult, but after only 30 minutes I started having some problems. First, I was hiccuping uncontrollably and enjoying projectile vomiting about every 15 minutes or so. I threw up about 4 times in total on the bike, and I don't really have any idea as to the cause. Perhaps i swallowed too much salt water during the swim. No sure, but I couldn't keep down my Hammer Gel, so I started to drink the course coke and Gatorade at the half way point. My first half average watts was a decent 214, but slowed to an average of only 183 watts for the second half. I was pleasantly surprised to finish with an overall average of 198.8 watts which is a personal best for me, but really disappointed that it translated to a relatively slow average speed of only 20 mph. It wasn't typically windy, although we did have a bit of a headwind for the route back from Hawi. I think the rolling hills probably sucked out more speed than I originally thought. Another reason could be the amount of time during my return leg that I spent out of aero position. Since the climbs in Kona aren't super steep, I had planned on spending 99% of the time in aero position - just like other flat courses I've done. But i found near the end that I just was getting too fatigued to handle it, so I got up onto the hoods way more often than I planned on. I am sure this slowed me down.

The second half of the bike leg felt way too long. I thought it would never end. It was hot, I was sweating like crazy, I couldn't hold down any nutrition and I didn't have any energy. Just nothing at all - totally drained. This is when i realized that my goal of just finishing the race wasn't enough motivation to keep pushing the pace. I gave in to the urge to sit up and ease off the power at every opportunity.

As I headed back out of the transition area on the run, I was thrilled to see Helen, Cody and Krista as well as my sister Theresa, Pat and their two kids Nicky and Andy. They were all wearing their Critical Power tee-shirts to support me. That was the highlight of my day.

The run was long. long, long, long - very long. Endless. I had been concerned about my ability to run at all - in fact it had been almost 3 weeks since I had run at all! I had developed this pain in my left ankle that I was afraid was a stress fracture so I had stopped all running until Ironman in the hope that I would heel in time for the big race. After 4 precautionary Advil before the start of the run, my ankle didn't bother me at all. A bit of limping and pain to begin with, but that went away after an hour and didn't return.

The HumblingOfGreg.com continued. In the first 15 minutes of the run I was passed by a 60 year old man. Our ages are inked on the back of our calves so you can see who you are passing, and who is passing you. In my case, it was a bunch of 50 year old women, and this 60 year old man. I just thought - wow. I am really honored to be competing with the best athletes in the world! This is really humbling. Then a 67 year old guy passed me. I rock.

It got dark later and under the new moon on the isolated and desolate queen K highway, it got very lonely. Every square mile of my body was telling me to stop and walk, but I wouldn't give in. Not because I wanted to finish with the best time I could, but because I wanted to end the misery as quickly as possible. I knew from experience that a 15 hour day feels twice as long as a 12 hour day, and I wanted to get to that finish line as fast as possible. In my mind, I kept searching for reasons to keep on - reasons to run faster, reasons to not stop, or reasons to not walk. I decided I needed to focus on something immediate that I was looking forward to. All I could think of was sushi and my bed. Not sushi in my bed. So that's what got me through the run - the thought of my comfy bed and all the sushi I could eat. Sushi is salty and by now I was probably becoming a bit sodium deficient. When you get that way, your body craves salty foods.

After a very slow, lackluster 4 hour, 45 minute marathon, I finally made it to the finish line shoot. Music blasting, people shouting and clapping and the announcer calling out my name, I flung across the finish line and almost fainted into the arms of my catcher. I was done and I was trashed. My finish time was 12 hours, 4 minutes which places me 125th out of 167 in my 45 to 49 year old age group. That really does kind of suck - bottom 25%, but oh well. I really was honored to be competing with the best in the world. Looking at the final results, this really puts the caliber of competitors I was against into perspective:

* six 60-64 year old guys beat me
* one 65 year old guy and one 66 year old guy beat me
* eighteen women my age finished before I did
* seven 50-54 year old women beat me
* four athletes competing in the handicapped division beat me

To summarize, the Hawaii Ironman for me, was "world-class tough". First there was the oppressive heat and humidity - it just sucks the life right out of you. All you want to do is sit in a lawn chair and drink Mai Tais. Second, I had just gotten over TWO colds in the previous month and my training took a huge hit. I was not going into this race with the kind of training volume typical of previous races. Third, I hadn't run for almost 3 weeks prior to Hawaii due to my ankle injury. That's not the best way to go into an A priority race. And finally, I didn't really have a lofty goal for the day aside from just finishing, so I didn't really go into the race with the appropriate mental arsenal required to motivate me to achieve my best.

I have always said that one of the biggest reasons I BLOG is to have some structured way to plan my life. My BLOGS are detailed transcripts of what actually happened. It is an INVALUABLE TOOL to be able to look back and learn from previous mistakes or to build on previous successes. Our memories are short and unreliable. The human brain has a tendency to build up our successes and minimize our failures. You learn more from your mistakes than your successes, so recording everything that happened - the good, the bad and the downright embarrassing is an ESSENTIAL part of any successful plan.

Now I need to consider what I learned from this experience, and sort out some goals for future Ironman endeavors. My next goal for an Ironman qualifying race is to win my age group. In Arizona, I finished at 10:15, 4th in my age group and was only a couple of seconds behind the third place finisher. My friend Myles Gaulin from Calgary finished in second place with a sub 10 hour time of around 9:52. The winner of IM AZ 06 was just in front of Myles. That means that I need to shave about 25 minutes off my time and that's not going to be easy.

First of all, I need to start working on my swimming. My 1:14 swim time at IM AZ was 84th out of 205 in my division which is only slightly better than average at top 40%. Most of the top guys in my division are swimming close to an hour. If I can make some serious improvements in my swimming, I could potentially shave up to 10 minutes off my total time.

Second, I know I can put in a faster marathon. My run time at AZ was 3:50 which was 7 out of 205 in my division. That's pretty good, but I know I can do better than that. I spent the first hour of the marathon limping on a sore foot from my bike shoes. If it wasn't for that, I really think I could have done at least 3:40 - that's another 10 minutes off my time.

And, if I qualify for Hawaii again, then my goal will be to finish above the half-way point in my division. That's somewhere around 11 hours which I should be able to do. If I work on my swimming over the winter, perhaps I could get it down to a more reasonable 1:15 for Hawaii, a slightly better bike at 5:30 and an average 4 hour marathon would put me at 10:45 or so.

Mahalo,
Your freshly humbled and re-goalified Greg.

--
24 hour human powered world record
650 miles

human powered mega-meter world record
23.1 hours

The Adventures of Greg BLOG:
http://www.adventuresofgreg.com/
.................................................

56. Ironman Hawaii in 1 week and feather weight Greg vs heavy weight Greg. Oct 14, 06

Sat, 14 Oct 2006 15:25:13 -0700

Ironman Hawaii in 1 week and feather weight Greg vs heavy weight Greg.

(left) year 2000 - about 200 pounds / (right) year 2006 - 148 pounds

This is pretty funny. We found an old family video of when I was 200 pounds about 6 years ago, and I thought it would be fun to show it to you and compare how my body type has completely changed in the last 6 years. The scale read 148 pounds this morning which is lighter than I've been since high school.

Obviously, I was weight training when I was 200 pounds, but let me tell you that I was NOT healthy. I got sick all the time and every minor cold virus turned into a 5 week bronchitis ordeal. I used an asthma puffer almost every day to control my asthma which I had been suffering with since I was 5 years old. Plus, I had developed a disc bulge which caused sciatica pains in my piriformus and down my leg.

After 6 years of training for Ironman triathlons, my Asthma is completely gone. Also gone are my allergies and I get sick about once a year now and it lasts only for about a week. When I am under 160 pounds, my sciatica disappears. In my opinion based on my experience, being lean and focusing physical energy expenditure toward aerobic fitness rather than the development of copious amounts of lean body tissue is a far healthier way to live.

I know plenty of other latecomer triathletes and marathon runners who have said goodbye to life-long health issues due to a reduction in body fat and a dedication to aerobic exercise. My program is pretty simple: At least an hour of aerobic exercise per day (work your way up to 1.5 to 2 hours per day), eat as natural and healthy as you can, try to do a 3 to 5+ hour endurance activity once per week and stay away from unnecessary medical treatments and medication. It's about as close to a fountain of youth as you can get, and it's attainable by almost everyone.

The Hawaii Ironman is next Saturday - only 7 days away! We leave for Kona on Wednesday and I am really, really looking forward to it. My goal for the last 3 years has been to qualify for Ironman world championships in Kona and now that I have succeeded, I just want to enjoy my race in Hawaii. A personal best of 10.25 hours in the heat, humidity and winds of Kona is really unlikely, and a top finish in my division just isn't going to happen, so I'm not going to stress about having the perfect race.

I've developed a bit of an ankle injury which could make a long day even longer, but that's OK. My only goal next Saturday is to cross the finish line within the 16 hours they give you. And smile a lot.

The 2006 Hawaii Ironman can be watched live at Ironmanlive.com on Saturday, Oct 21

55. Thinking outside the box - the human powered semi-sub Oct 9, 06

Thu, 1 Oct 2009 08:58:19 -0700

Thinking outside the box - the human powered semi-sub

I got an email the other day from Anthony Davis with an idea that I thought could have some merit. So, I decided to model it up quickly to see what it would look like.

Human Powered Semi-submersible

The idea is that the boat would be mostly submerged with the water line almost as high as the deck. The rounded top would be the only part of the boat that would be above the water line. A clear dome covers the pedalling station which would be completely water tight. Fresh air would have to be pumped into the boat from a snorkel or something.

I based the concept model from the existing model of Concept1, but I think it would be better to design a rounded hull (more submarine-like) than something that is more kayak shaped like what is shown.

Pros:

1. Drastically reduced windage. The low, aerodynamic profile is far less likely to be pushed backward while moving into a head wind.

2. Stability. This bottom heavy design would be fairly stable and almost impossible to capsize. Also breaking waves would be less likely to push the boat over, sink it or capsize it.

3. Dry. The pilot should be able to pedal during very rough ocean conditions because the sealed capsule will keep every thing dry. Breaking waves will simply wash over the curved canopy dome.

Cons:

1. Reduced windage. The aerodynamic profile would also mean that the boat is less likely to be pushed forward with following winds.

2. Heat. If the canopy top is not meant to open, it could get very hot in there.

3. Safety. If the is even the smallest leak, there would be no way to get the water out. Even if the front and rear compartments were water tight to prevent sinking, if the pedalling compartment were to fill up with water, it couldn't be drained with scuppers because it is lower than the water line.

4. This concept is so low in the water, that there would be no way of opening the top to get fresh air, or to climb out and stand on top.

5. If the fresh air pump or vents were to malfunction, and the canopy top can't be opened, the occupant could suffocate!

There are probably too many cons for this concept to be considered safe for an ocean crossing. I think the existing idea behind my current design - Concept1 takes the pros of this idea and eliminates the cons. It's smooth, aerodynamic and covered for less drag through headwinds, and a dry cockpit during rough seas. Plus it's high enough above the water line to allow the canopy top to be opened during calm conditions, or to get out onto the top.

Concept 1 with the canopy top down

Concept 1 with the canopy top open. (Boy that water line still looks pretty high. I can see that the slightest wave would easily flood the cockpit. hmmm....

54. Unusual ocean crossings Oct 1, 06

Thu, 1 Oct 2009 08:58:19 -0700

Unusual Ocean Crossings

This really puts my somewhat pedestrian human powered Atlantic crossing objective into perspective. If you think crossing an ocean with a row boat or pedal boat is crazy, then check out what these guys have done!

Benoit Lecomte SWAM across the Atlantic in 1998

On 16 July 1998, Texan Benoit Lecomte set out from Cape Cod to swim across the Atlantic ocean. He was accompanied by a 40 foot sailboat and swam in an electrically protected cage. He swam 6 to 8 hours a day and used the crawl stroke, switching occasionally to a mono fin and using an undulating dolphin kick to carry him over the 5600 km. 72 days later, on September 28, he swam ashore at Quiberon, France.

His web site: www.swimatlantic.com is no longer active, but I found these links:

Legendinc.com

didyouknow.com

Ed Gillette paddled a kayak solo 2200 miles from California to Hawaii in 1987

64 days - ouch! Bad weather and he almost starved, but he made it.

His crossing was in ancient times, so he doesn't have a web site, but I found a couple of stories about Ed's crossing here:

Canoe & Kayak magazine article

Quintanna.com

Peter Bray paddled a kayak solo 3000 miles across the North Atlantic in 2001

After a failed attempt in 2000, Peter Bray became the first man in history to kayak across the Atlantic ocean. It took him 76 days (ouch again!) And he wrote a book about his adventure:

Amazon.com

Paddler magazine article

Peter Bray's web site

Raphaela Le Gouvello solo windsurfed across the 3900 mile Indian Ocean in 2006

This 45 year old veterinarian single handedly windsurfed her specially designed live-a-board wind surf board 3900 miles from Australia to Reunion Island in 60 days. And if that isn't enough, Raphaela also windsurfed across the Atlantic ocean in 2000, the Mediterranean sea in 2002 and the Pacific ocean in 2003!!

Raphaela's web site

Legendinc.com

didyouknow.com

Anne Quemere solo wind kited across the North Atlantic in 2006

In June of 2006, Anne Quemere became the first person to wind kite across an ocean. But before she did that, she solo rowed the Atlantic in 2003, and then the North Atlantic in 2004. Wow.

Anne Quemere's web site

Legendinc.com

didyouknow.com

Jason Lewis and Stevie Smith's human powered Atlantic, and Pacific ocean crossings

This list would be incomplete if I did not included Jason Lewis and Stevie Smith's historic around the world by pedal power expedition. On board their pedal powered boat Moksha, Jason and Stevie pedaled across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans starting in Currently, Jason is3/4 of the way around the globe.

Stevies book: Pedaling to Hawaii

Amazon.com

expedition360.com

Dwight Collins pedaled his human powered boat across the North Atlantic in 1992

It took Dwight only 40 days which still stands as a solo human powered trans Atlantic record. He did it by pedaling an average of 19.5 hours per day. There is very little information available on Dwights crossing, and I am doing some research to see if I can dig up some details. I think it is very pertinent to what I am attempting to do, as it is the fastest W to E Atlantic human powered Atlantic crossing in history - even including the rowed crossings. Dwight deserves his due recognition for that accomplishment.

Axax news (second photo)

humanpoweredboats.com (first photo)

Ken-ichi Horie pedaled his human powered boat "Malts Mermaid" across the Pacific from Hawaii to Japan

Kenichi Horie, a 60-year-old sailor from Osaka, Japan, pedaled Malts Mermaid from Honolulu to Kenoshi, Japan. There is very little information available on Kenichi's crossing, but I did find some info on a solar boat Pacific crossing in 1996 that took him 138 days!

solar boat crossing

humanpoweredboats.com

"The Son of Town Hall" - a scrap raft built from the streets of New York junk crosses the Atlantic ocean

In 1998, Papa and Aurelia Neutrino sailed from Newfoundland to Ireland in 60 days aboard their raft made from junk salvaged from the streets of New York city.

The whole story here

"Tangora" - a Norwegian copy of the famous Kon-tiki raft voyage across the Pacific

Following the footsteps of Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl and his Kon-Tiki expedition, the Tangaroa raft left port in Peru April 28, 2006 on its long journey across the Pacific Ocean to Tahiti. Heyerdahl crossed the worlds largest ocean on his balsa wood raft in 1947, and the Tangaroa's crew of six men, including Heyerdahl's grandson, explored the same route.

The Tangoroa Blog is here, but it's difficult to follow due ti multiple language translations

Atlantic crossing in a boat make of popsicle sticks

This isn't human powered, but It's kind of neat. Rob McDonald, a former Hollywood stunt man now living in the Netherlands launched his greatest project recently: a 45-foot replica Viking ship made of 15 million wooden popsicle sticks and more than a ton of glue. His route is the long way across the Atlantic - from Europe to Greenland to Northern Canada and south along the North American coast to Florida. He is scheduled to leave soon.

There is some additional information on the expedition at the site of his sponsor

53. more safety stuff Sept 29, 06

Fri, 29 Sep 2006 08:58:19 -0700

I don't want to dwell on this danger assessment topic, but I have a couple more thoughts.

First of all, I need to stress that this ocean crossing idea is still just a concept. Something that I will endeavor to work toward, but an adventure that I am definitely NOT going to commit myself to.

My immediate plan that I AM going forward with is to build a test boat which will be based on a sea kayak - sort of a scaled down version of Concept 1. I will use the test boat to gain some badly needed ocean experience by touring around the island off Vancouver Island, starting with the Glenmore reservoir here in Calgary and branching out from there (baby steps). Rick Willoughby and I even discussed the possibility of trying for the 24 hour HPB distance record with the test boat if it was efficient enough - a possibility. If the test boat works well in the ocean, I would like to build a second boat for Helen so we can do some ocean touring off Vancouver island together.

I'm going to totally play it by ear and we'll see where things so.

That's exactly what I did when I wanted to set a trans Canada speed record by powering a streamliner across the country. In the end, I was not happy with the risks, and it turned out to be something that I really did not want to do. So I re-worked the original concept and envisioned the 24 hour record attempt.

I've got something I want to add to the whole ocean crossing danger risk analysis that I did yesterday. I've seen some sour faces regarding my new idea. Some think it is dangerous and foolish.

Do you want to know what I think is dangerous and foolish?

60% of North Americans are over weight. Described by the World Health Organization as an "escalating epidemic", obesity is "one of the greatest neglected public health problems of our time with an impact on health which may well prove to be as great as smoking." Being overweight leads to many serious medical problems like high blood pressure, high cholesterol, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and many other health related issues.

Now check out my original risk assessment of an ocean crossing:

Cause of Death:

Heart disease 20 %
Cancer 14.2 %
Stroke 4.1 %
Ocean Rowing 2.1 %
Vehicle accident 1.1%

Heart disease, cancer and stroke are WAY bigger killers than rowing an ocean. FAR more dangerous than an ocean crossing, flying a small plane, mountain climbing, riding a motorcycle or even sky diving is sitting on your ass watching TV eating donuts! And currently over 60% of North Americans see fit to 'live life on the edge' taking these crazy risks each and every day!

That's simply messed up man. I'm not saying that I won't wake up with **cancer tomorrow, or suffer a stroke next week, but I sure am FAR less likely to be inflicted by these diseases because of the way I choose to live my life. A choice I made a LONG time ago. I want to stay healthy and ALIVE for my wife, kids, family and friends.

I want to enjoy every moment of my life and life it to the fullest. Staying healthy and fit is the best way to ensure that I can continue to do that and be an example to my kids and others that you can do the same.

We all need to live life to the fullest. Frankly, I don't see how that would happen at 300 pounds between visits to the Dr.s office.

gk

52. Ocean Rowing Safety Sept 27, 06

Wed, 13 Sep 2006 08:58:19 -0700

Ocean rowing is much safer than I had originally calculated. I changed my method of analysis, found some 'exposure hours' fatality data and the more accurate comparison is that Ocean rowing is slightly more dangerous than motorcycling and safer than general flying or skydiving.

Since I made my human powered ocean crossing announcement, I got a few comments with regard to my analysis of the risks involved. National Geographic Magazine published this a list of death risk from various activities and I calculated the risk of dying during an ocean crossing and added it to that list:

Cause of Death:

Heart disease 20 %
Cancer 14.2 %
Stroke 4.1 %
Ocean Rowing 2.1 %
Vehicle accident 1.1%
Suicide .8 %
Falling .45 %

Some of you felt that the comparison is not valid because time-frames for the various death causes are different. For example, if an ocean crossing takes 50 days, my chances of dying during that time of heart disease is not 20%.

I understand the math and statistics issue with regard to the chance of death comparison, but the risks as presented by National Geographic in that study, also mix frames of reference. For example, they include riding a motorcycle, flying a small aircraft, and swimming in the comparison, even though, most people don't ever fly a small airplane, or ride a motorcycle daily. And, if they did fly a plane, say, 5000 hours, their chance of dying of a heart attack is probably not 20%.

After thinking about this more, I decided to take a closer look at the risks of crossing an ocean by human power, and I think it's actually much safer than I originally thought. Follow my analysis and logic through here, and let me know what you think:

First of all, of the 6 people lost at sea, I decided to remove 3 of them because they were prior to 1981 and are considered by the Ocean Rowing Society as "Historic Ocean Rows".

The Ocean Rowing Society on Historic Ocean Rows: "The first 12 completed oceanrows were all undertaken without water makers, without sat phones, without GPS, EPIRB and liferafts. In fact, to quote Geoff Allum : "The first oceanrows were done under conditions that were not much different from the days of Columbus"

It is certain that at least some of the first 3 ocean rowing fatalities could have been avoided with modern day satellite communications gear, Argos and a water maker.

If we look closer at the remaining 3 fatalities (modern day):

Eugene Smurgis was caught in some rough seas just off the coast of France in 1993 very near rocks and the coast line. Eugene was attempting to row around the world and had logged 3510 miles in this, his Atlantic west to east expedition lasting 131 days.

Peter Bird was also attempting to row around the world. Peter's body was never found and they do not know the exact cause of his death, His boat eventually washed ashore in 1996 during his Pacific crossing and provided us with no clues as to the cause of his death. Bird had logged 15,391 miles taking 545 days at sea.

In 2001, Dr. Nenad Belic was attempting to row from North America To Europe from the West to the East. Dr Belic's EPIRB was activated on September 30 after 2618 miles and 151 days at sea from a position 230 miles west of Ireland. An RAF helicopter located the beacon but there was no sign either of the boat or Dr Belic. Kenneth Crutchlow of London's Ocean Rowing Society advised that W-E crossings scheduled to arrive in autumn should be avoided. The boat eventually washed ashore and was upside down and flooded with a hatch broken.

Of these 3 deaths, 2 were the more dangerous Atlantic west to east route, and 1 was in the Pacific. My planned route is Atlantic East-West in warmer waters and less severe seas.

I downloaded the statistics from the Ocean Rowing Society and decided to look at the number of deaths PER day at sea. I was going to use 'per mile rowed', but it is the total time spent on the ocean that is related to risk, not really the miles covered during that time. For example, I could sit still in the middle of the ocean for 50 days and face the exact same risks as someone who traveled across the Atlantic in 50 days.

Here are the numbers:

Number of miles rowed across oceans since 1982 = 660,866.7083
Number of days at sea = 12,474
Number of deaths = 3
Number of days at sea for every death = 4158
My crossing expectation: = 50 days
Number of times I would have to cross the Atlantic in order to approach 100% fatality chance = 83
% chance of a fatality on my 50 day crossing = 1.2 %

It turns out that for every 4158 days spent at sea, there is one death. If my ocean crossing takes 50 days, then I would stand a 1.2 % chance of dying during that 50 day crossing.

To make a comparison to more common dangerous activities, I found some data on Fatalities per million exposure hours. To convert the units, I calculated that there is 1 death per every 99,792 exposure hours to ocean rowing which works out to 10.02 fatalities per Million ocean rowing exposure hours. Here is how they compare:

Fatalities per Million Exposure Hours:

Skydiving 128.71
General Flying 15.58
Ocean rowing 10.02
Motorcycling 8.80
Scuba Diving 1.98
Living 1.53
Swimming 1.07
Snowmobiling .88
Motoring .47
Water skiing .28
Bicycling .26
Airline Flying .15
Hunting .08

Data compiled by Failure Analysis Associates, Inc.

Ocean rowing is slightly more dangerous than motorcycling and safer than general flying or skydiving.

51. Human Powered Ocean Crossing Boat "Concept 1" Sept 13, 06

Wed, 13 Sep 2006 08:58:19 -0700

the human powered trans atlantic expedition
Boat concept "Concept 1"

50. Human Powered Ocean Crossing Boat ideas Sept 9, 06

Sat, 9 Sep 2006 08:56:47 -0700

the human powered trans atlantic expedition
some early boat ideas

49. Web site overhaul and NEW ADVENTURE! Sept 8, 06

Fri, 8 Sep 2006 09:52:58 -0700

the human powered trans atlantic expedition
once in a while, you have to do something that scares the crap out of you

This is insane, but I feel really, really inspired. Ever since following Mick Bird's around the world rowing expedition, I have felt that this was something that I needed to do someday. 3000 miles across the Atlantic ocean by pedal boat should take from 45 to 100 days. It will be by far, the most difficult challenge I have ever considered.

48. Critical Power featured in Popular Science Magazine!. Sept 16, 06

Tue, 5 Sep 2006 09:52:58 -0700

Popular Science Magazine called me shortly after the record and expressed interest in featuring a photo of Critical Power in the October, 2006 issue. They needed a higher resolution version of the side-view image of me in the Critical Power frame by the end of the day. I got my sister in-law Jennifer Armand to run over and shoot a new image with her Cannon digital SLR, and I sent the file back to the photo editor with a mock-up which included some of Bens 'action' shots from the Eureka track. They liked the idea and ended up publishing my insert concept including Bens awesome photography.

What I wasn't expecting, was the small insert on the COVER!! There is a small photo of me and Critical Power on the lower left hand side of the cover that says "NEW WORLD RECORD" !! How cool is that!

This must be my 15 minutes of fame, although you would never know it. Popular Science magazine is read by over 7 million people, yet the AdventuresOfGreg web site which is prominently featured in the pop sci article hasn't received anymore than it's typical daily share of traffic.

The Universe is one strange place... You know, I clearly remember the very first time I saw a human powered streamliner. It was on the cover of Popular Science - The Dexter Hysol Cheetah HPV set a new human powered sprint speed record by going 68.73 mph. I remember being absolutely amazed by the photo of the Cheetah on the cover. I had never seen anything like that in my life. It was so cool! I immediately thought that someday I wanted to build one of those and set a speed record myself.

Full circle hey? Not only did I build a human powered streamliner and set a world record with it, but the cosmos thought it fitting that my original inspiration be FULLY realized, by sticking me on the cover of Popular Science.

47. World Record Full Report. Sept 5, 06

Tue, 5 Sep 2006 09:52:58 -0700

What a summer it has been! Wow. Definitely one for the record books - literally! It all started in April with Ironman Arizona where I totally surprised myself with a 4th place finish in my division and a prized slot for the Ironman World Championships in Kona, Hawaii - a goal I have had for many years. It was a dream come true!

46. WORLD RECORD! No human has travelled further under their own power in one day than Greg Kolodziejzyk. July 19, 06

Wed, 19 Jul 2006 09:51:23 -0700

New HPV 24 hour world distance record! No human has travelled further under their own power in one day than Greg Kolodziejzyk.July 19

45. 24 hour attempt in the news, wind worries, and some last minute details. July 11, 06

Tue, 11 Jul 2006 09:51:02 -0700

24 hour attempt in the news, wind worries, and some last minute details. July 11, 06
To view photos and videos of todays update, please visit the web site at w w w dot adventures of greg dot com

44. STREETliner practice, and the record attempt in less than 10 days! July 9, 06

Sun, 9 Jul 2006 21:14:31 -0700

STREETliner practice, and the record attempt in less than 10 days!

July 9 ,06

This Podcast was created from the adventures of greg blog. To view photos and videos of todays update, please visit the web site at w w w dot adventures of greg dot com

I've been riding Critical Power Streetliner quite a bit - especially when it's windy and it's ALWAYS windy in Calgary. Except recently, of course. It's been very calm, so I haven't had any really great chances to practice handling the streamliner while getting buffeted by side winds and gusts.

I finished my last long fast century on Friday. I took the M5 back out to High River and headed south on the flat and fast highway to Fort McCleod, AB, then turned around and blasted back. My total ride time was 4 hours, 38 minutes and my total time not including 1 stop was 4 hours, 30 minutes. Unfortunately, I had to stop at the Claresholm 7-11 for water, and as luck would have it, I was stuck in a line-up of slurpie buyers and some lady buying up all the lotto tickets. I was really trying to limit my time off the bike, and was hoping to nail a 4.5 hour century including stops.

I am happy though - this was my hardest, longest ride to date. 200 watts total average which required an average of 225 watts for the majority of peddling time. The winds really picked up during the second half and I am certain that they slowed me down some. I also elected to skip my second water stop and ran out 90 minutes before I reached my car. That was one tough 90 minutes! Dumb, dumb, dumb.

I was checking out some Tour du France SRM files from this years tour. During Jens Voigt's breakaway on July 4, stage 3, he averaged 300 watts for 4.5 hours!!! Compare that to my measley 200 to put my effort into a rather humbling perspective.

.

The record attempt is 10 days away!!!

I'm feeling very ready. After looking through all of my SRM training data files, I feel like I am in pretty good physical condition for the record. This 3 month training cycle I expended 55,940 Kilojoules compared to 25,970 Kj before the Alabama attempt at the end of 2005. Not only was my total training power volume greater, my total time spent training was as well - 115 hours compared to 65, and my average power per hour training was also higher - 486 Kj per hour for this cycle, compared to 397 Kj per hour in 2005. I was also more efficient this go-round with an average heart rate of 110 bpm producing 89 additional watts per hour average than my 108 bpm heart rate produced last year.

I have incorporated way more intensity in this training cycle - a total of 4.24 hours spent above 220 watts compared to .48 hours last year.

The best indicator of my fitness is the average amount of power I produce on an ultra long ride. My recent Calgary to Jasper ride of 14.5 hours resulted in an overall average of 130 watts and 107 bpm heart rate. This compares to an 11.5 hour ride last year where I averaged 127 watts with 116 bpm heart rate.

My weight is up to 157 pounds compared to 154 last year which could mean that I am producing less power per pound of body weight which isn't great. However, I will probably drop a couple of pounds from my fat loading program that I start tomorrow. (click on the tab at the bottom of that page: "food, water, ...")

We are looking into setting up a temporary web cam at Redwood Acres race track in Eureka, CA to broadcast the 24 hour record attempt. I'm not sure if we can make that happen because internet access is available only in the office which is a fair distance away from the track side.

However, I will make an attempt to issue hourly updates via my BLOG mail list. If you want to follow my progress, then make sure you have signed up to receive these BLOG updates via my email announce list.

To receive email updates during the 24 hour record attempt, submit your name and email address here:

43. A speed and watts test with the Critical Power Streetliner, my 400 km training ride, and a new HPV hour record! July 4, 06

Tue, 4 Jul 2006 21:14:31 -0700

A speed and watts test with the Critical Power Streetliner, my 400 km training ride, and a new HPV hour record!

July 4 ,06

This Podcast was created from the adventures of greg blog. To view photos and videos of todays update, please visit the web site at w w w dot adventures of greg dot com

I've been riding Critical Power Streetliner quite a bit - especially when it's windy and it's ALWAYS windy in Calgary. Except recently, of course. It's been very calm, so I haven't had any really great chances to practice handling the streamliner while getting buffeted by side winds and gusts.

I finished my last long fast century on Friday. I took the M5 back out to High River and headed south on the flat and fast highway to Fort McCleod, AB, then turned around and blasted back. My total ride time was 4 hours, 38 minutes and my total time not including 1 stop was 4 hours, 30 minutes. Unfortunately, I had to stop at the Claresholm 7-11 for water, and as luck would have it, I was stuck in a line-up of slurpie buyers and some lady buying up all the lotto tickets. I was really trying to limit my time off the bike, and was hoping to nail a 4.5 hour century including stops.

I am happy though - this was my hardest, longest ride to date. 200 watts total average which required an average of 225 watts for the majority of peddling time. The winds really picked up during the second half and I am certain that they slowed me down some. I also elected to skip my second water stop and ran out 90 minutes before I reached my car. That was one tough 90 minutes! Dumb, dumb, dumb.

I was checking out some Tour du France SRM files from this years tour. During Jens Voigt's breakaway on July 4, stage 3, he averaged 300 watts for 4.5 hours!!! Compare that to my measley 200 to put my effort into a rather humbling perspective.

.

The record attempt is 10 days away!!!

I'm feeling very ready. After looking through all of my SRM training data files, I feel like I am in pretty good physical condition for the record. This 3 month training cycle I expended 55,940 Kilojoules compared to 25,970 Kj before the Alabama attempt at the end of 2005. Not only was my total training power volume greater, my total time spent training was as well - 115 hours compared to 65, and my average power per hour training was also higher - 486 Kj per hour for this cycle, compared to 397 Kj per hour in 2005. I was also more efficient this go-round with an average heart rate of 110 bpm producing 89 additional watts per hour average than my 108 bpm heart rate produced last year.

I have incorporated way more intensity in this training cycle - a total of 4.24 hours spent above 220 watts compared to .48 hours last year.

The best indicator of my fitness is the average amount of power I produce on an ultra long ride. My recent Calgary to Jasper ride of 14.5 hours resulted in an overall average of 130 watts and 107 bpm heart rate. This compares to an 11.5 hour ride last year where I averaged 127 watts with 116 bpm heart rate.

My weight is up to 157 pounds compared to 154 last year which could mean that I am producing less power per pound of body weight which isn't great. However, I will probably drop a couple of pounds from my fat loading program that I start tomorrow. (click on the tab at the bottom of that page: "food, water, ...")

We are looking into setting up a temporary web cam at Redwood Acres race track in Eureka, CA to broadcast the 24 hour record attempt. I'm not sure if we can make that happen because internet access is available only in the office which is a fair distance away from the track side.

However, I will make an attempt to issue hourly updates via my BLOG mail list. If you want to follow my progress, then make sure you have signed up to receive these BLOG updates via my email announce list.

42. 162 speed M5 and Critical Power Streetliner doors and foot holes.June 26, 06

Mon, 26 Jun 2006 21:14:31 -0700

162 speed M5 and Critical Power Streetliner doors and foot holes.June 26 ,06

This Podcast was created from the adventures of greg blog. To view photos and videos of todays update, please visit the web site at w w w dot adventures of greg dot com

162 speed M5 and Critical Power Streetliner doors and foot holes.

My trusty M5 has been upgraded to a 162 speed with the installation of a Shimano XT 9 speed mid drive (jack shaft, intermediary drive, intermediate drive, or a whateveryouwanttocallit drive). The reason is mostly because with the standard gearing set-up and when the Streetliner fairing is on, I was in my fastest gear and spinning like nuts.

There are easier ways to add gear inches starting with simply adding a larger chain ring in the front. The first problem with this idea, is that the Shimano XT mountain bike rear derailleur only has enough capacity for the 53 tooth front ring. If the front ring was any bigger, I would need to build a custom cage for the rear derailleur to take up the excess chain when using the larger cogs on the rear. I could go smaller with my rear cassette range, but I would lose my mountain climbing 34 tooth cog, and since this is a 'street'-liner, and intended to be used on the average roads around here, I will need to climb hills. In fact, I'll need an easier hill climbing gear due to the fact that the bike will now weighs much more with the fairing on.

The other idea was to replace the rear hub with a geared hub - a planetary gear system like a Shimano Nexus or a Rohloff The problem with that idea is that I would not be able to put my Zipp disc wheel on because it has a hub bonded into the carbon.

A third idea was to go with a geared bottom bracket, but then I would lose my SRM, so that wasn't an option.

A 9 speed mid drive has many advantages. The long floppy chain is now gone - it's a nice, tight compact system. I have WAY more gears to choose from. I can achieve any cadence I want for any kind of road grade and speed - a nice feature. I have PLENTY of upper end gearing. Way more than I would ever need even on the steepest down hills. And lastly, a mid drive could offer easier mountain climbing gears - larger range on BOTH the upper and lower end.

The disadvantage to a mid drive is the loss in mechanical efficiency due to all the extra chain routing and gears. Using the SRM, I was able to measure that it took 6 watts just to turn the whole system over - not including the wheel. That is, when I am freely coasting down a hill, and the SRM is zeroed out by spinning BACKWARDS, I require 6 watts just to spin the peddles around. That's not really as high as it seems because zeroing by peddling backwards tends to set the SRM to about 2 to 3 watts higher than actual. The typical way I set the zero offset is by zeroing it while spinning forward freely (while coasting down a hill). The proper way to do this (and I will try it within the next couple of days) would be to set the zero offset with the long chain (no mid drive) while spinning forward. This would set the measurement at ZERO watts when freely spinning. Then I would replace the long chain with the mid drive and freely spin the cranks and watch to see how many additional watts were required just to move the mid drive around. This would give me the additional 'cost' in watts to turn the mid drive system compared to the standard M5 long chain drive. I am thinking it will probably be about 4 watts - not too bad.

I considered many possible locations for the mid drive and selected a spot just under the seat back. The best place for it would be to take the place of the two chain pulleys that route the M5 chain under the seat to the rear wheel. Since one of these chain pulleys is on the tension side of the chain, this is already contributing to a mechanical efficiency loss, so replacing it with a mid drive would make sense. After considering this option, I decided that I couldn't do it because the derailleur would hand down too far below the bottom of the streetliner fairing shell and interfere with my right foot getting in and out.

The mod to the M5 frame was simple - a rectangular tube notched and tig welded to the M5 main mono tube. I had an old Shimano free hub that I had removed the palls from so that it rotates both directions. An axle through the hub and through the rect tube secured the gear cluster to the frame.

Then I made a derailleur hanger from an old rear chain stay. This bolts to the axle. It was originally my intention to secure the front end of the axle with a 'fork' that was welded to the frame, but after a few test rides, the mid drive seems pretty secure with a mono axle support.

After a good 3 hour test drive, everything seemed to work fine except for the chain kept coming off the large cog on the mid drive when the chain was on the largest cog on the rear wheel. The reason is the chain angle in that gear wants to pull the chain off the mid drive. The other issue was I didn't have a granny gear for climbing. I have this huge freaking hill called Springbank hill that I need to climb on every ride, and climbing that steep grade with 2 gears LESS than what I typically use had me going about 8 kph and 30 rpm and way over 200 watts. Too much mashing and I knew it would only be worse with the weight of the streetliner fairing on. So, back to the shop I went and figured out a totally IDEAL gearing solution!

I found an old Shimano Ultegra 11-21 road cassette and removed the riveted gears off of the main large cog assembly. Then I cut away all of the excess aluminum and ground it smooth and flat. This slips right onto my mid drive free hub and is 10 teeth SMALLER than the largest gear on the mid drive which is 32. In fact, it's a few teeth smaller than the second largest gear on the mid drive also.

I couldn't get all of the other gears onto the free hub, so I put on a good selection of smaller gears so I wouldn't lose my high speed gearing. So now I have TWO easier hill climbing gears 5 additional speed gears - the perfect set-up for a streetliner! My gearing is now as follows:

Front: 39 - 53

Mid (in): 12 - 34

Mid (out): 21

Rear: 12-34

If the Critical Power fairing shell was on the M5 (CdA .03) then I would have the gearing to go 100 kph at 100 rpm and still be able to spin up the steepest grade.

The other problem that I fixed was to stop the chain from coming off the mid drive with the addition of a UHMV plastic chain guide.

To complete the streetliner, I reinforced the fiberglass shells around the door and foot hole cut-outs, then made some neoprene covers for them.

I contact cemented corrugated cardboard patterns to the areas I wanted to reinforce on both shell halves. Then I painted epoxy over them and waited for the epoxy resin to get sticky, then I players some carbon fabric over them and completed the wet-out. In theory, this is a good way to get your composite fabric to stick to your form without having to use a vacuum bag. In reality, it is very tricky because when the quick-set epoxy starts to kick, it kicks FAST! In fact, I left my shop for 20 minutes and when I returned, the epoxy that was exposed to sun shining in through my shop window was as hard as a rock.

To make the doors, I stretched some neoprene over the door openings and traced the door shape. Then I ironed on some velcro to the perimeter of the neoprene, and contact cemented the mate velcro strips to the inside of the door.

The neoprene stretches over the opening on both sides of the shell nicely and is pretty easy to cover or open a bit while riding.

I also bonded some neoprene covers for the foot holes (not shown). And finally, I formed a structure to hold my windshield from flopping around. It's a strip of SINTRA plastic that is cut to the same general shape as the back edge of the windshield and then heat formed to curve around and glued to the PETG windshield.

Today or tomorrow I am planning on taking the Streetliner with it's NEW gears out to highway 22 and getting some watts / speed / CdA data.

41. A record attempt date is set for July 19th at Redwood Acres race track in Eureka CA, PR 4.5 hour century training ride and some thoughts about good HPV record tracks. June 22, 06

Tue, 13 Jun 2006 21:14:31 -0700

A record attempt date is set for July 19th at Redwood Acres race track in Eureka CA, PR 4.5 hour century training ride and some thoughts about good HPV record tracks.June 22 ,06

This Podcast was created from the adventures of greg blog. To view photos and videos of todays update, please visit the web site at w w w dot adventures of greg dot com

Harmonicycling,, RAAM,, and plumbing.

Harmonicycling..

During our long drive to and from Opelika, Alabama for my first attempt at the 24 hour distance record, Ben and I had plenty of time to chat in the car. On our route down, I mentioned that I always wanted to learn how to play a harmonica. On the ride back, Ben surprised me with a harmonica which has sat in a desk drawer ever since. So, not being one to put off 'stuff I always wanted to do", I have been playing it during long rides while listening to my favorite blues podcast, The Roadhouse Podcast with Tony Steidler Dennison. A new way to pass the time on my long rides! I love it. Can't say I'm really getting any better though, but I am having fun.

Training is really going great. I love the fact that my life is all about cycling these days. I ride every day and really have very little else to do, so I really look forward to my training sessions.

My training weeks focus is the long ride. I do one ultra long ride every two weeks and a super fast century on the weeks between. The ultra ride develops my endurance and the fast century will develop my speed. Last Wednesday I did a 10 hour ride from Banff to Radium and back. If you have Google Earth installed on your computer, click here to open the route through the mountains that I took. You can zoom in and check out the highway and terrain.

I did a fast century yesterday and I am happy to report that it was my fastest M5 ride over 4 hours to date. According to the SRM data, I managed to end up with a finishing average of 160 watts and 120 bpm heart rate which took a steady output of 210 watts (134 bpm hr), 95% of the time to produce (160 watts includes breaks and pauses in peddling to coast). In the streamliner, that would equate to almost 60 kph average speed which happens to be the 6 hour HPV record. My fastest finishing average from last year training for the Alabama record attempt was only 130 watts, so this is a huge improvement. It seems that my lowracer geometry fitness is starting to catch up to my road bike geometry fitness - this is interesting. Perhaps the potential for both positions is the same.

Plumbing

Hey - don't read this if you think dealing with pee issues is distasteful or disgusting. There is no arguing that hydration IN is important, and dealing with hydration OUT is equally as important! If I drink an average of 1 liter of water per hour while I am 'locked' into the streamliner, then I'll be needing to flush out slightly less than 1 liter of dirty water per hour. Water IN is via my 3 liter water bag that can be re-filled every 3 hour pit stop. In Alabama, my water OUT plan was to hand a hospital urine bag out to a lucky pit crew member (usually Helen) who dumped it into the bushes. This was a major pain in the butt - and leaky and messy. Every time I disconnected the bag, some leaked out and wetted the underside of the fairing shells which caused the duct tape to release and air flow to leak in through the opening.

In an effort to deal with that poor system, my plan this time around was to simply vent the dirty water out to the rear of the streamliner and onto the track. Ya , I know - that's probably not very cool, and also probably against the track rules. Realistically, it's 99% harmless water that would evaporate within minutes on the asphalt, but dumping it onto the road just isn't right.

So - what I did was put together this pretty slick little plumbing system. I purchased the supplies from Home Care Medical Supply which consisted of an external silicon catheter (condom-like thing), a 2 liter urinary drainage bag, some tubing, some connectors for the tubing and a leak-proof valve.

The route the 'plumbing' takes is from the catheter into a clear plastic tube then into the top of the collection bag. The 2 liter bag will be mounted to the inside of the left hand fairing shell. It will hang such that the dirty water will fill the bag up from the top. I made a little valve that I can open and close with my left hand. When this valve is closed, the used water is collected in the bag. When it is opened, the water drains out the bottom of the bag into a flexible tube which runs to the rear of the fairing shell where it exits out the back. My plan is to open the valve during a pit stop where a crew member can collect the dirty water from the rear of the fairing, and then properly dispose of it.

I used Shapelock low temp thermoplastic to mount the valve to a heat-curved strip of Sintra plastic. The Sintra will be mounted to the inside of the fairing shell with a strip of 3M Dual Lock - the same interlocking fastener strips we use to mount the fairing shells onto the frame. Another Dual Locked strip of curved Sintra holds the bag secure against the fairing shell at the top. This way, I can operate the lever on the valve with one hand and the bag is held securely against the inside of the shell. I tested it with water and there are NO LEAKS!

The 2006 Race Across America starts on Saturday!!!

Yep - it's that time again. The worlds greatest bike race starts this Saturday and this year it is going to be very interesting. First, they have started a new class called the "Solo Enduro" division where riders are required spend a minimum of 4 hours per day off the bike. This essentially turns RAAM into an EXTREME "tour de France" - like stage race. 4 hours of sleep is better than the "Solo Traditional" division who still manage to cross the US in 8 to 12 days on as little as 1 to 2 hours of sleep per day!

But the REALLY cool thing about this years race is James Kern. James will be attempting to become the worlds first solo recumbent rider to finish RAAM. Because he is riding an aerodynamic lowracer, his average speed is faster than any of the pro cyclists riding conventional road bikes. We are really hoping James sets a new RAAM record! The race roster is here featuring brief bios on all the riders. You can get more info on James Kern here and you can follow his progress from the RAAM home page once the race has begun.

Congratulations to Colin Angus - the first man to circumnavigate the world by human power!

On May 20th, 2006 Canadian Colin Angus completed one of the worlds last great firsts - a human circumnavigation of the globe by human power alone. More details on his adventure here. Canadians ROCK!!!!

40. Introducing the Critical Power Streetliner - an everyday driver, 'streetable' streamliner June 13, 06

Tue, 13 Jun 2006 12:07:52 -0700

Introducing the Critical Power Streetliner - an everyday driver, 'streetable' streamliner June 13, 06

This Podcast was created from the adventures of greg blog. To view photos and videos of todays update, please visit the web site at w w w dot adventures of greg dot com

Harmonicycling,, RAAM,, and plumbing.

Harmonicycling..

June 13
June 13, 2006

Introducing the Critical Power Streetliner - an everyday driver, 'streetable' streamliner.

I've been feeling kind of apprehensive regarding the likelihood of matching a windless day with my planned attempt at the 24 hour distance record in Eureka California. I've been watching the weather there and haven't found one single 24 hour windless period in weeks. Then I began to wonder if my wind minimums were too high. Perhaps I simply don't have enough experience with the streamliner in the wind.

I mean, plenty of guys take their super stock streamliners out on the roads to commute to work. Thom Olinger does many of his long training rides in the Coslinger special streamliner. In the 2004 Race Across America, team ASL Lightning rode Lightning F90 - body sock streamliner recumbents 3000 miles across America. In 1989, a 4 person HPV Team Lightning/Tim Brummer won, setting the all time RAAM speed record of 24.02 mph. Even more to my point, there were 3 HPV teams competing in RAAM that year, the second team used a recumbent with a soft body sock, but the third team used a hard shelled fairing which was the Dupont/ The Sharper Image/ Gold Rush Easy Racer built by Gardner Martin. Due to some technical problems very near the end, they had to quit. What is most impressive about their attempt, was they travelled over 3000 miles in almost 5 days through every kind of weather condition imaginable and on the shoulder of busy highways.

And here is wimpy me, scared of a little wind on a closed track. I might need to suck it up.

I decided I needed some more experience in a streamliner in everyday average windy conditions. So - I figured that it wouldn't be a big deal to make some mounts for my spare fiberglass CriticalPower fairing shells and put it on the M5.

First, I used a photo I had of my positions on both Critical Power frame and the M5 to calculate exactly where the fairing shells would fit best. Since this is intended to be used in every day street and highway riding, I wanted to make sure that my visibility was as good as it could get, so I was able to lower the body a bit to get a better view over the top

Next, I sketched in where I though the fairing mounts should go, and indicated cut-outs for entry and foot holes. There will be no landing gear on the streetliner, so all stopping and starting will be with my feet. To get in the HPV, I step through the door opening on the left as shown on the illustration and put my foot through the foot hole on the right side of the bike. The foot hole on the right is much longer than it appears in the drawing because I need to stand upright straddling the seat and holding onto the tiller bar. Then I pull my left leg over the door and place it on the ground in the foot hole to the left of the front wheel while I sit down on the seat. When I am seated, I can balance the bike with both feet on the ground on each side of the front wheel. To take-off, I place my left foot onto the left peddle and start cranking.

Using the computer image as a reference, I put the left hand fairing shell into position on blocks of wood. Just to make certain, I spun the peddles around to make sure there wasn't any clearance issues.

Then I fabricated 4 fairing mount brackets. The part of the bracket that mounts to the M5 frame is a muffler pipe U-bolt made to fit around a 1.75" dia tube (the exact dimension of the M5 main tube). The tube is a telescopic shower curtain rod that I picked up at Home Depot for $9. To adjust the length of the rod, you twist it counter-clock-wise and extend or retract it. Then twist it clockwise to lock it in place. As extra security, I welded a nut to the side of the larger dia tube and I can secure the tubes by tightening the bolt. This telescopic rod is welded to the flat bracket of the U-bolt and a metal flange is welded to the other end (where it bolts to the fairing shell). Making mounting brackets out of telescopic rods allow you to make adjustments to the fairing shell position without having to re-fabricate new brackets. This came in handy because when I was all finished, I had a nasty foot rub issue on the right hand side. I had to lift the entire body up about 2 inches!

The nose bracket mounts to the bottom bracket shell with a U-bolt made for the same dimension.

I know - the welding doesn't look very pretty. I don't know why I can't learn this lesson, but I should really take the time to cut out steel flanges rather than use that crap galvanized steel - it's very bad to weld.

I welded nuts to the flanges and the fiber glass fairing shell is fastened to the mounting brackets with small bolts. The left hand shell is fastened first because it is reinforced with stiffening ribs. The right hand fairing shell cups over the left one (they overlap by about 1/2 inch) and is held in place with small bolts also

Then I made cuts for the doors and the foot holes

And finally, I cut up one of my many practice gravity formed PETG canopy bubbles and added a small windshield.

I was surprised to find that it was very easy to get in and out of. I probably cut the foot holes too big in the forward direction, but the long foot hole on the right extends back just far enough that I can stand up and stay balanced while holding the streamliner steady with the steering tiller.

It's a blast to ride! I was on it for an hour zooming around the neighborhood streets. Stopping and starting is fairly easy - you just have to be very careful to make sure that you are in your easy starting gear before you stop! Also starting on an upgrade is more difficult, but I'll get used to it.

The first thing that was evident is that I need more gears! I was in the top gear all the time and just spinning away without much effort. I want to be able to easily remove the fairing shells so I can ride the M5 (naked), and I do not want to make any permanent changes to the M5 gearing. So I'm not really sure what to do. I could put a super large chain ring on the front, but I don't think I would be able to continue to use my rear derailleur with the small chain ring (the gear tooth spread between the largest and smallest would be too big for the rear der cage to handle). The other option is a geared bottom bracket (Speed Drive), but then I would lose my SRM. The last option is to add a geared rear hub - don't know much about those, and I think they are fairly expensive and a bit less efficient than gearing.

Does anyone have an old 80 tooth front chain ring lying around that they would like to sell me?

The next thing I want to do, is to bond some neoprene covers over the foot holes to block air flow (It was pretty windy down there!). I considered making a removable door cover out of fiberglass with a PETG canopy bubble, but the purpose of this streetliner is to do some serious training in it. It has to be ROBUST, comfortable and cool! I think that a neoprene body-sock door covers that can be snapped into place or rolled back is the way to go. With both doors fully open, it gets VERY breezy in there. I would think that with the neoprene covers on, and the floor holes mostly covered up, it will be MUCH faster, but still quite comfortable and cool due to my head being exposed to the air flow.

The other thing that I want to do is to reinforce some of the cracked fiberglass ribs and holes, etc in the shells. A new paint job would be nice, but again, I want this machine to be robust and tough enough to withstand leaning against walls, tipping over, etc, etc. Perhaps just a fresh coat of grey primer because I can do that myself in my garage.

If you are in need of a little motivation today, check out these awesome inspiring photos from RAAM 2006: http://gallery.raceacrossamerica.org/ Man, I could look at those photos all day! Very cool. Check this out: Fred Bothling is 60 years old and he's currently in 6th place in the Enduro division! I'm getting all psyched up for my 12 hour ride tomorrow - the 320 km Highwood Pass Loop is calling my name!!

39. Harmonicycling,, RAAM,, and plumbing.,, June 7, 06

Thu, 8 Jun 2006 21:14:31 -0700

Harmonicycling,, RAAM,, and plumbing. June 7 ,06
This Podcast was created from the adventures of greg blog. To view photos and videos of todays update, please visit the web site at w w w dot adventures of greg dot com

Harmonicycling,, RAAM,, and plumbing.

Harmonicycling..

During our long drive to and from Opelika, Alabama for my first attempt at the 24 hour distance record, Ben and I had plenty of time to chat in the car. On our route down, I mentioned that I always wanted to learn how to play a harmonica. On the ride back, Ben surprised me with a harmonica which has sat in a desk drawer ever since. So, not being one to put off 'stuff I always wanted to do", I have been playing it during long rides while listening to my favorite blues podcast, The Roadhouse Podcast with Tony Steidler Dennison. A new way to pass the time on my long rides! I love it. Can't say I'm really getting any better though, but I am having fun.

Training is really going great. I love the fact that my life is all about cycling these days. I ride every day and really have very little else to do, so I really look forward to my training sessions.

My training weeks focus is the long ride. I do one ultra long ride every two weeks and a super fast century on the weeks between. The ultra ride develops my endurance and the fast century will develop my speed. Last Wednesday I did a 10 hour ride from Banff to Radium and back. If you have Google Earth installed on your computer, click here to open the route through the mountains that I took. You can zoom in and check out the highway and terrain.

I did a fast century yesterday and I am happy to report that it was my fastest M5 ride over 4 hours to date. According to the SRM data, I managed to end up with a finishing average of 160 watts and 120 bpm heart rate which took a steady output of 210 watts (134 bpm hr), 95% of the time to produce (160 watts includes breaks and pauses in peddling to coast). In the streamliner, that would equate to almost 60 kph average speed which happens to be the 6 hour HPV record. My fastest finishing average from last year training for the Alabama record attempt was only 130 watts, so this is a huge improvement. It seems that my lowracer geometry fitness is starting to catch up to my road bike geometry fitness - this is interesting. Perhaps the potential for both positions is the same.

Plumbing

Hey - don't read this if you think dealing with pee issues is distasteful or disgusting. There is no arguing that hydration IN is important, and dealing with hydration OUT is equally as important! If I drink an average of 1 liter of water per hour while I am 'locked' into the streamliner, then I'll be needing to flush out slightly less than 1 liter of dirty water per hour. Water IN is via my 3 liter water bag that can be re-filled every 3 hour pit stop. In Alabama, my water OUT plan was to hand a hospital urine bag out to a lucky pit crew member (usually Helen) who dumped it into the bushes. This was a major pain in the butt - and leaky and messy. Every time I disconnected the bag, some leaked out and wetted the underside of the fairing shells which caused the duct tape to release and air flow to leak in through the opening.

In an effort to deal with that poor system, my plan this time around was to simply vent the dirty water out to the rear of the streamliner and onto the track. Ya , I know - that's probably not very cool, and also probably against the track rules. Realistically, it's 99% harmless water that would evaporate within minutes on the asphalt, but dumping it onto the road just isn't right.

So - what I did was put together this pretty slick little plumbing system. I purchased the supplies from Home Care Medical Supply which consisted of an external silicon catheter (condom-like thing), a 2 liter urinary drainage bag, some tubing, some connectors for the tubing and a leak-proof valve.

The route the 'plumbing' takes is from the catheter into a clear plastic tube then into the top of the collection bag. The 2 liter bag will be mounted to the inside of the left hand fairing shell. It will hang such that the dirty water will fill the bag up from the top. I made a little valve that I can open and close with my left hand. When this valve is closed, the used water is collected in the bag. When it is opened, the water drains out the bottom of the bag into a flexible tube which runs to the rear of the fairing shell where it exits out the back. My plan is to open the valve during a pit stop where a crew member can collect the dirty water from the rear of the fairing, and then properly dispose of it.

I used Shapelock low temp thermoplastic to mount the valve to a heat-curved strip of Sintra plastic. The Sintra will be mounted to the inside of the fairing shell with a strip of 3M Dual Lock - the same interlocking fastener strips we use to mount the fairing shells onto the frame. Another Dual Locked strip of curved Sintra holds the bag secure against the fairing shell at the top. This way, I can operate the lever on the valve with one hand and the bag is held securely against the inside of the shell. I tested it with water and there are NO LEAKS!

The 2006 Race Across America starts on Saturday!!!

Yep - it's that time again. The worlds greatest bike race starts this Saturday and this year it is going to be very interesting. First, they have started a new class called the "Solo Enduro" division where riders are required spend a minimum of 4 hours per day off the bike. This essentially turns RAAM into an EXTREME "tour de France" - like stage race. 4 hours of sleep is better than the "Solo Traditional" division who still manage to cross the US in 8 to 12 days on as little as 1 to 2 hours of sleep per day!

But the REALLY cool thing about this years race is James Kern. James will be attempting to become the worlds first solo recumbent rider to finish RAAM. Because he is riding an aerodynamic lowracer, his average speed is faster than any of the pro cyclists riding conventional road bikes. We are really hoping James sets a new RAAM record! The race roster is here featuring brief bios on all the riders. You can get more info on James Kern here and you can follow his progress from the RAAM home page once the race has begun.

Congratulations to Colin Angus - the first man to circumnavigate the world by human power!

On May 20th, 2006 Canadian Colin Angus completed one of the worlds last great firsts - a human circumnavigation of the globe by human power alone. More details on his adventure here. Canadians ROCK!!!!

38. The Art of Roadie Hunting, June 3, 06

Sun, 4 Jun 2006 09:47:32 -0700

The Art of Roadie Hunting
... This Podcast was created from the adventures of greg blog. To view photos and videos of todays update, please visit the web site at w w w dot adventures of greg dot com

June 3, 2006

I am having a blast training these days. Now that Critical Power is in another country, I can't tinker with it, so all I have to do is train my ass off.

My super long ride is up to 10 hours - a nice ride from Banff to Radium and back. I saw two black bears and one moose. One of the bears was laying back on a hill beside the road scratching his tummy and getting a sun tan. The second bear surprised me. I was stopped at the side of the road fishing around in my pack for something and a guy from a motor home ran up to me and told me to watch out for the bear behind me. It was a black bear sitting in the grass about 40 feet from me minding his own and eating dandelions.

I am running my training week like so:

1. One ultra long slow ride every TWO weeks increasing the duration by 2 hours each ride. It is currently at 10 hours. Intensity is averaging 150 to 160 watts.

2. One long FAST ride every TWO weeks (alternating with the ultra long slow ride). Distance is about 100 miles and intensity is between 180 and 200 watts.

3. One Lactate Threshold (tempo) ride each week of 2 hours duration consisting of 3 x 20 minute intervals at 240 watts.

4. Two to three fat burning sessions per week of 2 hour duration. Intensity at around 150 watts.

5. Two one-hour recovery sessions per week at 100 watts.

During yesterdays tempo intervals, I was having some fun playing with the roadies, so I thought I would put some of my ideas down on paper (or in pixels as the case may be). I need to make a video podcast of this! It would be hilarious! A pivoting video camera would work perfectly - I'll do some thinking...

Roadie hunting on a sunny Saturday afternoon can be loads of fun for the whole family. Follow these rules, and you can squeeze way more fun out of each kill. So mount up your lowracer and lets go find some roadies!

A. THE SNEAK ATTACK

This approach works best if you are approaching a small peloton of road riders. Look for matching team jerseys and some chit-chat among them for the absolute best effect. WARNING: Cancel the sneak attack if you see aerobars on the bikes. Aerobars mean they are friendly triathletes and your aggression will have no effect. Abort the attack, and instead, enjoy some friendly conversation as they will probably have questions about your lowracer.

1. Approach quietly from behind.

2. When you reach their rear wheels, shout "To your LEFT!" and then pass them *slowly* on the left hand side. Your bravado is intended to aggravate the roadies. Your slow pass should indicate that you are working pretty hard. Exaggerated heavy breathing and pumping motion is a nice touch.

NOTE: You MUST use a rear-view mirror for this technique! This is important for two reasons: First, a mirror is clearly a sensible safety feature, and one that a serious roadie would never, ever put on his bike. It will be viewed by the roadies as the mark of a purely recreational "Sam six-pack" on a funny "encumbent" bike. Second, for the maximum effect and satisfaction you'll enjoy from using this technique, you need to be able to see the pack after you have taken the lead.

3. Once you have passed the group, DO NOT get too far ahead of them. You must slow a bit and let them sense your feigned 'struggle' at matching their superior pace. If they want to chase you, and believe me they will, you will see the lead guy get up off his saddle and look back to the other riders.

4. When they start to catch your rear wheel, increase the pace slightly. The idea is to continue to increase the pace such that they are always working a little harder at catching your rear wheel.

5. When it is clear that they can no longer stay on your wheel, put the hammer down. Ramp up your power to the high 200's, low 300 watts area and watch the devastation in your wake. For maximum destruction, the roadies must be tiny specs in your rear view mirror in less that one minute, and you must be out of visual sight within 2 minutes max.

B. "FUNNY BIKE" BAIT

In this technique, you wait for the roadies to find you rather than the other way around.

1. Ride very slowly and wobble from one side of the shoulder to the other. You can sing along with your music or eat a baloney sandwich.

2. Watch your rear view mirror and wait until a roadie approaches from behind.

3. Let him pass you. Make sure you say "Hi there! Nice day for a bike ride". If he replies, it will be short, but he will probably ignore you. If the roadie greets you first, then you might want to consider canceling the hunt. This rarely ever happens though, so don't worry.

OPTIONAL FULL DEPLOY: Don't say anything to the roadie when he passes. If he says nothing at all to you, and looks to his left as he passes you to avoid any kind of eye contact with you or your funny contraption, then you can FULLY DEPLOY on him. As soon as he pulls in front of you, pass him and unleash. Drop him as fast as humanly possible. We are going for full-out humiliation here, so don't hold back. If you choose to exhibit the finger as you blow by, be sure that you can fulfill on your intentions.

4. Lead for a while and then let him take the lead. This will certainly annoy the roadie. The thought that he is running a little duet pace-line with a recumbent bike will sicken him, and he will surely pick up the pace in order to drop you and show his superiority.

5. Continue the cat and mouse chase until speeds have reached his maximum. Then pull up beside him and say "You want to go? Let's go!" And then leave him for good. If you can, 250 to 300 watts for the next 20 minutes should give you enough time to be crumpling the wrapper of your subway sandwich by the time he arrives at the strip mall.

Happy hunting!

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37. CriticalPower speedbike on the track in Eureka, CA, May 26, 06

Fri, 26 May 2006 15:59:02 -0700

CriticalPower speedbike on the track in Eureka, CA<
...This Podcast was created from the adventures of greg blog. To view photos and videos of todays update, please visit the web site at w w w dot adventures of greg dot com

May 26, 2006

CriticalPower speedbike on the track in Eureka, CA

A high bandwidth version of this video is available here

The road trip to Eureka, CA was a blast! My good friend John Mackay kept me laughing for most of the 20 hour drive we did in two days.

We left Calgary on Saturday morning and made it all the way to Portland, Oregon that evening. It was an easy 6 hour drive the next day into Eureka, CA.

On Monday morning we headed out to Redwood Acres race track and I met with Diane who manages the track. I did about an hour on the track with the CriticalPower frame only (no streamliner shells), and it was far too windy to risk putting the shells on.

I was fairly pleased with the track. There is a small elevation change from one side of the track to the other, but I thing this can be almost completely eliminated by running a tape line around the track taking advantage of the sloped road to remove the elevation change. The pavement is in almost perfect condition - I think mostly because a paving company owns the track.

The wind was blowing at 30 kph by 11:00 am and I was being blown around quite a bit. The frame-only is more effected by the wind than the full streamliner shells are, so this was good practice trying to handle the bike in the gusty conditions. We were going to have to postpone the streamliner test until tomorrow.

I had booked the track for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday hoping to find at least one day where we could get some decent runs in without the wind or rain putting the damper on my tests. Diane was extremely accommodating and she offered me the use of the locked storage room near the track to store the streamliner and all my supplies while we waited for the weather to cooperate

John was in charge of mission control station in the back of the suburban. The communications two-way radio system worked great and he spent most of his time watching "ask a Ninja" video pod casts on his new 17" Mac Book pro.

Tuesday was pouring rain, so we got together with HPVA official and good friend Rob Hitchcock for a great hike around Trinidad Head and a 3 hour trek through Redwood National Park.

We met Al Krause at the track at 7:00 pm when the rain and wind was forecasted to stop and waited until about 8:00 pm in the pouring rain. The good news was that the winds had died to almost calm, so we made the decision to go for it. I climbed into CriticalPower and John fastened on the fairing shells and the canopy top and off I went. Because it was still raining, the canopy bubble immediately fogged up and I had to pull over. I did a couple of laps without the canopy top on while Rob and John found my motorcycle visor de-fogging solution and applied it to the PETG bubble. I stopped back again, we put the canopy top on, and off I went in the pouring rain.

From left to right: Greg (me), Rob Hitchcock, Al Krause

I was really happy to be running in the streamliner - it felt great! I was cruising around the track at about 110 watts and 42.73 kph (26.5 mph) which was disappointing because my speed should have been much faster than that. However, I knew the rain and wet track was slowing me down quite a bit - just how much, I didn't know.

The canopy windshield was getting very wet, but I could still see the track. The de-fogging solution was working great, except when I tested out my windshield lifter which actually had the opposite effect on de-fogging. For some reason, the air that was deflected back onto the inside of the front of my windshield was causing that small area to fog up. It was better without the canopy lifter.

The 45 to 50 kph speed going around the track felt a little fast for the semi-banked corners. Upon watching the video after, it's obvious that I am not really going all that fast for a race track, and my lean into the corners wasn't even perceptible However, it felt very fast inside the streamliner and I felt like I was really leaning into the corners. I think this is just a matter of getting used to the track. Al told me that Sam Whittingham crashed doing 96 kph (60 mph) going around a corner on that very same track in the Varna Diablo streamliner. Also, the 24 hour record previous to the current record was achieved on this track. There appears to be a history of faster streamliner trips around this oval, so I shouldn't be too concerned about going too fast for the corners.

Surprisingly, I didn't get very wet inside the streamliner at all. My legs were a bit wet from the spinning front disc wheel throwing water out to my legs, but other than that, I was completely dry as was the inside of the streamliner.

On Wednesday morning, John and I checked out of the hotel and headed directly to the track to take advantage of the windless and sunny conditions. I was able to put in a good 30 minutes in ideal conditions. My speeds were much better than in the rain. It seems to be about 2 kph faster than the old CriticalPower at 100 watts, and 4 kph faster than in the rain on the wet track.

It is very difficult to say exactly where the increase in efficiency is coming from - better rolling resistance, better aerodynamics or some combination of both. Since the Eureka track is banked and more corners than Alabama, I am probably seeing a slight increase in Crr (rolling resistance) due to fighting the centrifugal force when cornering, the slope of the track on the tires (both straight sections and corners), and losses cause from almost constantly turning the front wheel. On the other hand, my new clincher tires feature better rolling resistance than the narrow high pressure tubulars I used in Alabama. My newly painted fairing shells have GOT to be more aerodynamic than my old one, and my new longer canopy top and rear wheel fairing are both way better than what I had before. Considering EQUAL Crr (rolling resistance), then here is how both the new versions of CriticalPower and the old Alabama record attempt version work out as far as power and speed goes:
Vehicle Power (watts) Speed (kph) Crr (roll resist) CdA (aero drag) Speed at 120 watts Speed at 150 watts
NEW at Eureka track 108 47.64 .0050 .28 50.5 kph 57.1 kph
OLD at Alabama track 133.8 52.3 .0050 .31 49 kph 55.4 kph

I would really love to see how fast CriticalPower would be on a FLAT and straight and long track like the Alabama Pavetrack.

I am feeling confident that I can set a new 24 hour human powered distance record on the track in Eureka. As you may recall, I was forced to quit at 20 hours, 20 minutes in Alabama due to a broken steering arm that was weakened by so many crashes which were caused by random chain derailments. I had travelled 828.4 km with over 3 hours of down time due to the unplanned stops. My average watts for the 20 hours was around 120, and in training prior to the Alabama attempt I had averaged 120 watts for a 15 hour training ride. 120 watts doesn't sound like much, but I need to point out that it includes 0's for coasting and resting. Also, my watts output is lower in the recumbent position compared to a road bike. I average around 200 watts for a 5 hour Ironman road bike race.

Using the John Tetz's PDG calculator and 120 watts of average power, if I took a total of 2 hours worth of pit stop breaks over the 24 hour period, I could still average 50 kph with a total of over 1100 km travelled. The current 24 hour distance record stands at 1021.44 km.

Playing a pessimistic 'what if' game, what if I find that averaging over 50 kph on that short oval track is too fast? I really don't think it is too fast, but what if I just can't get used to the speed for some reason - perhaps the wind picks up and I am forced to slow down. Or perhaps it starts raining, or my window fogs up and I can't see properly. Let's say my ending averaging is only 100 watts which would result in an average speed of 45.5 kph. Over 22 hours of actual riding time, that would work out to a total distance of 1001 km which would be about 21 km short of a new record. If I could limit my planned stops to only 1 hour, 100 watts of average power over 23 hours would work out to 1046.5 km which would be a new record.

If I do set a new 24 hour distance record in Eureka, I really feel that it will be far below what is potentially possible. Let's play a new what-if game and use some really ideal circumstances:

1. A super long and smooth and level oval track like Alabama pave-track possibly, but with better asphalt smoothness and without the 20 foot elevation change. I'm not sure a track like this exists anywhere in the world to be honest. If it does, it is probably a car company test track that is closed to the public (like the Nissan proving grounds). Perhaps a long and flat 10 to 20 km stretch of closed highway somewhere with a route to loop around and return at both ends. If the straight stretch was long enough, then a reduction in speed to negotiate a tight turn-around at both ends would probably be minimal. A 20 km straight road at 50 kph would require only 2 to 3 turn arounds in one hour. According to HPVA rules and obvious safety precautions, the road would have to be closed to other traffic.

2. I think my ultra endurance watts average could be as high as 150 watts with perhaps another year of training under my belt.

3. On a long, flat, smooth road, I feel that the total rolling resistance could be substantially lower due to not having to turn nearly as many corners and fight the centrifugal force rounding the corners. I would think that with a CdA of .28 then a Crr of .0048 would be possible on a straight and flat course.

150 watts for 23 hours total at CdA of .28 and Crr of .0048 would work out to 57.8 kph and 1329 km.

As long as we are playing the what-if game, I believe the total CdA of CriticalPower could be lowered to something like .23 (sq ft) if I could figure out a way to safely steer and balance and navigate without the canopy bubble. Back to the camera bike concept (see the video here)- or something like that. That would be an average of 61 kph at 150 watts and 1400 km in 23 hours.

Is 1000 miles possible (1600 km)? What would it take? It would take a whopping average power output of 183 watts in a Varna diablo which has a CdA of .21 ! The Varna was certainly not designed for a 24 hour endurance event and to average 183 watts in a 24 hour period would be pretty tough.

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36. The speed machine from outer-space!, May 19, 06

Fri, 19 May 2006 15:59:02 -0700

The speed machine from outer-space!
...This Podcast was created from the adventures of greg blog. To view photos and videos of todays update, please visit the web site at w w w dot adventures of greg dot com

May 19, 2006

The speed machine from outer-space!

(click for poster sized)

I think we sort of messed up Bob's spectacular paint job a bit... He didn't have time to wet sand it, so he gave me instructions. Since I've never done this before, I was hesitant, but we had to sand down the orange peel, so I had no choice. Orange peel is that slight bumpy - orange peel like paint texture found on most new cars and paint jobs. To get a show-car finish, the orange peel must be sanded off, then the paint needs to be polished again to bring the gloss back up.

I'm not sure exactly what happened, but it's no where near as glossy as it was before. It's very smooth now, especially after applying the nanotechnology Logistiseal sealant and it reflects like a mirror at certain angles, but it isn't as sparkley as before - sort of frosty looking. Perhaps it needs to be polished with a proper electric buffer. I could send it to an automotive detailing shop, but we're sort of running out of time. I am heading off to Eureka with the streamliner this weekend where it will sit until I am ready to tackle the 24 hour HPV distance record sometime late this summer.

Here are some more photos of the streamliner with the CriticalPower decal (click to enlarge):

A final position check before CriticalPower moves to a temporary home in Eureka. It looks like I still need to move my BB in about another inch on the M5. Since I still have the bulk of my distance training to do, I want to make sure that the M5 is EXACTLY the same geometry as CriticalPower streamliner.

Training is going fairly well. I finished an 8 hour day yesterday (215 km). My feet are getting numb and I figured out it was because of so much pressure on the ball of my foot. I discovered this by taking my feet out of the shoes, and sliding them up so that my toes were hanging off the top of the shoes. When the foot is in this position, more pressure is put on the mid-foot area, and the blood-flow returned to my toes. To solve the problem, I moved the shoe cleats down about a half an inch which moves my foot up a bit higher on the peddle putting more pressure on my mid-foot. I'll see if this helps. If not, then I will experiment with some shock absorbing gel inserts.

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35. Sweet!!! Check out the paint job!, May 16, 06

Tue, 16 May 2006 08:34:54 -0700

Sweet!!!
...This Podcast was created from the adventures of greg blog. To view photos and videos of todays update, please visit the web site at w w w dot adventures of greg dot com

May 16, 2006

Sweet!!!

The CriticalPower streamliner fairing shells came back from the painters today and they look FANTASTIC! Bob Douglas did a bang-up job staying up until 2:00 am last night just to finish shooting the final clear coat. He spent quite a bit of time with high build epoxy primer sanding and spraying and sanding and spraying to get it very smooth.

It still needs to be wet sanded and polished to remove the orange peel texture of the clear coat paint.

Ben and I spent the day doing the many little things needed to finish off the assembly. Like adding the landing gear door hatch, sanding and painting the rear wheel fairing (not shown), adjusting the canopy bubble, etc, etc - photos and details of all that work below.

Here are a bunch more photos of CriticalPower. Note that the new logo that my bro is making for me isn't on yet + the shells haven't been fitted together properly with tape and the rear wheel fairing is not yet on, and etc. I'll get some proper photos taken when we get it completely finished.

Click on the pictures to enlarge:

Here are some other things we got done:
1. Small blobs of Shapelock worked great to cover over sharp plastic tie strap ends and bolts.
2. We made the landing gear door by thermoforming a piece of Sintra plastic. The Sintra has a rough texture, so I covered it with Bondo and sanded. The Bondo bonds to the Sintra very well and adds some harness to the soft Sintra surface.
3. I contact cemented a strip of soft rubber to the perimeter of the landing gear door hatch and then ran a bead of silicone to smoothen out edge.
4. After some paint and wet sanding, the hatch cover is smooth and glossy like the shells. The rubber seal prevents air from leaking into the streamliner.
5. More Shapelock coolness - a handy external battery holder for the ChatterBox two-way radio. My plan was to wire the radio into the large 12 volt Lithium Polymer battery I am using to power the iPod, but when the two devices shape the same power source, I get this VERY annoying interference noise through the headphones. I tried a ground loop filter and it stripped out 30% of the volume which was unacceptable. The only solution was to isolate the power sources which meant using the ChatterBox's own rechargable NiCad battery. The problem with that, is it only lasts for 8 hours of use. I have 5 replacement batteries, but you need to remove the back cover on the radio to replace the battery. So, I extended the power wires through the back of the radio case and made a ShapeLock holder for the battery. I can now swap batteries from my seat in the streamliner during pit stops.
6. Ben bondo'ed and sanded down the rear wheel fairing
7. Rear wheel fairing primed and ready for paint
8. We contact cemented a piece of neoprene to the front wheel cut-out on the inside of both fairing shells
9. Now I will cut a slot for the tire to spin freely while pointed straight ahead. When turning, the tire will push into the neoprene.
10. I bonded a piece of terry cloth towel to the inside of both fairing shells where my arms, shoulders and elbow rub.

Today, we wet sand the fairing shells, apply the Logistiseal sealant and mount the rear wheel fairing. More photos soon!!

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34. Re-worked landing gear, May 11, 06

Thu, 11 May 2006 08:34:54 -0700

Re-worked landing gear
...This Podcast was created from the adventures of greg blog. To view photos and videos of todays update, please visit the web site at w w w dot adventures of greg dot com

May 11, 2006

Re-worked landing gear

I pulled the landing gear apart the other day to see what it would take to extend it by about 1/2 ". The reason is that if I 'land' with all of my weight to the right, CriticalPower 'could' tip right over the landing gear wheel. It's not quite extended far enough to be as stable as I would like. So, I took a close look at it as saw a small crack in the carbon new the top of the leg.

In order to have it extend an additional 1/2 ", I needed to move the cable terminator bolt up the leg by a half inch, and that would have been right where the crack was. So I decided to beef the leg up.

First, I reinforced the top of the carbon tube with a wrap of carbon on the INSIDE of the tube. The reason I couldn't reinforce the outside was because the tube slides into another tube that is built into the frame. Here are the exciting details:
1. I wrapped a layer of carbon fabric around the inside of about the top 3 inches of the tube, then wetted it out with epoxy resin and a small paint brush.

2. In order to get the inside wrap to stay on the inside of the tube, I inserted a balloon and inflated it. The balloon acts as sort of a reverse vacuum bag. When the balloon is inflated, it presses the wet carbon liner against the inside of the carbon tube.

3. I used fast setting catalyst and a heat gun to get the epoxy to cure right away.
4. Then I drilled a new hole for my cable terminator bolt and inserted it, along with the nut on the inside of the new reinforced tube. I coated the threads of the nut with grease first.

5. Then I mixed up some micro balloons and epoxy and dumped it into the tube, filling the entire tube up. I taped over the bottom of the tube so it wouldn't leak out.
6. The epoxy kicked SUPER fast because large volumes of this stuff cause major exothermic reactions. The carbon tube was too hot to touch!

7. I unscrewed the cable terminator bolt and it came out easily because of the grease on the threads. Now it screws into a nut that is epoxied into the inside of the tube, as well as threads in the micro/epoxy fill material.

8. The landing gear strut slides into the sleeve in the frame and the cable bolt is screwed back in.
9. I used to have a bungie cord inserted all the way down the landing gear strut, but now my strut is solid, and a short bungie cord won't work. I had to change the whole way the elastic retractor worked because to retract properly with the right amount of elasticity, you must use the entire elastic range of a 10" long bungie cord.

To accomplish this. I attached a nylon cord to the end of the landing gear strut which runs through a short curved piece of plastic tubing and then is tied to the bungie cord which is fastened to the frame above the rear wheel.

10. The other thing I needed to do was make a new bracket for the retractor cable handle. When you pull the handle and retract the landing gear, you are stretching the elastic bungie cord. By sliding the handle behind this bracket, the tension in the cord keeps the wheel retracted. The bracket needed to be slightly adjustable, so I cut slots in it for the bolts.
11. Here is a shot of the landing gear extended.

This is me after my first 100 miler of the training season. It was a great day - sunny and my legs felt strong. My SRM data show that I am in far better shape than last M5 training season! For this 6 hour ride, I spent most of my time at 170 watts and only 115 bpm heart rate. The exact same ride from last season (I found 5 of them), all averaged less watts with heart rates in the mid 120's. The PWC150 from the SRM software calculates what my wattage would be at 150 bpm and it's a useful indicator of your efficiency. If the number goes up, then basically you are producing more work with less effort On average, my PCW150 from last year on long rides such as the ride I did today was between 230 and 250 watts. Todays PCW150 was 303 watts which is very close to my triathlon bike data.

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33. Training update, Discovery Channel, nanotechnology laminar flow polish, Eureka California race track test and tune day, May 9, 06

Tue, 9 May 2006 19:57:39 -0700

Training update, Discovery Channel, nanotechnology laminar flow polish, Eureka California race track test and tune day, a very slick ShapeLock cell phone holder, new iPod and some gearing changes.
...This Podcast was created from the adventures of greg blog. To view photos and videos of todays update, please visit the web site at w w w dot adventures of greg dot com

May 9, 2006

Training update, Discovery Channel, nanotechnology laminar flow polish, Eureka California race track test and tune day, a very slick ShapeLock cell phone holder, new iPod and some gearing changes.

My training is going well so far. Jason had me do a 20 minute maximum power test the other day. It was the first time I had done a test like that on the M5 lowracer, so I wasn't sure what to expect. My 20 minute power on my road bike was 280 watts shortly before Ironman Arizona. Last May, I increased it to 308 watts after doing 3 weeks of LT intervals.

According to hundreds of hours of watts, time and hear rate data I have accumulated over the years on BOTH my upright road bike as well as the M5 recumbent lowracer, the average efficiency loss due to the different biomechanical positions as measured by heart rate from a road bike position to a recumbent position is 10%, while there is a 14% lower average watts per training ride. Here is a summary of the biomechanical differences between the recumbent lowracer and the road bike geometries based on SRM data from a random selection of 35 training sessions:
Geometry Average watts
for the ride Average heart rate
for the ride Watts per heart beat % difference

Road bike 141.05 watts 117.76 bpm 1.19 watts per beat 10%
Recumbent lowracer 121.17 watts 111.37 bpm 1.08 watts per beat

That said, I was expecting my 20 minute M5 test to be from 10 to 14% less than my most recent road bike test which would have put it somewhere around 246 watts.

The test resulted in an average of 267 watts for the 20 minutes and an average of 154 bpm heart rate. This compares to 280 average watts and 162 bpm heart rate on my road bike. The fact that my heart rate was lower on the M5 test might indicate that my actual 20 minute watts value could be even higher than 267 - possibly even 280 which would match what I can do on the road bike. This goes against my average biomechanical difference comparisons, but oh well.. I'll take it.

At my current weight of 70.7 Kg, it puts my watts/Kg at 3.8 which according to the Power Profile, puts me at Mid cat 3, bottom of Cat 2. I was at the bottom of Cat 1 last May on my road bike. I would like to get my M5 fitness up to at least mid Cat 2 territory. If I were to get my weight down to 68.9 Kg (152 pounds) and my 20 minute watts up to 290 (10 watts more than my recent road bike test and 20 watts more than my recent M5 test), I could get into the mid Cat 2 area.

How does all of this relate to an ultra-endurance event lasting 24 hours? Well, the idea is that as your efficiency increases at the top end, the curve increases a bit all the way down to your low end. I don't think Jason thinks that working on my 5 minute power will do much for my 24 hour power, but definitely working on my Lactate threshold power (30 minutes to 45 minutes), should increase my fat burning power which is exactly what I want to target for the 24 hour record attempt.

My training was up to 13 hours last week with the first real long M5 ride of 4 hours. I am planning a 6 hour ride this Friday. My training for the next 3 months will slowly see that once per week long ride increase from 4 hours to about 15 hours. In between the long rides, I'll do some intensity work which should see that 20 minute power # and LT increase.

I have booked Redwood Acres race track in Eureka, California for May 22 and 23 (in two weeks!) for a CriticalPower test and tune day. The idea is to drive CP down to Eureka for the test and tune day, and leave her there. I'll fly home and then fly back to attempt the 24 hour distance record sometime this summer when the weather window looks good.

The oval track is only 3/8 mile long, so it will definitely be more difficult mentally for me. I'm really not sure how the extra turning will effect my average speed, but the oval corners are gradual, so I doubt there will be much slow down. The track surface is supposed to be quite good - they re-paved it last summer. It's also very flat which should be an advantage.

Ron Bobb attempted to set a new 24 hour HPV distance record in the masters category on the Redwood acres track in 2002 and he though the track was ideal. You can read about his record attempt here.

I did quite a bit if research on average weather for a number of locations across the western US. I was very surprised to find that the best location as far as average winds, average temperatures and precipitation was Eureka, Ca. I don't have summer months on the table below, but summer is definitely OUT for Alabama, Nevada and Texas due to the heat.

Average daily wind speed in Eureka over the last 5 years for the month of July is 6 kph, and 5 kph for August. Average high temperatures are only 17 degrees C in July and 16 degrees in August. July and August seem to be quite dry for the area also.

So, I have quite a bit of work to do in the next 2 weeks, but I think I'm there. I am really hoping that Bob the painter is able to finish the paint job this week!

Once the shells have been painted, we need to wet sand the clear coat to get it super polished. Buzz, my man in Opelika Alabama, contacted me about some research they are doing for a new company called "Logistiseal".

It's supposedly a nano-technology firm who has developed a polish for surfaces that increases laminar flow. They have tested the polish on airplane wings and have data to show a significant increase in performance due to more laminar flow over the leading edge of the wing. Buzz has been testing the polish on the Semi-trailers that run around the NCAT test track and they are hoping to show an improvement in gas mileage due to increased laminar flow across the fenders of the semi trailers.

Once Logistiseal learned about my streamliner and record attempt, they contacted me and offered to donate some polish for CriticalPower. It should be interesting to test. Ideally, I'd like to run some watts tests without the polish, then the same day, run the same test WITH the polish.

I got a call from Discovery Channel yesterday! They are interested in going out to Eureka, Ca to cover the record attempt! This is pretty cool and I really hope they can do it.

I am getting better working with that ShapeLock ultra-high molecular weight low temperature thermoplastic. The biggest drawback to making part with it is the 'flintstones' look your parts end up with - like it was carved out of a block of granite. I found that you can make a better looking part if you make the part much bigger than you need, and then use the bench grinder to remove material.

I needed a holster for my cell phone so I melted a large glob of the ShapeLock pellets and jammed my cell phone into it:

Then I worked the hot blob up and around 3 of the edges of the phone. When it cooled, I pulled the phone out and used the grinder remove excess material from all around it. To mount the phone holster on the frame, I reheated the bottom of it with a heat gun. Then I mashed it onto the plastic tubing that I use to mount the SRM meter on. After a further cleanup and excess material removal using sand paper and a grinder, I drilled a hole through it and bolted it onto the SRM power meter mounting tube. It works GREAT!! The phone slides in and it fits very tight.

As with everything, not everything works perfectly. For some unknown reason, I can't hear incoming phone calls ring through my headphones. Go figure. I hear everything else though the ChatterBox headphones, but not when the phone rings. I can even hear the tone played when pressing the keys on the phone, and conversations, once answered, are crystal clear. To resolve this, I angled the cell phone so that I can see the small light on the cover flash green when I get a call. Then all I have to do is flip the phone open and it will answer the call. I can flip it open with my thumb without taking my hand off the steering bar. Outgoing calls are a bit of a problem. I can toggle through my phone book using the main menu key on the phone, but it's so close to my head that I can't really read any of the names.

Here is what the cockpit now looks like with the cell phone holder:

I had an old 30 gig iPod that I wasn't using because the battery is toast. I figured that I could use it in CriticalPower because I can wire it up to the Lithium Ion battery - so that's what I did. It's PERFECT because it contains most of our entire 30 gig music library. To see how long the lithium battery would last, I ran the iPod at full volume for 48 hours straight and the battery is still at about 80% charge!

Another cool feature of the old iPod is the in-line remote control. I found it difficult before to control the nano iPod using the click wheel while driving. Too much bouncing and vibrating in the moving streamliner to be able to easily work the click wheel. I mounted the remote control on the steering bar right beside my two way radio push-to-talk switch. It works PERFECT!!! With the push of my thumb I can make a radio call, pause or resume music, adjust the volume or advance to the next or previous song. Very cool!

It's VERY crowded in there, but I have all the comforts of home. Including a bathroom. I rigged up a pee tube the other day - basically a plastic tube connected to a short piece of soft and flexible silicon plastic tubing which terminate in a connector that slides into a receptacle on a disposable rubber prophylactic thingy.

And finally - I was doing some cadence calculations the other day and figured out that I just didn't have quite enough upper range on my current gear set-up. So - I removed the small 28 tooth chain ring on the mid drive and replaced it with a 24 tooth ring. The smallest gear on the cassette is 12, so I can still go to an 11 if I need it. At the CdA of .3, Crr of .004, 143 watts will get me 58 kph with a cadence of 83 rpm.

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32. Crr tests, food holders, canopy bubble lifter, May 4, 06

Thu, 4 May 2006 19:56:58 -0700

Rolling Resistance coast down tests, food bag holders, canopy bubble lifter
..This Podcast was created from the adventures of greg blog. To view photos and videos of todays update, please visit the web site at w w w dot adventures of greg dot com

May 4, 2006

Rolling Resistance coast down tests, food bag holders, canopy bubble lifter

One of the major changes with this version of CriticalPower are two new wheels. On the rear I was using a 700 Zipp deep rim carbon wheel with carbon disc covers and a Zipp latex high pressure tubular sew up tire. On the front I was running a 650 Renn carbon disc wheel with a Vittoria latex high pressure tubular. According to some data from Jobst Brandt at Analytic Cycling, high pressure tubulars were actually measured as having worse rolling resistance than clinchers due to the glue that is used to adhere the tire to the rim. He tested many different tubulars and clinchers and time and again, the clinchers out performed the tubulars.

I spoke with Tom Compton at Analytic Cycling about this data and he assured me that this was true. A narrow, high pressure tubular would probably be faster than a clincher on a road bike, time trial bike or triathlon bike because the aerodynamic advantages of the narrow tubular would outweigh the Crr disadvantages. However, in my case almost the entire rear wheel and most of the front wheel are hidden from the wind behind fairings.

This was the reason I wanted to change the tires I was using from glued tubulars to clinchers. I had to buy new wheels unfortunately. I am now running high quality latex clinchers on both wheels. I had conducted a Crr (rolling resistance) test previously with one rear tubular and one front clincher. I ran another series of slow speed coast down tests yesterday using both of the new clincher wheels, and the Crr was indeed better using two clinchers rather than just one. I never did run any tests using both of my tubulars, so I really can't say how much worse off I was running with the two tubulars during the 24 hour event, but I have tried to estimate it using previous test results. Here are the results of 3 Crr tests along with expected speed at 150 watts of power:
bike: front tire rear tire Crr speed fully faired (.3 CdA)
at 150 watts
M5 lowracer 20" clincher
120 psi 700 clincher
130 psi .0055 55.2 kph
CriticalPower (old) 650 clincher
130 psi 700 tubular
180 psi .0038 60.5 kph
CriticalPower for previous 24 hour record attempt (hypothetical) 650 tubular
130 psi 700 tubular
180 psi .0041 59.5 kph
CriticalPower (new) 650 clincher
130 psi 700 clincher
130 psi .0035 61.5 kph

So - it appears that there could be as much as a 2 kph difference at 150 watts between the old tire configuration using tubulars and the new using clinchers. That's worth as much as 48 km in 24 hours! Since the CriticalPower (old) Crr test was done on a much warmer day, the difference between the new set up could be even greater because Crr gets worse as temperature drops.

It needs to be noted that running slow speed coast down tests is never very accurate. There is always some wind and knowing the exact CdA of the various bikes and wheels is difficult to quantify. It's worse if the tests are conducted on different days, so this data should be considered approximate. During the test and tune day previous to the record attempt last November, I measured a Crr on CriticalPower running the two tubulars at .0053. That was using a different testing method using some different software, so I did not include those values in the above table.

This is a lexan shape that I made to lift up the front edge of the canopy bubble to allow for more air flow through that canopy in case of fogging.

The shape allows air to flow through it and a portion of the air flow is redirected up and back toward the inside of the windshield to de-fog if required. I also made another simpler lexan wedge that would allow more air through, but no necessarily redirect it upwards. The idea is to stow these wedges under my seat somewhere and secure them under the bubble nose with velcro if and when required.

I decided to make something to hold the water bags tighter so they don't sway back and forth. These are two Sintra plastic straps that were shaped with the heat gun. They are hold onto the frame using plastic tie-straps (my chosen form of attaching stuff to the frame)

They work really well. Getting the water bags off and back on again is now very easy to do

The bags are secured onto the aluminum threaded rod by a wing nut. I imagined someone unscrewing it in a hurry and dropping the wing nut down inside the fairing shell. So, I added a leash to prevent it from getting lost.

Some results are coming in for the logo survey. Some of you don't like any of them (that's OK - I asked), but most of you like #4 and #5 and #2 in that order. Phil Evans thinks I should do WWII nose art:

http://northstargallery.com/Aircraft/noseart/index.htm

I really like that idea also, but I sort of want to tie the new logo in with the old one. What do y'all think?

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31. New CriticalPower logos, May 3, 06

Wed, 3 May 2006 09:05:16 -0700

New CriticalPower logos
..This Podcast was created from the adventures of greg blog. To view photos and videos of todays update, please visit the web site at w w w dot adventures of greg dot com

May 3, 2006

New CriticalPower logos

The original concept behind the skull and cross bones logo stemmed from the fact that the raw dusty black carbon shell with the white dome made CriticalPower look kind of like a Rat Rod. Rat Rods are hot rod's from the 1950's where the builders spent far more time and consideration on the engine than the body aesthetics They were usually painted flat black with white wall tires. Logos were seriously mean. Here are a few photos of some Rat Rods:

See the resemblance?

Now that CriticalPower will sport a glossy silver paint job, the logo needs to be changed from the crude looking skull and cross bones to something cleaner and more modern. I want to keep the tough look, but sharpen it up a bit. Here are some ideas. Let me know what one you like - or what you don't like:

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30. Com system, hydration and Shapelock, May 2, 06

Tue, 2 May 2006 09:05:16 -0700

Communications system, hydration/nutrition system, more Shapelock coolness and the crew headset
...This Podcast was created from the adventures of greg blog. To view photos and videos of todays update, please visit the web site at w w w dot adventures of greg dot com

May 2, 2006

Communications system, hydration/nutrition system, more Shapelock coolness and the crew headset

Earth to Greg, Earth to Greg...

This is the ChatterBox Person to Person Sports Communication System headset. The speakers they provide are supposed to be inserted into the liner of a motorcycle helmet, but the speaker really SUCK! Very bad. I am sure they are fine for spoken two-way communications, but they are really bad for music. No base at all. So, I cut them off and spliced in some good Sony headphones. The boom mic tie-strapped to the side of the bike helmet. The headphones are tie-strapped to the rear of the bike helmet, so the entire unit - mic, headphones and helmet are one. It fits PERFECTLY and is really, really comfortable. I would say that the headphones are even more comfortable that my typical Sony sports headphones. I am a bit concerned about ear sweating under the headphone ear covers. The headphone don't fit completely tight over my ears due to the way they fit on the bike helmet. This should allow a small amount of air flow through. I will give them a try on an M5 training ride today and see how it feels to wear for a couple hours straight.

One of the issues I had previously with listening to the iPod in the steamliner while wearing my typical sports headphones is a bit of a lack of volume. It's pretty loud in the streamliner and I usually have the iPod on full volume. It could have been just slightly louder. Now, the sound goes through the ChatterBox two-way radio first and is amplified. Now I have volume to spare!! And there does not appear to be any loss in sound quality which is what I was afraid of.

This looks like a mess, but it actually works quite well. I couldn't mount the ChatterBox on the other side of the frame because that's right where the NACA duct enters from the main body. So, it just fits under the steering push/pull rod without interfering with it.

The iPod connects to the ChatterBox through the headphones port on the iPod. When a two-way radio call comes in, or I make one, the ChatterBox automatically lowers the iPod music volume, and it works really well.

The ChatterBox also connects to my cell phone, and I can make or receive phone calls through the ChatterBox headset without taking my hands off the steering bar, except for a single button push to answer the call. It works well once I am connected,, but for some reason, the phone does not ring through the headset - only on the actual cell phone. If I can't see the phone, then I don't know I am getting a call. I need to figure out what that is happening there.

Using the ChatterBox for radio communications is done either with voice activated circuitry (VOX) or a handy push to talk switch that is velcroed to the handle bars. The VOX feature works, but I think it is better suited for a quieter environment. I much prefer to push to talk switch that I have mounted right under my thumb on the steering bar. The range of the radio is 5 miles and during a test, I was about 3 miles from the house and had a crystal clear conversation with Cody who was in the house. I have the volume turned up to about 80% of it's limit, so there is plenty of volume for the noisy streamliner.

The Chatterbox comes with a rechargable and ancient Ni-MH battery which they claim will last for 8 hours of talk time and 20 hours of stand-by. Since the rechargable 4.5 volt Ni-MH battery takes 14 hours to recharge, I wired the ChatterBox up to my 16 volt 7200 mA Lithium Polymer rechargable, which should give me at least 24 hours of use without needing to replace the battery. I have extra Ni-MH batteries for the ChatterBox, but they are a bit of a pain to replace. The idea is to keep the pit stops QUICK and simple this time around, so I don't really want to worry about replacing batteries. If I need to replace the large LiPoly, I have two more and they are VERY easy to swap out. I just pull off a velcro strap, yank the power cord out of it's port and plug in a freshly charged one. It's all directly under my seat and the ChatterBox, iPod and Cell phone are all wired into the large battery. All three devices should last for at least 24 hours, so there shouldn't be any need to change the LiPoly.

I think this is going to work out pretty well. I inserted an aluminum threaded rod through the carbon over-the-shoulder bar. The two food bags are hung off the aluminum rod and secured with a wing nut. The weight is fairly evenly distributed because each bag hangs to one side of the frame (for the most part). I will need to cut out a larger opening in the left hand fairing shell directly behind my head to allow for easy access to removing and replacing the bags, but for the most part, it's a pretty easy job. Just pop the canopy bubble off, reach in, unscrew the wing nut, rip the velcro strap off the bite valves and pull both bags right out of the streamliner. Then two new bags would be inserted and secured. I may need to add a couple of elastic bungie cords to keep the bags from swaying back and forth during turns, but on a quick test ride I couldn't feel them moving at all and they were both full with 3 liters of water each.

The bit valves are held in position using a custom ShapeLock part I made:

I pressed a hot blob of ShapeLock onto the over-the-shoulder bar and then pressed both water tubes into it to form groves to hold the tubes in place. Then I screwed a velcro strap onto the bar. Now the valves are held in exactly the right place every time.

This is also kind of cool - I used ShapeLock to make smooth, rounded caps for some sharp fasteners ( a wing nut holding the wheel cover on, and two bolts securing the head rest bracket) that could threaten to rip the water bags open.

The ChatterBox 'Sport' headset they provided for the second Pit Crew Chatterbox unit really sucks. You can barely hear out of the single ear piece and it constantly falls off your face, Instead, I connected the ChatterBox boom mike to a Sony sports headset and it works GREAT!

Here is the new TODO list:

1. Communications! - The Chatterbox GMRS-X1motorcycle two-way radio systems from HelmetCom is installed and working. I need to buy a 12 vdc power filter cable because there is some funny interference noise when I use the 12 vdc LiPoly battery to power it.
2. Nutrition / hydration fillers - Done
3. Fairing ribs - Done.
4. CHAIN GUIDES!!! - Done
5. New clincher wheels - I found a RENN 650 rear clincher on Ebay and the same seller was offering a 700 HED 3 carbon rim front wheel so I bought them both. I'll simply add my carbon wheel discs to the HED, and the RENN should be good to go.
6. Fairing paint and polish - The fairing shells are at Bob the painter. He thinks it'll be done by next Friday.
7. Rear wheel fairing - done.
8. New Canopy bubble - Almost there. I need to make one with thicker PETG. Or maybe not.
9. Canopy bubble nose lifter - I need to invent something to lift the front of the bubble up about 1/4" to allow the airflow to evaporate any condensation that may build up on the inside of the canopy. The was a problem in Alabama when it got cold at night and we had to cut a large hole in the front of the bubble.
10. Water bag holders - I need to build something simple to stop the full water bags from swaying back and forth. I was thinking of bungie straps, but it might be difficult for the pit crew person to reach in through the small opening under the canopy bubble to secure the bags under the elastic straps. Instead, I think some plastic tubing, coroplast, or heat-moulded Sintra would hold them in place.
11. Alternate headset - Done
12. Details - Rubber trim around the rear of the canopy bubble, vent holes in the canopy bubble, A hole in the fairing bottom for the pee tube,

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29. Geometry comparison, April 27, 06

Sat, 29 Apr 2006 09:05:16 -0700

Geometry comparison, rear wheel fairing and canopy bubble.
...This Podcast was created from the adventures of greg blog. To view photos and videos of todays update, please visit the web site at w w w dot adventures of greg dot com

April 28, 2006

Geometry comparison, rear wheel fairing and canopy bubble.

(click for bigger)

You can see in the image above, that the positions are very, very similar. I need to move the bottom bracket back about 1/2" on the M5 to exactly equal the foot position of CriticalPower, but other than that, my body shouldn't know the difference between the two bikes.

I ordered these slick rubber channels from Wicks Aircraft and one of them worked perfect on the canopy bubble to nicely seal and smoothen the transition between the PETG canopy bubble and the main body fairing.

I added an aluminum hook to the tail of the canopy bubble. This hook fits into a slot in CriticalPower frame and secures the rear of the canopy.

Here is the completed rear wheel fairing.

The carbon tabs slide into slots cut into the bottom of the frame and are held tightly with two aluminum bolts that go through the frame. Like this:

The main body fairing shells slip under the wheel fairing and fit very tight - nice and smooth. I actually had bought the rubber mouldings to help seal up the transition between the wheel fairing and the main fairing, but they fit together pretty tightly, so that won't be required.

Here is the new TODO list:

1. Communications! - The Chatterbox GMRS-X1motorcycle two-way radio systems from HelmetCom. is almost installed. I have figured out a way to use my 12 volt lithium polymer batteries to power both the iPod nano and the Chatterbox two way radio. This would possibly eliminate any need for a battery change for the entire 24 hours - no photos yet.
2. Nutrition / hydration fillers - I'm changing this. What I think would be better is for the pit crew to be able to completely remove the bags from the canopy hole and replace them with two fresh bags.
3. Fairing ribs - Done.
4. CHAIN GUIDES!!! - Done
5. New clincher wheels - I found a RENN 650 rear clincher on Ebay and the same seller was offering a 700 HED 3 carbon rim front wheel so I bought them both. I'll simply add my carbon wheel discs to the HED, and the RENN should be good to go.
6. Fairing paint and polish - The fairing shells are at Bob the painter. He thinks it'll be done by next Friday.
7. Rear wheel fairing - done.
8. New Canopy bubble - Almost there. I need to make one with thicker PETG. Or maybe not.
9. Canopy bubble nose lifter - I need to invent something to lift the front of the bubble up about 1/4" to allow the airflow to evaporate any condensation that may build up on the inside of the canopy. The was a problem in Alabama when it got cold at night and we had to cut a large hole in the front of the bubble.

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28. First lowracer ride, April 26, 06

Wed, 26 Apr 2006 10:29:41 -0700

First lowracer ride of the season, getting the M5 ready for some serious mileage, getting CriticalPower up and running, the rear wheel fairing and some chain guides made with this really cool moldable plastic called ShapeLock.
...This Podcast was created from the adventures of greg blog. To view photos and videos of todays update, please visit the web site at w w w dot adventures of greg dot com

April 26, 2006

First lowracer ride of the season, getting the M5 ready for some serious mileage, getting CriticalPower up and running, the rear wheel fairing and some chain guides made with this really cool moldable plastic called ShapeLock.

The cleanup of M5 took way longer than I expected - probably about 2 days worth of work. The chain needed cleaning and lengthening, both tires needed replacement, I fixed the wobbly front wheel hub, moved the SRM crank over from my triathlon bike, installed the 155 mm cranks, replaced the bottom bracket and installed a new rear view mirror. Most importantly, I measured and re measured and measured again the geometry differences between CriticalPower and the M5. I had to get the bottom bracket distance, seat angle and head angle EXACTLY the same as CP. Thankfully, the only major geometry change was accomplished by adding a bit more curve to better cup my ass. The exact curve of the seats is slightly different for both CP and the M5. Now my training on the M5 should be directly applicable to CriticalPower

I purchased a new 3 liter hydration bag and a new rear pannier. There's lots of room in the bag to hold my repair kit, plenty of food for long rides, and some clothing for weather changes.

My first ride of the season felt great! It was a bit slow, and I can feel the different position in my sore legs, but it otherwise felt pretty great to be back on the lowracer! Very comfortable riding compared to the tri bike for sure! It's a bit slower than last years version of the M5 due to the geometry differences. As you might recall, last year when I started training, CriticalPower was going to be a camera bike and the seat angle was really low. Check out the comparison. By the time I ended up raising the seat back and adding a canopy bubble to CriticalPower streamliner, I had to make some quick geometry changes to the M5 to resume training with the new body position. A change that late in the training season was tough, and wasn't planned, but I had no choice - a camera and monitor just wasn't going to work. The new higher back M5 is a bit slower than the super laid-back version.

I got the new clincher wheels onto CriticalPower, cleaned up the chain, added some chain guides, installed the new painted fork, re-wired the SRM powercontrol and sensors, installed the 155 mm cranks onto the SRM pro, and checked and tightened all the bolts and fasteners. She's ready to rock!

After a quick spin around the block, everything felt great!

Check this stuff out:

Ben found this stuff called Shapelock. It's basically these tiny plastic pellets with a really low melting temp. You pour a few teaspoons of the pellets into some boiling water, stir with a fork until the clump together and turn clear, then you can form it with your fingers into any shape you want. After it cools, it's VERY hard and tough. Perfect for making tight fitting clamps and other plastic fittings. I used it to reinforce the chain guides I made.

I will also use it to make special clamps for my radio and iPod.

I made some really great progress with the rear wheel fairing. While I was on vacation, Ben finished up the foam plug by coating it with a few layers of fiberglass and painting and sanding a high build primer over it. Then he pulled a fiberglass wheel fairing off the male plug.

Producing a composite part from a male mold (if the mold is male it's called a plug) works OK - not the best way, but certainly way faster than building a female mold from the male plug, then pulling a part out. After vacuum bagging, the final part needs surface work. The tiny folds in the glass or carbon material need sanding down and the piece needs a good coat of high build primer and sanding, but the amount of work for a on-off part is much less than making a female mold.

It cut the fiberglass fender out and was surprised at how well it fit over the wheel! Since the glass is very thin, the edges flare out and press up nice and snug against the main body fairing. I ordered a rubber trim seal, but I don't think I'll need it.

Since entry / exit into and out of the streamliner requires complete removal of one fairing shell, this rear wheel fairing needs to be mounted onto CriticalPower frame, not the main body fairing. The way that I plan to accomplish this is to add some carbon tabs to both the front and the rear of the fairing. The tabs will be inserted into slots in the frame and secured with an aluminum bolt that will go through both the frame and the tab. This way, there won't be any fasteners exposed to airflow.

I cut shapes out of a 1/16" thick sheet of carbon plate and temporarily glued them onto the wheel fairing using a hot glue gun which really works great for a way to hold parts in place while you epoxy / carbon reinforce the whole assembly.

Then using 3M spray glue, I wrapped a couple layers of carbon fiber fabric around all the joints). After lightly wetting out with epoxy and allowing to cure for 8 hours, the assembly is super tough!

And finally, I wanted to show you this slick way of vacuum bagging a small part with a vacuum - or bag. We needed to add a stiffening rib to the middle of the fairing shell, so instead of bagging it, Ben laid down the coroplast strip, carbon fabric and wetted it out. Then he added a layer of release film and a breather blanket. To provide the pressure, he dumped a pile of sand on it all. It worked great!

Here is the new TODO list:

1. Communications! - I ordered 2 Chatterbox GMRS-X1motorcycle two-way radio systems from HelmetCom. These babies will let me plug in my iPod AND cell phone and use them seamlessly with the two-way radio. I have them now and after a quick preliminary test, they seem to work just great. My only concern is preservation of music quality - it seems that the sound from the iPod goes through the amp in the ChatterBox and results in a bit of a background hiss. I'm not sure what is causing that - could be the noise cancelling circuit - not sure.
2. Nutrition / hydration fillers - we are moving the food, water and battery access areas to the top behind the canopy top so I don't have to get out every time we need to refill water, food or replace the battery. I might plan on getting out every 6 hours or so rather than every 3 hour interval pit stop. I got some new hydration bags and we ordered some tubing and bulk head fittings.
3. Fairing ribs - Done.
4. CHAIN GUIDES!!! - Done
5. New clincher wheels - I found a RENN 650 rear clincher on Ebay and the same seller was offering a 700 HED 3 carbon rim front wheel so I bought them both. I'll simply add my carbon wheel discs to the HED, and the RENN should be good to go.
6. Fairing paint and polish - We need to coat the fairing shell with a thick epoxy based primer and sand and polish it smooth. This will seal up all the pin holes and hopefully improve the chances of obtaining some laminar flow. Bob - a guy just down the street from me is going to paint CriticalPower - it's scheduled to be delivered to his shop tomorrow.
7. Rear wheel fairing - Almost done.
8. New Canopy bubble - Almost there. I need to make one with thicker PETG. Or maybe not.
9. Canopy bubble nose lifter - I need to invent something to lift the front of the bubble up about 1/4" to allow the airflow to evaporate any condensation that may build up on the inside of the canopy. The was a problem in Alabama when it got cold at night and we had to cut a large hole in the front of the bubble.

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27. The 4 R's - Rested, Recovered and Ready to Rock!, April 23, 06

Sun, 23 Apr 2006 17:25:51 -0700

The 4 R's - Rested, Recovered and Ready to Rock!
...This Podcast was created from the adventures of greg blog. To view photos and videos of todays update, please visit the web site at w w w dot adventures of greg dot com

April 23, 2006

The 4 R's - Rested, Recovered and Ready to Rock!

After a fantastic 9 day vacation in Florida with Helen and the kids, I am feeling wonderfully recovered and ready to hit the summer hard!

Here is how the summer is lining up:

1. Police half marathon next Sunday. I'll see how much detraining happened during my recovery / beer week in Florida and try to beat my 90 minute PR from last years Police. I guess I'll have to do some running this week...

2. I am getting the old M5 lowracer ready for 3 months of distance training for another attempt at the 24 record in July. I'm really looking forward to that! I love riding the lowracer and absolutely love logging long, long days in the mountains.

3. I am on a fast track to finishing the work that needs to get done on CriticalPower to ready her for the record run in July. Wheel fairings, hydration-food system, fairing shell paint and finish, etc, etc. Ben is helping, so I should be able to make some pretty decent progress within the next few weeks.

4. I want to drive out to Eureka California in May to drop off CriticalPower at Rob Hitchcocks place and do some test runs on the track. Then I fly home so that when the weather window is good, and my training is in place, I can just fly out and do the attempt.

5. My training should taper off near the end of July and I'll fly out to Eureka and give the 24 another shot.

6. In August, we fly to France for a family vacation / bike / adventure trip touring the Loire Valley Francois-Nicolas has invited me out to compete in the The world HPV championships 2006 which are held from Aug 5th to 11th in Allegre, France. I might head to France earlier, compete in some events at the HPV championships, then meet up with Helen and the kids for the Backroads trip.

7. As soon as I return from France, I need to get my triathlon training back on track!

8. October 21, 2006 is the Ironman World Championships in Kona, Hawaii (I still smile when I think of it!!!!!) Ironman Hawaii will complete my summer!

? Somewhere this summer, We need to find some time to get out to the cabin in Montana for a bit, and possibly also a sailing (learning to sale) trip (future adventure?????).

Here are some shots from the Florida trip:

Happy mom.

Happy teenagers and a dad in the background

Disney park and a frozen drink to cool off! It was over 90 every day.

3 days in Saint Petersburg for some beach / lawnchair / tropical drink / sun burn time.

Eat - just like Floridians!

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26. Ironman Arizona race report, April 11, 06

Wed, 12 Apr 2006 09:23:56 -0700

Guess who's going to Hawaii in October !!!!!!!!!!
...This Podcast was created from the adventures of greg blog. To view photos and videos of todays update, please visit the web site at w w w dot adventures of greg dot com

April 11, 2006

Guess who's going to Hawaii in October !!!!!!!!!!

I had the race of my dreams at Ironman Arizona 2006 erasing 45 minutes off my best Ironman time by finishing in 10:15 and placing 4th in my age group qualifying me for the World Ironman Championships in Kona, Hawaii!!

I can't wipe the smile off my face. What a day! On my September 1st, 2002 Blog I made a bold declaration that wanted to work toward qualifying for the Ironman World Championships in Kona, Hawaii. Back then, I figured it would take "a few years". It ended up taking 3 1/2 years of racing and training and learning to finally accomplish that goal. In that Blog report 4.5 years ago I said that I was NOT especially gifted genetically - just an average guy, and I still believe that. I think what differentiates me is my sense of determination and sharp focus. I didn't give up and continued to chisel away at that goal. Without intending to sound preachy, I really believe that we can accomplish almost anything with the right mix of determined focus, relentless pursuit, honest self-evaluation and smart planning.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe quote - "Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it."

Here is how the day went down:

At 6:30 am on Sunday, April 9th, the Ironman race officials directed the 2000-some triathletes into Tempe town lake for the open water start of the swim leg. We had to swim to the starting line which was about 100 meters down the channel and under the bridge and tread water for 30 minutes until they fired the start gun.

My biggest fear on Ironman day is always the swim start. I absolutely hate it. I always get pummeled and it's just no way to start the day. This was no exception. Even as we hovered in the water for 30 minutes, the small area behind the starting line got so crowded where I was, that I was getting kicked from other swimmers as they treaded water. When the gun fired at 7:00 am, it was mass mayhem. It feels like you are swimming on a mix of slippery neoprene-clad bodies and water with arms and legs slapping you all over. It felt like it lasted for 20 minutes, but I'm pretty sure we all got spread out and into our own water by 10 to 15 minutes into the race which isn't really so bad. I swam most of the 1 mile down leg along the concrete wall and tried to angle into the turn around buoy. I inadvertently ended up swimming the return leg on the inside of the buoys. My arms felt OK and I just kept trying to maintain an effort level equal to my 1 minute, 50 second / 100 meter training pace in the pool. This would have netted me a swim time of around 1 hour, 10 minutes, but I climbed up the stairs exiting the water at 1:14. I was disappointed because someone trying to qualify for world championships really needs to finish in the top 5% and my 1:14 was top 41% (which happens to be my best % swim finish, but it still sucks).

This is me and my Iron-virgin buddy Matt who was doing his first Ironman. He ended up having an awesome day with a top 28% finish in his age group which is pretty amazing for a first timer! The guy stretching off to Matts right is another friend and fellow Calgarian Myles Gaulin. Myles won a Hawaii slot by winning our age group at Ironman Wisconsin last fall and ended up missing first place in this race by only 4 seconds.

With temperatures predicted to top 30 degrees C, I made the decision to conserve a bit on the bike, and I'm really glad I did that. It was my original goal to try to maintain 220 to 230 watts during the bike leg, but after considering the weather forecast, my lack of heat training, and the fact that my running has recently been pretty darned efficient, I decided to focus on a watts target of 210 watts, starting with 200 and slowly moving up during the race.

The bike was a flat, 3 loop course, so it was easy to get into aero position and just stay there. Since I was 844th overall out of the water, and finished the bike race 65th overall, I calculated that I passed over a thousand other cyclists. I rode almost all of the first two laps of the three lap bike course in the left lane passing all the riders to my right. It's easy to avoid drafting penalties when all you do is pass, because there is no rule to break aside from the 20 seconds you get to pass someone. I can't imagine what a pain it would be to have to manage 4 bike lengths between me and the guy in front of me who is riding at 'almost' the same speed as me.

My first lap wasn't that great. My watts average from the SRM power meter was only 189 with a highish 143 bpm heart rate. My legs really hurt for the first 40 minutes or so, and I really don't know why. Perhaps it takes 40 minutes for the blood to drain from my swim arms to my bike legs. This discomfort definitely kept the watts low for the first loop, but I was happy to note an average speed of 35.52 kph. I felt great for the second and third loops and ended up averaging 192 watts, 140 bpm, 35.81 kph and 71.8 rpm for a bike finish time of 5:03 which was the second fastest bike split for my age group. So far, the heat was not an issue at all and I was feeling really good, strong and ready to see what I could do in the marathon.

As soon as I hopped off my bike, an excruciating pain shot up from the outside of my right foot up my leg. Ouch!! Man that hurts. I immediately recognized the feeling - something that I've had to deal with since my very first Ironman. And, since is awful pain goes away after about 30 to 40 minutes, I have forgotten to record it in my race reports and as a result, have never really dealt with how to eliminate it. I think that on the bike, I am pushing my right foot to the right and smashing it into the wall of my bike shoe. I don't really feel it while on the bike, but when I get off and stand on the foot, it hurts like hell. I popped a few Advil and just tried to run/hobble as best I could until the pain started to slowly dissipate in about 40 minutes. During that 40 minutes of misery, Myles passed me and I knew that he was having a good race. I also caught another Calgary friend and cancer survivor Mike Gorman who had an amazing 53 minute swim and a decent 5:25 bike split. He was starting to slow down quite a bit on the run, so we ran together for a while and tried to motivate each other.

As my foot pain faded, I started to focus on increasing my pace and focusing on my hydration, sodium and nutrition. I finished my first of three laps at a 9:08 min/mile pace. As my comfort increased, so did my speed and I was able finish the second lap with an average of 8:51 min / mile. Still not as fast as I wanted. I really picked up speed in the last lap. As I approached the final 3 miles, I knew that I was going to make it and felt enough confidence to really pick up the pace. I wasn't wearing a watch, so all I was going on was how I felt. I picked the pace up to what I figured was about 7 min/mile and I felt amazingly great - no issues at all. I just powered through those last 3 miles feeling like I probably could have maintained a pace like that for more of the marathon. During the last lap, I tried really hard to simply focus on my running, my hydration, sodium intake and nutrition and NOT on where I was with respect to my finishing time. Since it was a 3 lap run course, I had no idea if the runners I was passing were on their first, second or third laps. Even as I passed others in my 45 to 49 age-group (your age is written in felt marker on your calf), I had no idea how many were in front of me that I needed to catch, or how many were behind.

As I neared the final stretch I allowed myself to imagine for just one second that perhaps my finish time 'could be' somewhere around the 10:30 to 10:40 mark. I knew that with todays conditions, that time might not be enough to qualify. I rounded the final corner to the cheers of spectators and the announcer and saw for the first time that I had about 100 yards to break 10:15 !!! I also noted that another 44-49 year old was directly in front of me! I tried to spring in front of him, be we were too close to the finish tape and I crossed 3 seconds behind him. I ended up missing THIRD place by 3 seconds!

I was met in the finishers area by Helen and we proceeded to try to figure out how I had done. Cody phoned from Calgary and had been following me on Ironmanlive.com. He told me that I was 80th overall and 4th in my age group. I couldn't believe it! I was both ecstatic and skeptical. Almost to good to believe and I was really afraid to allow myself to believe that I had qualified. I knew that something must be wrong - that there must be some finishers in my age group that had for some reason not been accounted for yet.. or a computer problem or something. I spoke with the guy who finished directly in front of me and his wife told me that she had been counting finishers and that she was pretty certain he was in third place. That would definitely put me in fourth.

This is funny: not more than a minute after I crossed the finish line, this huge green ATV hauling some boxes drove over my foot! It hurt quite a bit and I screamed, but the tires were soft enough that it didn't do any damage at all. The driver felt really bad and parked the ATV, got out and came over to apologize. I was laughing and told him that it wasn't a problem.

Helen and I went back to the hotel room and I wanted to check the internet for myself:

There I was - in 4th place. It still hadn't changed.

On Monday morning we went to register for Hawaii and it was only then that I realized that I had really done it.

Then we went to the awards banquet and they call the top five up on stage and present each with a plaque. What a thrill that was! For 9 Ironman races over the last 6 years I have watched the top 5 presentation with awe and respect wondering if I would ever make it up there. This was my day!

Analysis

So - what did I do different during this training cycle that took 45 minutes off my best finishing time? I really don't know, but following are all the possible reasons:

1. Bike training

My bike training was very different than usual. According to my training schedule, I logged 103 total bike training hours over the 8 weeks prior to Ironman Cour d' Alene last summer. That compares to 90 hours for Ironman Arizona which is very close. The difference is in the number of long rides - way down this year due to having to ride inside on the mag trainer. Rides of 4.5 hours or longer were limited to just THREE quick rides this year, 1 outside ride in freezing February, and 1 ride 2 weeks prior to race day. The other 4.75 hour ride was inside with a few 4 hour inside rides. Last year, I did 7 rides of duration longer than 4.5 hours and most of those were 6 hour rides with a couple of 7 hour rides.

Also I was able to complete a full cycle of MAP and endurance interval watts based training from my coach Jason Yanota. People wonder how time spent at 300 to 400 watts on a mag trainer could possibly benefit an Ironman bike split, but I think the proof in right here for you. I barely did any long rides at all and yet I had absolutely no problems holding my goal wattage for the entire Ironman bike leg - and had plenty of energy to spare for the run. With Jasons bike program, I was on the bike almost every single day and I believe that counted for something.

Aside from a PR 5:03 bike split at IMAZ, I also saw some of the lowest heart rates at fixed power outputs I have ever seen since I started training for triathlon 6 years ago. I believe this is due to Jasons training program, and possibly some due to all of the recumbent 24 hour training I did leading up to Ironman Arizona.

2. 24 hour record attempt training

It is entirely possible that all of the long, long, long distance training I did on the M5 recumbent lowracer during July, August, Sept and Oct had some effect on my basic bike fitness. I know the recumbent position is very different, but it is possible that at least some of the training I did spilled over to my road bike geometry fitness.

3. Run training

I took 15 minutes off of my best Ironman marathon time in Arizona and in training, I had been noting the lowest heart rates I have ever seen on fixed paces. For example, my 8 minute per mile run pace (that equates to a 3.5 hour marathon) has been 140 heart rate for at least 4 years. I've been seeing heart rates at 128 to 132 bpm consistently at the 8 min/mile pace for a couple of months now.

The major change I made to my run training was LESS distance in my long runs (following the diminished bike distances trend). I built up to 3.25 hour very slow long runs 8 weeks away from Ironman AZ and was advised by Dave Ramsay to cut that was back and start to pick up the speeds on my long runs. He thought that I should be building my long runs up to no longer than 2.5 hours, but they should all be at my goal 8 min/mile pace. Plus, he recommended that all my other training runs during the week should be at least at this 8 min/mile pace - some even faster. And that's exactly what I did. I reverted my long runs back to 1.5 hours and worked my way back up to only 2.5 hours, 3 weeks away from IMAZ. All the running was at this faster pace, and I followed almost every hard bike training session with a fast, 30 to 45 minute run.

4. Weight

My weight in the middle of my training cycle was around 162. Two days before the race, I dropped down to 156 due to the fat loading diet and was about 158 on race day. Last year at IMcda I weighed in at the low 150's. The extra weight is definitely a bit more fat, but probably also some lean tissue earned by the short Creatine build cycle that I did many weeks ago. I really don't think the Creatine did anything to improve my performance because none of my training speeds or efficiencies increased any more than what I would typically expect from standard training.

5. Fat loading diet

I had been reading the research on fat loading and I thought it could be especially applicable to an Ironman distance endurance event. The diet is basically 50 to 60% fat with the remainder carbohydrates and protein. You eat like this for 6 to 7 days, then 2 days of strict carb loading then compete in your endurance event. The fat loading process does 3 things:

1. It teaches your body how to burn fat instead of carbs because there is so much fat available from your diet and so little carbs.

2. It makes the fat more readily accessible for energy because the diet is so rich in fat that it becomes available as gobbles floating around in your muscle cells.

3. Since you have restricted your carbohydrate intake for 6 to 7 days, when you do start eating carbs, your body super-compensates and stores more carbohydrates in the muscles that normal. This excess of fat and carbs can be used on race day.

The research has shown an average of 4% gains on endurance and this 4% is considered a non-significant increase because it isn't over the 1.8 standard deviations that chance would permit. However, if the 4% is consistent enough from experiment to experiment then a 4% increase could be statistically significant (not enough research yet) and 4% on an average Ironman finishing time of 11 hours is almost 30 minutes which is HUGE. Also, the endurance time interval on the experiments I have read about are all much shorter than Ironman. I believe the diet could be more effective for longer ultra endurance events.

My fat loading diet calculator, schedule and details are in my training log - click on the tab that reads "food, water, sodium, load diet"

5. Years of training to build economy

And finally, there is the possible reason that all economy is a result of years and years of cumulative training. Simply the miles logged in running, swimming and cycling over the years will eventually result in increases in economy and efficiency allowing the athlete to cover more distance faster and with less energy expenditure. I have heard that it takes an average of 3 to 5 years of endurance training to build your efficiency up to the point where you are fit enough to compete for a Kona slot. I am certain is this true to some extent, but I doubt that it could be worth 45 minutes of total Ironman time over only a year.

Here is my updated race chart showing all 10 of my Ironman race finishes and where I placed as a % of my age group. The red line shows the overall average trend of swim, bike and run finish % placements.

Where to go from here?

Well, I will start training for Kona this summer, but I am going to start training for another 24 hour HPV distance record attempt first. I hope to mount another attack on the record sometime in July. Then my goals for Kona are going to be to get through day and enjoy the race - nothing more than that.

After that, I would like to register for Ironman Canada 2007 and see if I can't place in the top 3 in my age group to qualify for Kona again. This would most definitely mean a SERIOUS revision of my swimming training - and mostly my swim technique. As you can see from the chart above (light blue line), something seriously must be wrong with my swim stroke to be so very far below where I should be swimming. This will most definitely mean hiring a swim coach and PLENTY of work! But I believe I can do it, and I am motivated to make the effort. Taking 15 minutes off my swim time would have put me in the running for top three in Arizona and breaking the 10 hour mark! (That means a finishing time that starts with a NINE!!!) One hour swim times or less are definitely the average swim times for Kona qualifiers - that's where I need to be.

Injury shots

I can't end my Blog post without a couple photos of the wreckage this race left behind:

I forgot to take off my neck chain before the swim and it got caught between my neck and the back of my wet suit during the swim. Half-way through the swim I was starting to feel it and near the end of the swim, it was almost all I could think about. When I got on the bike the chain simply fell off my neck because the rubbing had worn away the leather rope!

And - the standard parting shot of my black toes.

Cheers!

Greg Kolodziejzyk

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25. Canopy and wheel fairing, April 2, 06

Mon, 3 Apr 2006 15:07:31 -0700

Glassing the PETG canopy bubble and a gravity blown rear wheel fairing
...This Podcast was created from the adventures of greg blog. To view photos and videos of todays update, please visit the web site at w w w dot adventures of greg dot com

April 2, 2006

Glassing the PETG canopy bubble and a gravity blown rear wheel fairing

Since the 1/16" thick PETG canopy bubble was so thin, I thought that maybe coating the inside with a couple layers of fiberglass would be easier than making a new canopy out of thicker PETG. I was also concerned that I wouldn't have enough heat to draw the 1/8" PETG down to the depth I needed. In the end, the fiberglass reinforced bubble works great - nice and stiff and strong, but a bit ugly because you can see the fiberglass cloth through the clear PETG. I may try to make a 1/8" PETG dome and see how they compare.

The gory details on the process of glassing the PETG is below.

A blown rear wheel fairing

During a very brief and somewhat fuzzy brain storm, I thought that I would like to try to use our super canopy vacuum box to suck a rear wheel fairing. I think the idea has great merit, but things didn't work out quite perfectly. I've had this idea for a very long time and really want to take some time to explore it further. Basically, the idea is to use some method of gravity blowing - or vacuum forming PETG to use as a carbon composite MOLD. The big reason is that the PETG finish is PERFECT mold material. It's almost IMPOSSIBLE to get epoxy resin & carbon or fiberglass to stick to it. And when you pull the cured composite part off the PETG plastic, the finish is spectacular - perfect smooth and glossy like the PETG. Plus if I can figure out a way to really control the vacuum/gravity forming process, it makes for totally smooth and sexy aerodynamic shapes.

I printed out an airfoil shape that would work to enclose the rear wheel and cut out a top plywood sheet for the vacuum box. Then we tried to pull a deep, narrow wheel fairing, but the vacuum wanted to suck the hot PETG out around the perimeter of the cutout. Basically like a bubble rather than a sunken shape. We resorted to a simply gravity pull (no vacuum) and the deeper the plastic went, the further away from the heat source it got, and the longer it needed to stay under the heat lamps. This caused the edges of the plastic touching the plywood to melt into the plywood creating a real big mess. The answer is to provide some heat from BELOW, but we managed to get a pretty decent shape blown.

After an experiment with a vacuum bag, it was obvious that the thin PETG mold was going to deform way too much to use a vacuum bag. So, we filled the shape up with expanding foam. The chemical reaction from the two-part expanding foam melted the PETG and deformed it anyhow. So, we pulled the Styrofoam plug out of the PETG mold and we now have a very decent foam plug to use as a starting point. I'll further shape the plug to get a perfect wheel fender shape, then coat it with a few layers of glass, then pull some carbon fairings from the glass plug.

Again, the details are all below.
Glass reinforced canopy bubble
1. I marked off the area where the hard glass cover will go. I used an erasable marker for this.
2. I set the canopy bubble back into it's frame in the vacuum box and masked off the window area that is to be kept clear
3. Epoxy resins DO NOT bond to PETG. I experimented with a test part first and used a variety of sandpapers to scuff up the PETG before applying the resin, and in every case, the cured fiberglass easily popped off. However, sanding the surface was better than leaving the plastic smooth, so I scuffed the surface with some steel wool.
4. I was not going to vacuum bag this layup because the pressure of the vacuum would distort the thin PETG bubble. Instead, I used plenty of spray contact cement on the bubble surface as well as on the dry fiberglass cloth. Even still, it ended up peeling up a bit on some corners after it was fully wetted out.

I am still trying to find a full-proof way of getting composites to stick to their form without having to use a vacuum. I have had fairly good luck with spray adhesive, but once the fabric is fully wetted out, it will lift the glue up in some places.

I have also had fairly good luck with coating the mold surface with resin and letting the resin partially cure. Then stick the composite cloth on and complete the wet-out.

After the fiberglass cured, it was very hard and tough.
To hold the canopy bubble down to the fairing shell, I cut out two Sintra plastic brackets.
Then I used a heat gun to gently curve them to the exact shape of the canopy bubble.
Clamps held them in place as they were epoxied to the fiberglass on the inside of the PETG canopy bubble.
I mixed some micro with resin and bonded two aluminum bolts to the rear of the canopy. I will fasten an aluminum bracket to this which will be used to hold the rear of the canopy to the fairing.

One draw-back to using the vacuum to control the pull on the PETG bubble, is it tends to balloon the sides out. I'm not sure I like this at all, as extra width is NOT required and will end up being draggier.

I may try to blow another bubble, this time using 1/8" PETG to avoid having to coat the inside with fiberglass, and NOT use the vacuum so I can get straighter sides.

Gravity blown PETG wheel fairing
1. This is the vacuum box with a new template cut into the top to produce a shape that will fit nicely over the rear wheel.
2. Infrared heat melts the 1/8" thick PETG and a vacuum pulls it into the air tight box. The green plastic bag makes the box air tight so we can pull a decent vacuum.
3. One of the advantages of using a vacuum is that you can pull the hot plastic down to as far as you need it quickly, but we ended up making a whole bunch of plastic bags! Finally after some trial and error, we got a fairly decent shape out of a 1/8" thick sheet, but the edges were ballooning out just like the canopy bubble.
4. So we made a final wheel fairing by disconnecting the vacuum all together and letting gravity sag the hot PETG plastic down to it's final depth. This didn't work out that well because it took so long for gravity to do it's work that the plastic totally melted into the wood box at the flange.
5. Since we could not get the wheel fairing as deep as we needed it, we built a cardboard edge and filled the whole thing up with expanding foam
6. The chemical reaction from the expanding foam melted and distorted the plastic, so we had to rip it off the Styrofoam form. But, now I have a very good Styrofoam form that I can sand and carve into the perfect fairing shape.

I will cover this foam plug with a couple layers of fiberglass, then mold prep it with wax and PVA. Then I can pull off carbon wheel fenders off of the MALE foam/glass mold

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24. Critical Power T-shirt available!, March 28

Tue, 28 Mar 2006 10:53:16 -0700

Critical Power T-shirt available!,
...This Podcast was created from the adventures of greg blog. To view photos and videos of todays update, please visit the web site at w w w dot adventures of greg dot com
March 28, 2006

Since I posted this photo of Greg B and myself sporting our new, super cool CriticalPower T-shirts, I have been besieged with requests for T-shirts! The world has gone completely CP Crazy. (ok, not actually. What really happened was Thom Ollinger sent me an email asking if he could buy one, so I thought it would be cool to make the design available for anyone else who might like to join in on my fashion statement).

Zazzle.com is this very slick web site where you can create your own T-shirt design, then make it available for the world to buy. You can also customize the shirt color and other aspects of the design including adding your own text!

Since the Human Powered Vehicle Association has done so much for me, and the whole human power community, I figured it would be nice to give something back. $2 a T-shirt isn't a whole lot, but if I can just get a measly 50% of the US and Canadian (and Mexican and, say only 25% of Europe) population to buy one, that will be a donation of, um... well, millions I think.

So do it now! Click here to join the Human Power revolution! And while you have your credit card out, go to the HPVA web site and buy a $32 membership to the Human Powered Vehicle Association.

Human Power is Critical Power!

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23. New Canopy and stiff ribs, March 25

Sat, 25 Mar 2006 16:14:23 -0700

The super canopy machine and stiffening ribs for the streamliner fairing shells.
..This Podcast was created from the adventures of greg blog. To view photos and videos of todays update, please visit the web site at w w w dot adventures of greg dot com

March 25, 2006

The super canopy machine and stiffening ribs for the streamliner fairing shells.

I was playing around with making a new canopy bubble for CriticalPower because the old one is pretty scratched up from the Alabama record attempt. Also, we had to cut a hole in the nose of the old one in Alabama because it was fogging up so it's basically garbage.

I was using the old Varna canopy mold and noticed that my best canopies were always the ones in which I stopped the vacuum pull just before the PETG touched the mold surface. Then I realized that the actual mold wasn't really doing anything aside from providing a sealed cavity for the vacuum to pull the hot plastic down.

After I realized this, I figured that I could make a new mold which would be simply a larger sealed box and I could make a canopy bubble as large and as deep as I needed by simply controlling the heat, the angle at which gravity and the vacuum was pulling down on the hot plastic, and the amount of vacuum pressure.

We (by 'we' I mean Ben) built a plywood box with a new longer canopy bubble shape cut out of the top. The PETG sheet is sandwiched between another cutout and my infrared heaters go to work and melt the plastic sheet.

There is a 1/4 inch hold drilled into the bottom of the box where my venturi vacuum hose is connected. When the plastic starts to get soft, I turn on the vacuum valve and start to pull the hot plastic down into the box.

I stretched an elastic band across the box about 3 inches up from the bottom to use as a marker to know when to stop the pull.

The canopy bubbles were absolutely perfect - far better than anything I had ever made previously with the old mold. They are optically clear and perfectly smooth.

This is the shape that the bubble was always meant to have - see how nicely
it tapers into the rear tail? Far, far better than before.

This shows the old canopy bubble under the new super bubble. You can see
how much longer and aerodynamic the new one is.

Since I am using 1/16" thick PETG, it is getting way, way too thin at the top of the bubble. I am going to have to switch to a 1/8" sheet.

Stiffening ribs for the Critical Power fairing shells.

We laid the fairing shell back into the mold, and cut out strips of coroplast and contact cemented them to the inside of the shell in a criss-cross pattern. Then we spray glued 2 layers of carbon over the coroplast ribs, wetted out with epoxy resin and vacuum bagged.

The result is fantastic! VERY, very stiff shells and WAY stronger than before without much weight added. So strong that I could stand on the shell now without it deforming.

The shells are so stiff and strong now, that placing them onto the frame is a snap - no need for alignment pins. It is now a one-man job which is great. The plan for the next record attempt is to have me stay in the streamliner for as many pit stops as possible. We are going to move the water and nutrition ports up to the top so my crew can easily re-fill me while I stay in the vehicle. If I need to get out to stretch, then it should be an easier job of removing and then replacing the left hand shell.

Here is the new TODO list:

1. Communications! - I ordered 2 Chatterbox GMRS-X1motorcycle two-way radio systems from HelmetCom. These babies will let me plug in my iPod AND cell phone and use them seamlessly with the two-way radio.
2. Fast entry/exit - we are moving the food, water and battery access areas to the top behind the canopy top so I don't have to get out every time we need to refill water, food or replace the battery. I might plan on getting out every 6 hours or so rather than every 3 hour interval pit stop.
3. Fairing ribs - Done.
4. CHAIN GUIDES!!! - Done - I made some chain guides out of plastic tubes, but forgot to take pictures.
5. New clincher wheels - I found a RENN 650 rear clincher on Ebay and the same seller was offering a 700 HED 3 carbon rim front wheel so I bought them both. I'll simply add my carbon wheel discs to the HED, and the RENN should be good to go.
6. Fairing paint and polish - We need to coat the fairing shell with a thick epoxy based primer and sand and polish it smooth. This will seal up all the pin holes and hopefully improve the chances of obtaining some laminar flow.
7. Wheel shroud for the front wheel - this was something that I had meant to do originally, and never got around to it. Since my front wheel is surrounded by the carbon sandwich board frame, building a carbon envelope for the front wheel shouldn't be that difficult.
8. Rear wheel fairing shape - We're probably going to smother that rear wheel fairing with expanding foam, then carve out a nice shape and carbon over it.
9. New Canopy bubble - Almost there. I need to make one with thicker PETG.
10. Canopy bubble nose lifter - I need to invent something to lift the front of the bubble up about 1/4" to allow the airflow to evaporate any condensation that may build up on the inside of the canopy. The was a problem in Alabama when it got cold at night and we had to cut a large hole in the front of the bubble.

Critical power is human power!

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22. Rocket paint job!! March 9

Fri, 10 Mar 2006 07:58:35 -0700

The Rocket human powered vehicle velomobile is back from the paint shop. Check out the photos!
This Podcast was created from the adventures of greg blog. To view photos and videos of todays update, please visit the web site at w w w dot adventures of greg dot com

The Rocket human powered vehicle velomobile is back from the paint shop. Check out the photos!

21. Christians 24 attempt, Feb 23, 06

Sat, 25 Feb 2006 16:47:10 -0700

Christian Aschebergs 24 hour record attempt in Berlin, my next attempt at the 24, CriticalPower mods, and an interview with Endurance radio
..This Podcast was created from the adventures of greg blog. To view photos and videos of todays update, please visit the web site at w w w dot adventures of greg dot com

Feb 23, 2006

Christian Aschebergs 24 hour record attempt in Berlin, my next attempt at the 24, CriticalPower mods, and an interview with Endurance radio

On Feb 21st at 3:14 pm (local time), Christian Ascheberg set off to loop around the Berlin Velodrome 4084 times in a 24 hour period and break the existing 24 hour human powered vehicle record. I was following his progress at a web site they set up in German. I used Googles translator software to (roughly) convert what happened to English.

He was forced to call it quits at about 12 hours, logging 486.75 km, resulting in an average speed of 40.5 km/hr which is 2.05 km/hr slower than the current record of 42.55 km/hr. According to an email I received from Christian, he was having some problems with an approved helmet he was required to wear - one that supposedly did not fit into his fairing properly and caused some discomfort. He also told me that his heart rate was over 150 which is WAY, WAY too high for an endurance event like this.

The Berlin velodrome is a 200 meter loop with steeply banked corners. My concern about using this venue to set a 24 hour distance record in a heavy streamliner is the increased weight caused by the g-forces while rounding the banked corners. Some others I have talked to about that, estimate that your weight doubles and according to my spreadsheet, to maintain 40 kph at 100 watts around the corners, you would need to increase that output to 200 watts. There would be some advantage to the smooth surface with regard to better rolling resistance, but I doubt it would be enough to counter the gravity effects of the banking. For some reason this does NOT apply to track bikes and I have no idea why? Track bikes are faster on a velodrome - perhaps because they weigh less than 16 pounds and the gravity effect isn't as great as a 60 pound streamliner.

My hat is off to Christian for the attempt! I hear a lot from others regarding what to do, what they would do, what is better, what is wrong, what is right, etc, etc, but over the last 10 years, as far as I know, only 2 people have actually attempted to break this record.

Ben modelled up the revisions I wanted for CriticalPower and ran them through the CFD software. The first mod is a wheel fairing that covers both the front and the rear wheels. We CFD tested two separate fairings, and one long one was more efficient. The second mod is a larger and longer canopy top. The reason for this is to allow my to get in and out of CriticalPower from the TOP rather than waste so much time pulling the left hand fairing shell off.

The CFD software results indicated that the canopy top was no more efficient than our existing small top. So we took a closer look at exactly what it would take to get in and out of the streamliner from a larger hole in the top, and discovered that because of the 'over the shoulder' bar, it would be nearly impossible! So I decided to skip that mod and leave the existing canopy top the way it is. Instead, we decided to stiffen the fairing shells with some ribs and come up with a faster way to mount and dismount the left hand fairing shell side for fast entry/exit.

I also decided to skip the extended single wheel fairing. I envision issues getting it attached properly while still allowing the fairing shell to be easily removed. I am also concerned about leaving enough room for the front wheel to turn. I think we need to do a better job smoothing the rear wheel fairing, but I am inclined to leave the front wheel open like it is.

The main issue for me now is not to change something that ends up causing some new, unforeseen problems. I know CP works, and I can live with the CdA as it is.

The important issues are:

1. Communications! - I am looking into motorcycle two way radios
2. Fast entry/exit - we are moving the food, water and battery access areas to the top behind the canopy top so I don't have to get out every time we need to refill water, food or replace the battery. I might plan on getting out every 6 hours or so rather than every 3 hour interval pit stop.
3. Smoother head light cover - The HID headlight protrudes out from the nose and probably creates some extra drag. I want to recess the light further back and find some transparent dome to more smoothly cover the nose area.
4. CHAIN GUIDES!!! - that's a no brainer
5. New clincher wheels - I have a feeling that the reason why my actual CdA was higher than what we had measured in Calgary is due to increased rolling resistance from the tubular tires. I am aware that high quality clinchers have better rolling resistance than tubulars due to the squishy glue that the tubulars require. There is a some data that backs that up here.
6. Fairing paint and polish - We need to coat the fairing shell with a thick epoxy based primer and sand and polish it smooth. This will seal up all the pin holes and hopefully improve the chances of obtaining some laminar flow.
7. Wheel shroud for the front wheel - this was something that I had meant to do originally, and never got around to it. Since my front wheel is surrounded by the carbon sandwich board frame, building a carbon envelope for the front wheel shouldn't be that difficult.
8. Rear wheel fairing finish - check out the less than optimal rear wheel fairing shape in this photo:

I did an interview with Endurance Radio the other day that went quite well. Endurance Radio is a popular pod cast that you can find in Apples iTunes music store by searching for "endurance" in the pod casts category. Endurance Radio home page is here and you can find my interview on the front page, or in the archives by searching for my name: Kolodziejzyk.

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20. Progress on the ROCKET Feb 22, 06

Sat, 25 Feb 2006 16:45:11 -0700

Finishing the Rocket human powered vehicle velomobile
This Podcast was created from the adventures of greg blog. To view photos and videos of todays update, please visit the web site at w w w dot adventures of greg dot com

Finishing the Rocket human powered vehicle velomobile

19. Perfect Prone concept HPV Feb 13, 06

Mon, 13 Feb 2006 13:07:32 -0700

The Perfect Prone Energy Accumulator Human Powered Vehicle Concept
This Podcast was created from the adventures of greg blog. To view photos and videos of todays update, please visit the web site at w w w dot adventures of greg dot com

Feb 13, 2006

The Perfect Prone Energy Accumulator Human Powered Vehicle Concept

(click on all the images to enlarge)

I've had this idea in my head for a long, long time and like most of my ideas, it just really needed to get explored. I spent a couple hours drafting up this preliminary concept. If you have some expertise in this area, I would really appreciated your input. I'm not sure at this point if it's a valid concept or not, but I think it may have some merit.

Basically, the idea is to take advantage of a super low drag body shape called a tear drop. The tear drop fairing would TIGHTLY cover a rider laying in the prone position. Because the fairing would be so tight against the riders body, there would be no way for the rider to power the vehicle by peddling or any other means. Energy is accumulated while the vehicle is at a stand still by having the rider sit up and charge a battery using an electric hub motor as a generator.

After an hour or so of charging the battery, the rider is enclosed in the tear drop fairing and he uses the electric motor to power his journey around a track until the battery is drained.

Here is how it could all work for an HPV 24 hour distance record:

1. The rider spends 1 hour in the optimum biomechanical position peddling the rear wheel which is lifted off the ground allowing the wheel to spin freely and turn the electric hub motor connected to the rear wheel. The electric motor becomes an electric generator and charges a lithium polymer battery.

250 watts for one hour should result in a total of 209 watts of power storage in the battery according to the following efficiencies:

1. Mechanical drivetrain is 98% efficient
2.Electric motor is 95% efficient
3. Lithium Polymer batteries are 90% efficient (in and out)

Since HPV rules require that nothing is ejected or added to the vehicle during a record attempt, the seat stay would rotate around and couple with a seat tube extension that would allow the rider to get into the power input position. A retractable landing gear would keep the vehicle supported, and raise the rear wheel off the ground. The fairing shells would detach for this stage.

2. After the battery is charged, the rider gets into the prone position on the frame, has the fairing shells assembled and uses the 209 watts of stored electric energy from the battery to power the electric hub motor and accelerate to around 90 kph for one hour. Since the electric motor is 95% efficient, the 209 watts of power stored would result in 198.5 watts of power to the rear wheel.

I have some data that estimates a tear drop fairing enclosing an average sized body has a CdA of .07 (sq ft). If we add faired wheels, that should double the drag bringing the total drag of the streamliner to .14 (sq ft)

Using the following values for the variables in the PDG spreadsheet:

1. .0045 as coefficient of rolling resistance (Crr) from published values for Schwalbe Stelvio tires for 16 x 1 1/8 front tire and 20 x 1 1/8 rear tire.

2. .14 CdA (Aerodynamic drag)

3. 72 degrees F

4. 30 inches of mercury barometric pressure

5. 198.5 watts of input power

We calculate an average speed of 83 kph, or 83 km in one hour.

3. Steps 1 and 2 are repeated every hour for 24 hours which would result in a total of 12 hours of 83 kph resulting in a total distance travelled of 996 km which is only 26 km off of the current 1022 km 24 hour distance record.

Here is a table that compares the energy accumulator approach with the conventional approach using the CriticalPower HPV 24 hour distance record attempt.
HPV CdA Crr # hours power input Average watts of input power mechanical efficiency Average watts of output power Average speed (including losses due to drivetrain, batteries, electrical, etc) distance travelled in 24 hours Total energy invested by the rider in Kilojoules

CriticalPower .32 .0045 22 100 95% 95 46.6 kph 997 km 7920 Kj
Perfect Prone energy accumulator .14 .0045 12 250 80% 200 83 kph 995 km 10,800 Kj

It appears that the energy accumulator approach is about 36% LESS efficient that a conventional direct drive streamliner as measured by the total energy expenditure in both cases in Kilojoules. HOWEVER, according to hundreds of hours of watts, time and hear rate data I have accumulated over the years on BOTH an upright road bike as well as a recumbent lowracer, the average efficiency loss due to the different biomechanical positions as measured by heart rate from a road bike position to a recumbent position is 10%. Here is a summary of the biomechanical differences between the recumbent lowracer and the road bike geometries based on SRM data from a random selection of 35 training sessions:
Geometry Average watts Average heart rate Watts per heart beat % difference

Road bike 141.05 watts 117.76 bpm 1.19 watts per beat 10%
Recumbent lowracer 121.17 watts 111.37 bpm 1.08 watts per beat

Lets assume that using state of the art solar car components, we could get our electrical drive efficiency up to 90% all-in. And including the 10% biomechanical advantage that the road bike geometry offers, here is how the comparison would play out (I increased the wattage input for the CriticalPower so both resulting distances travelled would be approximately the same):
HPV CdA Crr # hours power input Average watts of input power mechanical efficiency

Average watts of output power
Average speed (including losses due to drivetrain, batteries, electrical, etc) distance travelled in 24 hours Total energy invested by the rider in Kilojoules Adjustment for biomechanical advantage of 10%

CriticalPower .32 .0045 22 108 95% 102 48.2 kph 1068 km 7920 Kj 8553 Kj
Perfect Prone energy accumulator .14 .0045 12 250 90% 225 88.5 kph 1069 km 10,800 Kj 9720 Kj

The resulting energy investment into both systems is now a bit closer, but it would appear that the conventional direct drive approach is still more efficient. Other considerations in favour of the energy accumulator approach would be that the rider could benefit from exercising outside of a fairing body by receiving fresh, cooling air and plenty of hydration. Nutrition could be consumed and digested more easily while the rider is at rest piloting the streamliner. I am not certain if there are any physiological advantages to a burst approach compared with a steady state approach. From experience spending 20 hours peddling CriticalPower around the track in Alabama, I would probably prefer alternating hours at a higher intensity, but more comfortable and powerful geometry position than the monotonous 22 straight hours of 100 watt output trapped inside the fairing shell.

I'll ask my coach Jason for any input on the physiological aspects of this burst approach.

One additional area of potential improvement could be the estimated CdA of the super compact tear drop fairing. It is possible that I have overestimated the additional drag the wheels would add to the .07 CdA tear drop shape. Perhaps considering laminar flow and properly faired wheels, the CdA could be improved to as low as .1 sq ft. At 250 watts of power input, and 90% mechanical/electrical efficiency, that would result in an average speed of 96.5 kph, or 1166 km in 12 hours.

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18. Dec 9 2005

Fri, 27 Jan 2006 09:05:39 -0700

uninspired, tired and expired
...This Podcast was created from the adventures of greg blog. To view photos and videos of todays update, please visit the web site at w w w dot adventures of greg dot com

December 09, 2005

uninspired, tired and expired .

I hate winter. Winter sucks. I Googled "I hate winter".

Earlier this week I spent a few days planning out another record attempt. I researched a half dozen possible race tracks that aren't as far away as Alabama, and downloaded 5 years of weather data for each location.

It turns out that Winter / Spring in Nevada is pretty decent weather for a 24 hour record. Winds are lower than any of time of the year, and the chance of precipitation is low. Temperatures are cool, but a cool day is not an attempt killer - wind and rain are.

The warmer colored cells show preferable months for each location.

I figured that anywhere from March through to the end of May would work, plus I found a really decent track that I'm not saying anything about yet. The operators of the track are open to letting me use it any weekend, so this is good!

I heard from some others that the Las Vegas Superspeedway is also a great track for an HPV event. I contacted them and we've been playing phone tag. I'm not sure it would work for a 24 hour event though. The race tracks are typically pretty busy. If they comp you time on the track, it would have to be for a pre-set date at time. I require at least 4 to 5 days to select the perfect 24 hour weather window for an attempt. I really doubt a large race track could accommodate that.

I proceeded to plan a schedule for this winter/spring that would have me make another attempt at the 24 hour HPV distance record sometime in the spring. It involved cancelling Ironman Arizona in April and possibly cancelling Ironman Idaho in June.

The schedule included resuming training - ugh! Inside!!! (double ugh!!), as well as a growing list of items that need to be fixed/changed on CriticalPower:

1. Make a properly faired rear wheel, front wheel and canopy cover.
2. Build a trainer at the EXACT correct body position
3. Resolve the two-way radio issue
4. Move food, water bags and battery up top for quicker service
5. fix fork and remote steering rod
6. Recess HID light, make a proper nose-window for it
7. Finish shell repairs and prime, sand
8. Glue new tires - Crr test?

So, I went to work on the first item: I designed a new canopy top for CriticalPower. This will be made from carbon rather than a vacuum formed plastic cover. I really need more control over the exact shape - A smooth tear-drop that blends nicely into the fairing shell, and extends back farther for more efficient pressure recovery.

1. With my 3D design software, I stacked about 13, 1" thick square shapes over the canopy form.

2. Then I did a boolean intersect cut-out on each of the 1" thick squares

3. These cut-outs were merged to one flat sheet and printed out to full scale.

4. The shapes were traced to 1" thick sheets of Styrofoam, and cut out.

5. I used a wire brush to sculpt the new canopy cover.

6. Now I will cover the foam plug with a couple layers of fiberglass, and then cover with bondo, and sand smooth. The final step is to pull a carbon canopy cover off the bondo/glass/foam plug. I'll sand and paint the carbon canopy shell, then insert a small clear PETG window in the front.

I woke up this morning and immediately knew that this new ambitious plan of mine just wasn't going to work. I can't do it.

I think the record attempt + the months of training and building CP1 leading up to the attempt took a lot more out of me than I realized. I am mentally and physically toasted. I have ZERO ambition right now and I'm always tired.

I don't want to even think about the work that needs to be finished on CP1, I can't stand the thought of more arduous endless hours of inside training and on top of it all, I am actually very disappointed that I would have to cancel Ironman Arizona in April. Ironman in April was something that I was really looking forward to. I miss my road bike, I miss running and believe it or not, I was actually looking forward to swimming again.

I also need to give my family a break! They had to put up with some pretty wicked mood swings through this whole ordeal, and if I were to plan another attempt this Spring, I would only be subjecting them to another dose. We also wanted to do some travelling during the school breaks, and I'm not sure my ambitious plan would accommodate that.

So this morning I decided that another attempt at the 24 would have to wait until Fall. This will give me the opportunity to recover properly, time to put toward some serious training for Ironman in April and June, time to make slow and quality progress on CP1 modifications, and time in the summer to train properly for another attempt at the 24 in the Fall. I'm tired of feeling rushed and I need some time to focus on something WAY simpler - training for Ironman. It's easy. You wake up in the morning, eat and run, swim and bike, then go to bed at night. Once in a while you get a hair cut and buy new running shoes. I love it!!

Simplicity! For now, I know this is the right decision. I feels good. A relief actually.

The one thing I loved about this summer and fall was my super-long ultra training rides on the M5. A few 300 km+ loops around Highwood Pass, a trip to and from Golden BC, some long rides into the mountains - absolutely loved it! If I attempted the 24 record again in the Spring, then those super long training rides would be out of the question - replaced with shorter inside efforts through the ugly Calgary winter on the mag trainer which I am NOT fond of!!! A record attempt next fall would mean I can spend the summer focusing on my lowracer position training, and more epic rides. And this time, I should be able to better coincide the record attempt with the training peak.

I'm going to keep this BLOG going through the winter with casual updates on my Ironman training and any work I occasionally accomplish on CriticalPower.

I added a Google search bar for the Adventuresofgreg site. It' on the upper left hand side of the update index. Also I am experimenting with Google advertisements at the bottom of each daily report. When I first looked at it, it seemed like the ads were fairly applicable to the content of the page, and I was thinking that they could be useful. A book on Carbon Fiber, a link to a cycling vacations site, and tools and materials suppliers. However, I'm not sure all the cold medicine advertised on my 24 hour record attempt update is all that applicable, so I may dump the ads. What do you think?

Here are a couple new photos from Tony Myrick who was at the track in Alabama (click to enlarge):

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17. HPV 24 hour record attempt!

Fri, 27 Jan 2006 09:05:38 -0700

HPV 24 hour record attempt at the NCAT test track in Opelika, Alabama
...This Podcast was created from the adventures of greg blog. To view photos and videos of todays update, please visit the web site at w w w dot adventures of greg dot com

December 02, 2005

HPV 24 hour record attempt at the NCAT test track in Opelika, Alabama

What a journey it has been!
Here is the full report:

Sunday, Nov 20, 2005 - Ben rings the door bell and wakes me up. I told him to be at my house by 6:30 am and I forgot to set my alarm. We were on the road by 7:30 and made it to Gillette, WY after 13 hours of easy driving. Temperatures reached a high of 21 degrees C (70 degrees F) in Southern Montana. It would be the warmest temperatures of the entire trip. I woke up with a bit of a cough and knew immediately that I can contracted the nasty flu which had attacked the kids over the previous two weeks.

Monday, Nov 21, 2005 - Another long day of uneventful interstate flying landed us near Kansas City, MO. I was starting to cough a bit during the day and a spell before bed, then another in the morning. This was getting worrisome!

Tuesday, Nov 22, 2005 - Today we made it all the way to the Nashville area. The further south we get, the colder the temperatures get! Average daily high is now only 12 degrees C ! I am coughing more during the day now with more coughing before bed and waking up once at night to clear my chest out. I am starting to get a bit depressed about this whole thing. I am feeling really crappy and know this virus is only going to get worse. I also know that backing out at this point is NOT an option! Way too much effort by me and all of the other volunteers involved to even think about quitting at this point. I know that I will just have to suck it up and try my best. It's just not a whole lot of fun when you feel so under par. I am starting to check the Opelika, Alabama weather forecast each day using Bens computer that we set-up in the hotel room each night. So far, it looks like Friday is going to be the day with fairly cool temperatures and winds that look 'acceptable'. During slower speed tests in Calgary, sustained winds of 15 kph with gusts up to 20 kph or so seem to be acceptable, so I am hoping that this will remain true at my faster record attempt cruising speeds.

Wednesday, Nov 23, 2005 - A shorter day driving to our final destination in Opelika, Alabama. We are staying at the Hilton Garden Inn, only 10 or 15 minutes from the NCAT test track. We meet up with Rob Hitchcock at the hotel. Rob is my main HPVA official who flew in from Eureka, Ca. It is fairly windy today, but the forecast for Friday still looks barely acceptable with 10 mph winds. I didn't sleep very well due to this persistence cough which kept me awake for most of the night. Poor Ben who I am sharing a hotel room with!! He says he sleeps through my hacking, but I know he is just being polite.

Thursday, Nov 24, 2005 - Today I reached my lowest of lows. Feeling tired, uninspired and lack-luster due to this flu, we arrive at the NCAT test track at 10:00 am with Rob H to set up the timing equipment and run the streamliner on the track to make sure everything is cool. When we got to the track, we met Bob Atkins who is my second HPVA observer. While he and Rob set up the timing system, Ben and I worked on getting CriticalPower up and running.

On top of feeling so crappy, I was also feeling very nervous. The winds seemed fairly strong today and I was very concerned about Critical Powers average cruising speed. You see, I never did get a chance to test CP1 at it's planned cruising speed. The fastest I could go on the Glenmore soft track was around 35 kph, and the watts / speed measurements required to establish my actual drag coefficient required a paved surface, not a soft rubber one. The closest opportunity I had was at Race City Speedway where I did a few laps of the twisty road course and averaged only 40 kph because of the high winds that day. After that, the weather in Calgary got bad, and I didn't get another chance. I had never even tested the new carbon fairing shells, so I was pretty concerned about the test today at the NCAT track.

The test laps with CriticalPower were disappointing. I was doing laps that were averaging 40 kph with a top speed of only 47 kph. The winds of 10 to 15 mph (16 to 24 kph) were making anything faster almost impossible! In fact, the cross wind was so bad during the return long stretch, that it was lifting my canopy bubble up off the fairing shell!! The sustained winds weren't as bad as the gusts. When I was going down the straights, I could manage picking up a bit of speed because the winds were consistent, but when I turned the corner, the relative wind direction would change suddenly and blow me into a scary wobble. The gusts were the worst - surprise wobbles at random times!

I was also concerned about my hear rate. The previous night, I measured my resting heart rate in bed at 65 bpm which was more than 10 beats higher than my normal resting rate! I wore a heart rate monitor during the track tests today and my 100 watt heart rate was 125 bpm which is 30 beats HIGHER than normal. Normally, my 100 watt hear rate is only around 95 bpm.

During a particularly bad wind gust, I retracted my landing gear on one of the banked turns (without thinking) and because the bank is on the same side as the landing gear, I pushed myself over to the left and fell over crushing the left fairing shell. Ben and Rob rushed over to pull me out. We were able to pop the fairing shell back into shape, but now there were rough scrapes all down the side. That was a stupid mistake - one which I would not repeat. At least, not repeat on purpose!

I was measuring the CdA of CriticalPower at about .35 (sq ft) which is about .05 slower than what I was getting in Calgary with the old gray fiberglass fairing. I thought I could feel a bit of draft through the shell, so we put 3 coats of car wax over the shell to plug up any pin holes that might be letting air through. The CdA improved a bit to around .33 or so. This was a bit approximate because I wasn't exactly certain about what rolling resistance we were getting on my new tubular tires and front disc wheel. I was still disappointed because with the new carbon fairing and new tires and disc wheel, I would have expected vastly better CdA values.

After the crash and reviewing my disappointing speed / watts data and the ultra high heart rate and related effort that went into producing that result, I sat down with Rob, Ben and Bob and let them know that I was not very enthusiastic about the record attempt.

"Look - I have to be completely honest with you all. You guys have travelled thousands of miles and given up your Thanksgiving holiday to support me, and do not want to let you down like I know I am going to. A new 24 hour HPV record tomorrow is just not going to happen. You have to know this now. With this wind, getting CriticalPower up to speed is going to be very difficult, and I feel like crap. I'm just not sure I can put out the power that is required for record pace feeling the way I do. That said, if my first goal for tomorrow was to set a new record, my second goal is the same as if I was competing at Ironman - to FINISH. If it's what you want, then I'll still give it my best shot tomorrow."

We all agreed that proceeding with the record attempt as planned was the only option.

That night, Helen arrived (thank god). I can honestly say I don't think I have ever been more happy to see her! I gave her a hug at the hotel and with tears in my eyes, let her know how poorly things had gone at the track, and how badly I felt. I told her that I mostly felt bad for seemingly wasting every bodies time. They all have given up so much to help me achieve a dream. Helen is leaving the kids for 5 days and flying across the country to be with me, Rob is giving up his Thanksgiving holiday and travelling a couple of thousand miles to assist, Bob also gave up his holiday and drove for 3 hours from southern Alabama to be there, Buzz, the track manager is giving up one of his holiday days in the midst of writing his dissertation, to act as my third official, and Ben is giving up two whole weeks of his life just to be a part of this. I felt like I was letting everyone down. Helen tried to be as encouraging as she could. I think perhaps sometimes I can be quite negative, and Helen really helps me see the brighter side.

We all met for dinner at some GIGANTIC buffet restaurant - the only restaurant in the city that was open on Thanksgiving day! The restaurant was packed. Rob got his turkey dinner and I tried to eat as much as I could, but I just had no appetite.

We reviewed the weather forecast for Friday and the winds looked VERY promising 6 mph in the morning, then reducing to 4 mph for the remainder of the day, then increasing slightly throughout the night. Temperatures were forecasted to be quite cold though - oh well, you can't have everything. At least I shouldn't have any issues with over heating with the black fairing.

I woke up only twice through Thursday night with a coughing attack.

Friday, Nov 25, 2005 - RACE DAY!! - Ben and Rob went to the track at 7:00 am to set up the timing equipment and get the streamliner ready. Helen and I arrived at about 8:00 am.

It was sunny, but very cool and slightly windy - but way better than Thursday. By 9:00 am we were ready to go - timing equipment was up and running, my food and water bags in CriticalPower were filled, and Ben had even added a third coat of wax to the shells. At the last minute, I decided to add an additional layer of foam to the seat to lift my head up a tiny bit higher so I could see over the top of the fairing shell a bit better. During my test runs on Thursday, I noticed that I was having to tilt my head back quite a bit to see over the top of the fairing. I didn't think that the small additional rise would matter to my leg position, and knew that if I didn't like it after we started, that I could stuff the foam cushions into the rear of the fairing shell, and not break any HPVA rules regarding discarding anything from the vehicle during the record attempt.

We pulled CriticalPower back to just in front of the timing tape that ran across the track, then I sat in and Ben and Helen put the fairing shell on and the canopy bubble on. I wasn't nervous at all - just apprehensive about million things: being able to maintain my cruising speed, wondering exactly how this flu was going to effect me, worrying that the weather forecast would change and the winds would pick up, concern about my fitness - it had been a week since my last workout, and I was concerned about how much de-training had taken place during our long journey across the US to get to Opelika. I was also stressed about how the peak of my training had happened over 2 long months ago, and on slightly different lowracer geometry. I knew that my power output had been declining because of this and wasn't sure exactly how it would effect me during a 24 hour effort (not to mention that the longest I had ever ridden during training was only 15 hours).

Rob Hitchcock used his Cel phone to call the Universal clock and started a 3, 2, 1 count down. On "GO!", I proceeded to blast off the start line like a Saturn Rocket at Cape Canaveral. Well, not quite. Since my start had to originate behind the timing tape, I was actually on a ramp near the timing equipment that ran down to the track. It was quite bumpy and since the rules require that I self start and stop without assistance, I had to taxi using my landing gear, all the way down the ramp. Very slowly. Once I got down to the track, I picked up speed, then jerked the steering to the right which lifts me up onto two wheels, then pulled in the landing gear, locked it into place and closed the landing gear hatch cover with the pull-cord.

I was finally off! And I have to say that it felt GREAT! This was it - the moment I spent every waking minute for the last 6 months of my life working toward. My attempt at the 24 hour human powered vehicle record! After my first lap of 2.725 km in 5:38 (includes the slow taxi down the ramp) I decided to celebrate by clicking on my iPod Nano. I had been on a self-imposed music ban for the last 4 weeks. Yes, that even included the 4000 km drive from Calgary to Opelka (poor Ben - I won't blame him if never wants to speak to me again). The reason for this seemingly bizarre exercise was simply that abstinence makes the heart grow fonder - it's true. I love my music. We have 6800 songs using up over 33 gigs of space in iTunes on our music server at home (Don't copy music! All of our music at home is legal and purchased). My music is very important to me, and the one thing I was REALLY looking forward to was getting reacquainted with my favorite tunes, a pile of new music and some special playlists I had been working on for days before we left Calgary:

New pop punk like old and new Rancid, new Bastards, The Hives, the newest Transplants disc and some old Ramones. Some old rock classics like Fleetwood Mac (including the new stuff), new Sanata, ALL of Led Zeplin, April Wine, The Kings, Prism, Cheap Trick, Moody Blues, ELO, Frampton. A good collection of the best 80's like The The (my personal fav), B-52's, U2, Tin Tin, Madness, New Order, etc. Some harder stuff like Megadeath and Metallica and for some balance, I listen to a decent selection of old disco and newer Techno dance music.

My goal was to try to maintain record pace for as long as I could. That meant starting at 50 kph and hoping that with stops - both planned and unplanned, and with fatigue induced slow-down, I could finish with an average of just over 40 kph which would get me close to the record. My fastest lap was 57 kph and my maximum speed reached during that lap from the SRM meter was 67 kph.

Stop 1: At almost exactly 3 hours, I made my first pit stop and noted an average speed of 50 kph resulting from an average power output of 130 watts. I was very happy and it didn't seem that difficult. The slight wind was manageable, and was steadily reducing as the hours clicked by. Enthused about my initial performance, Ben and Helen extracted me from the vehicle and went to work re-filling my water bag and boost bag while I emptied my pee bag into the bushes. I woofed down a powerbar, got back in, and with cheers from everyone, off I went for another three hour interval. Total pit stop time was 12 minutes which was 3 minutes faster than my 15 minute plan.

Stop 2: My second pit stop came at 4 hours, 53 minutes and was an hour sooner than planned due to some soreness in my knees and ankles. I could sense that the discomfort was due to my altered seat position from the added seat cushion. I removed the cushion from the seat, returning my body position to normal and added a small cushion to my head to lift it forward more. I thought that maybe all it would take to improve the view over the fairing top was to tilt my head forward a bit more. I got Ben to cut off the top of the cushion insert and tape it to my head cushion. This stop was only 9 minutes and my average was still a very surprising 46.6 kph. The SRM was reading 123 watts average, so my output was slowing a bit - probably due to the discomfort in my knees and ankle. I downed a few Advil and with more cheers from my crew + a pile of other people who had stopped by the track to watch, I was off again.

By now the wind had diminished to almost nothing and I found that maintaining a decent speed was much easier. Also my legs started to feel better now that my body position had returned to normal, and found that I could see just fine over the top of the fairing with the forward head tilt provided by my new head cushion addition.

Stop 3: My third stop was unplanned. After briefly stopping peddling to pee, the chain fell off my main chain ring. I have no idea why this happened, as it had never happened before. It could be that since I had slowed so much, I was wobbling from side to side to maintain balance, and when I resume peddling, the chain may have swayed off the ring a bit. The sudden crank could have pulled it off. Yes, I know... I need to put a chain guide everywhere!! And I have learned my lesson. Anyhow, the chain derailment just so happened to coincide with the corner which is slightly banked. I knew what was about to happen... I was starting to slow down a lot, so had to pull out my landing gear which is on the right hand side - the same side as the banked corner. I was hoping that if I timed it right, I could come to a stop and balance on the landing gear until my crew could save me. Didn't work. The landing gear went out, I landed on it, then the corner bank pushed me over to the left. There was no avoiding it. I tumbled over and down into the ditch. I was upside down in the ditch and waited for what seemed like an eternity for someone to realize that I hadn't shown up at their end of the track on time. Since I was at the far end of the track, my radio wasn't working and I tried yelling. I listened for the sound of the truck, but all I heard was silence.

Eventually, I pushed the frame off me and broke the fairing shell away, hauled the frame back up to the track and put the chain back on myself. The truck eventually arrived with Ben, Rob and Helen all in a panic. Luckily, Helen had water and food on board, so they were able to refill my supplies, strap me back in and send me back on my way. This stop was a costly 18 long minutes. Average speed up to the crash at 6 hours, 39 minutes was still a healthy 45.8 kph and 304.6 km in total. "You are STILL above record pace!!!" I was shocked, but pleasantly surprised to hear.

Stop 4: My next stop was semi-planned and only an hour and a quarter after the crash. It was getting dark and I wanted to plug my HID headlight battery in to be ready for lights-out time. Stop 4 lasted for 13 1/2 minutes at 7 hours, 46 minutes in, and 345 km. My average speed was 44.5 kph and I was STILL unbelievably on record pace.

It started getting dark and the longest, loneliest, most difficult part of the day was now upon me. I was pleasantly surprised at the power of my 35 watt HID headlight. At the farthest end of the 1 km long straight-way, my light would illuminate the trees at the far end of the track - almost a kilometer away! I could clearly see the reflective lane markings and all of the signs to the very far end of the track. In some ways, it was even easier to see at night due to the reflective markers. The road directly in front of me was fully illuminated, as were the right and left sides of the road, and trees and bushes. It was a light cannon!

Rob and Buzz moved the 3 portable light towers I had rented into position, but they were not required at all. Just to be safe, however, I wanted to keep them on in case my light burned out for any reason. Then at least I would have some light to see where I was going. The light towers were fairly spread out, so there was no way we could use them solely - not on a track this size.

Stop 5: My 5th pit stop came at 9 hours, 35 minutes in. Pit stops at night were planned for every 2 hours so I could change my 7200 mAh lithium polymer batteries for freshly charged packs. I was starting to feel tired, my average lap times were slowing and I was discouraged by the time I probably lost on the chain derailment and resulting crash. However, I was very surprised to hear from Rob that I was STILL on record pace! I couldn't believe it. In fact, I remember telling him that I thought he must have been joking. 418 km, and 43.7 kph average. I was amazed that I was able to keep the pace up for that long. I did 2 laps and realized that I should have put more clothes on because I was freezing! The temperatures were rapidly dropping and I was still just wearing cycling shorts and a jersey. I stop in again for 8 minutes to put pants, a sweater and vest on. These unplanned stops were really starting to add up and impact my times!

Stop 6: My 6th stop was at 10 hours, 37 minutes, only an hour from my last stop. It was getting very cold - around 1 or 2 degrees C (about 34 F) and my wind shield was fogging up. The anti-fog solution wasn't working and I had to lift the canopy bubble up with my left hand to look under it to see the road. I stopped in to have Ben cut a small hole directly in front of the bubble so I could see through it. It was a short stop of only 5 minutes. My average was still at record pace - 42.8 kph and 446 km total.

And here is where things started to run very smoothly, but also started to get more difficult. It was very, very dark - no moon at all and no clouds in the sky. It was lonely - I had my music which was still keeping me relatively entertained, but I was really starting to get tired. The 2 hour intervals between battery replacements was feeling longer and longer and longer and I had a really difficult time keeping the pace up. I remember looking up to the starry sky on each loop around the far-side and noting the exact position of the stars. I saw them every single time I lapped around and watched them slowly make their way from the horizon to behind me where I couldn't see them any more. That really put just how incredibly long this event was into perspective for me. Every time I would pass by the timing strips, I would look over to the warm and bright burning fire that my crew was sitting around. I would carefully inspect the group and look for any unusual activity like flashlights moving and bustling about. This meant that a battery change pit stop was due. My 2 hour stops were flagged by Ben waving a flash light back and forth to signal that it was time to pull in. These stops became my sole focus and motivation during these long, dark evening hours. Once I saw people starting to move about I became elated and knew that it would only be a matter of a couple of laps more before I would see that lovely flashlight being waved over-head. Happiness was a flashlight being waved at you. Then I could get out and lie down in the car with the heat on FULL and close my eyes for a few minutes. "Come on Greg - time to go. You are still on record pace" I would hear. I would reply in my mind: "Oh, no. No more. Just let me lie here for only a minute more". But I always got up, woofed down a Red Bull and a bar, crawled back into my cage and started another endless two hour interval.

Stop 7: Stop 7 was at 11 hours, 40 minutes and lasted 6 minutes. 500.48 km total and 42.9 kph. Still BARELY on record pace.

Stop 8: Stop 8 was at 13 hours, 42 minutes and lasted 9 minutes. 590 km total and 43 kph. I had picked up a bit of speed and was still on record pace.

Stop 9: Stop 9 was at 15 hours, 42 minutes and lasted 8 minutes. 669 km total and 42.6 km average. Just BARELY above record pace of 42.5 kph.

Stop 10: Stop 10 was unplanned at 17 hours, 11 minutes. My chain came off again! And yes, it came off just as I was rounding the corner. Again. So, again I bounced off the extended landing gear and ended up in the ditch. I waited for the crew to come and extract me so we could fix the chain. Luckily, Ben had a freshly charged battery with him and Helen had some water and food. We used this unplanned stop as a planned pit stop, replaced the battery and replenished the food and got me on my way after only 10 minutes which included fixing the chain - pretty good. I was unbelievably STILL near record pace (just barely under actually): 42.4 kph and a total of 728.9 km travelled.

I passed my normal pit stop area and the chain fell off again!!!! ARGH!!! I was just in front of where the crew usually parked the truck, so I thought that it would only be a minute or two before they saw me as they drove the truck back from the last chain derailment. I heard the truck pull into it's parking spot behind me and started yelling. Then I heard Ben start the truck up, and proceed to turn around and take off in the opposite direction!!! He had heard me yell, but since he couldn't see me (my headlight was pointing forward), he though I had rounded the far corner. I had to wait until he made a full lap around the track and the clock was definitely CLICKING! We found that the screw holding my chain guide in place had come loose and moved the chain guide out which was the cause of the chain derailments. We screwed it back into place, replaced the chain again, and I was off.

I knew now that there would be no way of getting back on record pace. It was now a matter of finishing this, and I had 7 hours to go. Talk about depressing. Unless you have tried a 24 hour race, then you have no way of knowing what this feels like. By this time, I had already cycled for over 17 hours - almost 3/4 of the way through the entire event, yet I knew in my mind that I STILL had 7 hours to go, and 7 hours was a long, long, long time!

Stop 11: My next stop was almost exactly 2 hours later at 19 hours, 7 minutes and 794 km. Since my speed was now off record pace, I took an extra long pit stop break of 27 minutes and Rob drove me up to the bathrooms in the NCAT office building. By this time, almost everyone in the crew was taking turns sleeping - everyone was pretty fried.

Stop 12: At 20 hours, 22 minutes and 57 seconds, I lost all steering control and crashed for the 4th and final time. All of the previous crashes on the left side had bent and weakened the steel remote steering arm attached to the front fork. It broke and down I went. It wasn't something that was reparable, so we called it a day. If it hadn't been for the chain derailments, this steel arm would not have broken - that, plus it was something that I had always meant to replace with carbon (the entire front steel fork), but didn't have time.

If not for the enthusiasm, support and encouragement from my crew: Rob Hitchcock (HPVA), Ben Eadie, my wife Helen, Bob "maximus" Atkins (HPVA), Buzz Powell, this amazing day would not have happened. I thank each of them from the bottom of my heart!!

Here are the final stats:

# laps: 304
Lap distance: 2.725 km
Total distance: 828.4 kph
Average Speed: 40.675 kph
Total planned and unplanned stop time: over 3 hours!!
Average watts (for first 6 hours before SRM went down): 122 watts
Average watts target (this is the power that was held in order yo produce 122 watts with stops): 130 watts
Overall estimated average watts (including stops): 100 watts
CriticalPower CdA: .32 (sq ft)
CriticalPower Crr: .0053

After reviewing these stats, I realize that all I would really need to do is to eliminate one hour of pit stop time and I would have finished with a new record (well, close to it anyhow). The unplanned stops due to the chain issues and resulting crashes were probably responsible for over an hour of unproductive clock-ticking. I really should be able to limit pit stops to 10 minutes every 2 hours. For a 24 hour event, that would be 12 pit stops and 2 hours total. If my watts end up at a still-low, but more reasonable 115 watts average, then according to my calculations using the known CdA and Crr, 22 hours at 115 watts would equal 635 miles or 1021 km which is right at the current record.

If you add some warmer weather, my rolling resistance (Crr) will improve which will make me faster yet. My normal warm-weather Crr of .0048 would have produced 652 miles or 1050 km on 115 watts of power - well over the current record. An improvement in the CdA of CriticalPower from it's current .32 to .3 would equate to even more miles - 665.7 in fact, or 1071 km. 50 km over the current record.

What would I change for the next attempt? Well, first off I am looking at that dismal wattage value. 100 watts for 20 hours really sucks. In training, on Sept 8th (my last really super long training ride), my average watts ended up at 127 for a 12 hour ride. Next time, I won't be sick, and next time I will make sure that my training peak is no more than 2 weeks prior to race day. Almost 2.5 months from my longest training ride is NOT acceptable. The reason for this of course, was out of my control. CriticalPower was not ready, and the weather in Calgary got bad and made the long outside rides impossible. You just can't get the same kind of intensity on a long indoor ride as you can outside.

Second - of course, is to simply add more and better chain guides. That's an easy and obvious one - lesson learned!

Third is to convert that steel fork to carbon and in turn, beef up that steering linkage. 2 or 3 crashed on it should not break it.

The fourth thing I would do is to make a proper transparent cover for the headlight and recess the light back into the frame. This will return the nose of CritialPower to it's original smoothly rounded and aerodynamic shape.

Fifth is to build proper rear and front wheel fairings. If you look at the photos, you will notice that the rear wheel fairing isn't as smoothly shaped as it should be. It should really be designed from a NACA 6 or 7 series airfoil. The front wheel could use a smooth fairing also.

Sixth is to build a smoother canopy cover. The rear of the canopy bubble should really extend back to the rear of the fairing shell. The edges could fit onto the fairing shell with fillets also.

Seventh thing is to find a really decent two-way radio headset. One that I could rely on to communicate with my crew from anywhere on the track. I'll look into a motorcycle helmet set-up.

And last, I would like to figure out a way if possible to avoid having to tape the fairing shells every time I prepare for take-off after a pit stop. When it gets cold, the duct tape doesn't want to stick to the carbon. The tape is required to both seal up the seam between the two fairing shells and to help hold them together and onto the frame. During a particularly harsh head-on collision with a middle line reflector, the bottom left hand fairing shell snapped off it's Dura-lock (velcro-like) tabs and I had to make a quick pit stop so Ben could re-snap the shell onto the frame.

The trip home

The 4000 km trip home from Alabama took 5 days. The first couple of days driving proceeded a few tornados in the area and a rain downpour forcing us off the interstate. The last 3 days were white knuckled snow storm driving - not fun. That's an average of 800 km per day of driving which really puts what I accomplished with Critical Power into perspective. In 20.5 hours, I cycled 826 km which was more than the average distance we drove each day!

I am SO glad to be home. 8000 km of driving, 14 days of dealing with this flu (I'm STILL sick!!!) and 22.5 hours of cycling Critical Power streamliner around the track in Alabama has been quite a taxing endeavor! Time to rest, recover and get my life back in order.

Here are the photos:
(by Ben Eadie and Helen K)

1. Thursday, Nov 24 - The warm-up day
2. Friday, Nov 25 - HPV 24 hour distance record attempt
3. Sunday, Nov 27 - Packing up
4. VIDEO #1 of CriticalPower at the track
5. VIDEO #2 of CriticalPower at the track

Thursday, Nov 24 - The "warm-up day"
(click on a photo to enlarge)

Greg and Rob waxing the fairing shells.
Rob Hitchcock looking all official

Ben waxing fairing. Note the scars from the crash.

Rob setting up the timing tapes

The master control center housing the timing equipment
The Suburban with CP1, and all the supplies being unloaded

First thing - a couple of laps around the track on the CP1 frame
Landing gear test

All looks good
Full fairing test

Rob and Bob "Maximus" Atkins fixing the timing tapes

Timing tape test

I used the SRM meter to calculate the CdA of Critical power WITHOUT the bubble canopy. The reason was incase night operations made visibility difficult. In that case, I could switch over to my aero helmet and skirt which was carried on-board. The CdA ended up being prohibitively larger, so the decision was made to try to work with the canopy bubble

Langing gear test

Fresh scratches after the test day crash

Thursday, Nov 25 - HPV 24 hour distance record attempt
(click on a photo to enlarge)

Ben and I are getting ready to start

CriticalPower ready for a very long day!

One last check to make sure all is good
Ben with the wind gauge. The winds look calm

We are ready to start. Ben puts the shell on, and Rob and Bob are standing by
The start to a long, long day with a smile.

CriticalPower was on the ramp leading down to the track for the start because it was the only level and flat area that was behind the start tapes
CP1 ready for blast off

Taxing down the ramp. Ben is running along side to make sure that any bumps in the road don't flip me over.
This is a shot of the main timing screen. Every line is a lap

Bob Atkins was stationed at the timing station.

The rented PT cruiser made for a perfect place to keep the timing equipment and computer

Rob hauls the light towers out to the track

Helen with water. I drank copious amounts of water!
The wind gauge

The 35 watt HID headlight was SUPER bright!

Near the end - I am drinking a Red Bull and trying to warm up in the Suburban.

Sunday, Nov 27 - Packing up
(click on a photo to enlarge)

Sleep never felt so great!
Surveying the damage

Peace
Rob packing up the timing equipment

packing up the Suburban for a 5 day trip home

Helen
The Ben-meister

These are Buzz's trucks that run circles on the track 24 hours a day, 5 days a week.

All packed up and ready to hit the road.

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16. Nov 25 2005

Fri, 27 Jan 2006 09:05:38 -0700

Nov 25, 2005 HPV 24 hour distance record attempt
This Podcast was created from the adventures of greg blog. To view photos and videos of todays update, please visit the web site at w w w dot adventures of greg dot com

Nov 25, 2005 HPV 24 hour distance record attempt

What a day!!!

Wow - I'm still recovering. An experience of a lifetime.

I'll file a better report when I get back to Calgary, but for now here is how it all went down:

Our 4 day / 4000 km drive to Opelika, Alabama was apparently a good incubation environment for the virus that attacked my lungs and throat on race day. I haven't been sick in over a year, and this one was a wicked chest cold!

On Thursday we had the track to test out the streamliner, run some tests and set up the timing equipment, etc. It was prety windy and I couldn't get CriticalPower up to the speed I needed. That, combined with my 5 hours sleep the previous night due to caughing my lungs out, was the reason I sat my crew down and told them that I would give it my best try, but that anything even close to a record was just not going to happen. Everyone agreed that we should all give it a go nevertheless.

Friday was fairly cold, but the winds were down substantially in the morning. I figured that I would try as hard as I could to maintain record speed for as long as possible, and that's how my first hour went. Then it just continued on for 18 hours!!

I would pull in for pit stops and Rob Hitchcock (HPVA official) would tell me that I was at record pace and I didn't believe him!

Then I started having some problems. There were three chain derailments which each caused a crash. By the time my crew realized I wasn't passing the timing strips on time and found me somewhere on the 2.72 km track, many precious minutes had passed by. These costly stops added up, and by hour 22 I was off record pace. Then the remote steering push rod weld broke and I crashed - race over. The weld broke due to all of the left side crashes which land directly on the swing arm.

304 laps * the estimated lap distance of 2.725 km = 828.4 km in 20 hours, 22 minutes.

If not for the enthusiasm, support and encouragment from my crew: Rob Hitchcock (HPVA), Ben Eadie, my wife Helen, Bob "maximus" Atkins (HPVA), Buzz Powell, this amazing day would not have happened. I thank each of them from the bottom of my heart!!

If you asked me last night if I wanted to try it again, I would have said no-way! But time has this way of eracing the unpleasant memories and replacing them with the happy details. Just this morning I was pondering ways of improving CritialPower...

Cheers!

Greg K

15. Nov 16 2005

Fri, 27 Jan 2006 09:05:38 -0700

Charging panel, HID headlight, landing gear hatch, cockpit layout.
...This Podcast was created from the adventures of greg blog. To view photos and videos of todays update, please visit the web site at w w w dot adventures of greg dot com

November 16, 2005

Charging panel, HID headlight, landing gear hatch, cockpit layout.

I built this panel to organize all of the various electrical power requirements for the CP1. The HID light runs for 2 hours, 10 minutes on a rechargeable 16 volt, 7200 mAh lithium polymer battery. This single 3" diameter light puts out more lumins than TWO typical car headlights! I have three 7200 batteries and they can each be recharged in 1.5 hours. So, while one is running in the vehicle, the second is being charged and a third should be fully charged as a back-up.

I made a silicon edge to seal-up and smoothen air flow over the headlight. Ideally, I wanted to have the headlight recessed into the nose of the fairing and covered with a window, but my attempts at forming a plastic cover for the hole all melted due to the heat from the HID light. It would probably take a 1/8" to 1/4" thick piece of Lexan, but I didn't have time to source the Lexan and play around with heat forming it and making a way to seal it to both fairing halves.

We had to rebuild the landing gear hatch door for the third time!

It is important that the door fit properly and doesn't allow air to leak into the fairing. We (Ben) ended up heat forming a piece of Sintra, then reinforcing it with carbon.

I am concerned about seeing clearly out of the PETG canopy bubble after dark because of possible fogging due to the average low temperature of only 2 degrees C in Alabama at the end of November. For this reason, my back-up plan is to run at night without the canopy bubble. There will be an aerodynamic drag penalty, but I can mitigate that by using my aerohelmet and a skirt that covers over the hole between my neck and the fairing opening. I'll run tests on Thursday at the track to quantify the exact drag cost.

This is what the cockpit looks like now. Not shown is the landing gear extension cable - a brake cable that I pull and the landing gear telescopes out and locks into place. Also, there is a separate cord that I pull with my left hand to close the landing gear hatch tightly. I can reach down with my left hand and pull the HID headlight lithium battery out of it's holder to hand it to a crew member for replacement without having to open up the entire fairing.

I picked up these cool new headphones for my iPod that also plug into any cel phone. When you get a phone call, the headphones cut off the music and allow you to take the phone call. There is a small microphone attached to the headphone cable.

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14. Nov 10 2005

Fri, 27 Jan 2006 09:05:38 -0700

16 days to go!!
This Podcast was created from the adventures of greg blog. To view photos and videos of todays update, please visit the web site at w w w dot adventures of greg dot com

November 10, 2005

16 days to go!!

I have to show you this light - it's freaking awesome man! Most of the credit goes to Matt Weaver who has done the research and was able to tell me exactly how to build the worlds most powerful portable bike light. It's a 35 watt HID car light powered by a 7200 mA lithium polymer rechargeable battery. The HID light is 30% brighter than a halogen at the same power consumption and burns cooler. Ben found this slick little halogen car light that is intended to mount on your bumper and I replaced the halogen bulb with the HID bulb. The HID lamp also requires a ballast and an igniter.

I cut some holes in the frame an recessed the ballast and lithium ion battery into the slots with Velcro. I wanted to make sure that this weight was centered in the middle of the bike. I positioned the battery pack as far back as I could go to get some additional weight in the back (the bike is very nose heavy).

The light is bright - I mean really way bright. On a test ride tonight after dark, the HID was lighting up the trees at the T intersection 100 yards in front of me.

My concern about light is the 12+ hours I will be riding in the dark. My head is fairing low in the streamliner and I can't see much of the road directly in front of me so I really need a super bright light. This one should do the trick.

The 7200 mAh lithium batteries are from BatterySpace.com. 7200 mAh should give me from 2 to 2.5 hours of light so I bought 3 of them so I can continually charge and rotate during pit stops. According to Bill Gaines from the HPVA, I am allowed to CHANGE my batteries, but I am not allowed to remove them. This means that I must ride the daylight portion of my event carrying 3.5 pounds of light, ballast and batteries:

This is also pretty darned neat: A new product that Ben found from 3M called Command. It's like velcro, but both sides of the mating surfaces are the same. What makes it perfect for connecting fairing shells to the side of your streamliner frame is they don't stick until you press them together.

The problem we were having with Velcro, is as soon as you have one part of the fairing touching the frame, the velcro tabs would start sticking together making it nearly impossible to move the shell into a better position. The Command strips allow you to slide the shell into exactly where you want it to stay, then you press down on the tabs and they 'click' together. Same thing when you remove a shell - once the tabs are parted, they slide against each other easily.

Here is an additional shot from Ben at the track the other day (click for larger):

the final final final final FINAL, FINAL, FINAL, FINAL, FINAL to-do list:

1. Notches in shells to fit on stand
2. Landing gear hatch (new lid)
3. Landing gear hatch test (100 times open closed frominside the fairing)
4. Silicon bag leaks
5. New Velcro?
6. Night test with canopy on and HID. set angle
7. Cut hole in nose for HID (after night ride test)
8. Duct hose
9. Car fit - and build whatever structure required
10. Canopy opening trim
11. holes in frame for new batteries, ballast and igniter (wait until new batteries get here)
12. Jason spare SRM
13. Logo to AK for output
14. Stick on logo
15. Prep spare wheels
16. Crr test with spares and tubulars??
17. Front chain guide / der smallest gear?
18. AA cockpit light (find one and hook up to switch)
19. AA battery charger (for radios and cockpit light)
20. Email crew schedule
21. Naca duct fog test???
22. Tighten HEADSET (custom tool)
23. Build charging panel (HID batteries, radio battery charger, iPODS, SRM charger)
24. Prep spare HID (or just use halogen)
25. Velcro pee bag
26. Audio books / playlists
27. web cam recorder
28. find 23 tooth MTB gear in case

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13. Nov 5 2005

Fri, 27 Jan 2006 09:05:38 -0700

Getting closer.
This Podcast was created from the adventures of greg blog. To view photos and videos of todays update, please visit the web site at w w w dot adventures of greg dot com

November 5, 2005

Getting closer.

Went to the track yesterday, and I did a couple of laps around the oval with the frame only, and decided NOT to risk doing any testing with the fairing on. It was WAY too windy. Sustained winds of 30 kph with gusts of over 40 to 50. The frame takes the wind much worse than the fairing, but I wasn't in the mood to take any chances. These fairing shells are do thin that a crash at speed could mean days worth of work repairing them.

So instead, I took some photos:

The white triangle shape on the right hand side is the NACA duct that I purchased from Aircraft Spruce. This carbon fairing is about 2 inches narrower than the fiberglass work fairing was. Shown also is the RENN 650 disc wheel that I purchased from my buddy Greg at Way Past Fast. Also included in the performance modifications, but not shown are two new DuraAce chains, a new DuraAce bottom bracket cartridge, and a new Amercian Classic bottom bracket cartridge that wouldn't screw into my aluminum BB shell - have no idea why??

I installed new tires on the wheels - a ZIPP 700 tubular tire for the rear. The Zipp is supposedly a nylon tube with high thread count which means low Crr. On the Renn 650 disc is a Vittoria tubular. The Vittoria can be pressurized to 200 psi and the Zipp is marked at a max of 130 psi, but is advertised at 180 psi - don't know what's with that... Supposedly, the Zipp IS the Vittoria tire, but with a slightly higher thread count. I need to do a slow speed coast down test to confirm that the Crr is as low as I am hoping it will be - or at least as low as the original set of clinchers I have been riding on.

The ride around the oval on the new tires was certainly nice. I was expecting it to be a bone shaker because the race City oval is pretty rough, but I was surprised.

Details

Ben and I added a layer of Kevlar to the inside of the right hand shell. We must be getting pretty good at this - It was the fastest wet layup in history. It took us 45 minutes to do all this:

1. Clean out the mold
2. Spray a few coasts of PVA into the mold
3. Sand down and clean the inside of the existing carbon shell
4. Cut and lay-in a sheet of Kevlar
5. Wet out with epoxy resin
6. Cut and lay-in a sheet of breather
7. Cut and lay-in a sheet of release film
8. Pull over our old vacuum bag
9. Hook up the venturi and pull a vacuum
10. Repair various leaks in the bag.

Now both shells are fairly stiff and strong - still only about 5 pounds each.

This is a neoprene strip that closes in the front wheel opening. I can still turn the front wheel because the neoprene flexes quite a bit, but most of my riding will be straight forward.

I have decided to DRIVE to Alabama.

It's 4000 km and at 10 hours of driving a day, I could make it there in 3 days. I figure that if I can cycle for 14 hours in a day, I should be able to drive 10 hours. I was measuring the fairing shells the other day and realized that even if I rolled them up, the resulting size is OVER Purolator's maximum. More headaches! Driving there actually solves quite a few problems - shipping size (and cost) issues mainly. Secondly, I can bring all of my tools, supplies, etc. And also, I won't have to completely disassemble the vehicle only to have to spend a full day putting it all back together again. And finally, it should be way cheaper than flying and shipping and I'll have a vehicle when I'm down there. I think I could fit everything into the Suburban and not have to break the frame in two parts. The fairing shells can easily roll into a semi circle to fit into the back of the Suburban.

Rules, details, etc..

As far as a date goes, I am looking at Nov 25th (the day after Amercian Thanksgiving). And if the weather is bad, then the 26th, 27, 28th - a good window of opportunity for decent weather.

The rules for a iHPVA sanctioned record attempt are here

The HPVA says I need two official observers and one person to operate the timing system. I also require at least TWO others, possibly three or four to crew for me. That is, to help me at pit stops, replace batteries, replace food, water, help me out of the streamliner, and back in, etc, etc.

Since my dates coincide with the Thanksgiving day weekend, many of my previously arranged volunteers have evaporated. I have one observer confirmed - Robert Poole who is an Alabama HPVA member, but I am still looking for one additional observer, and I would prefer that he or she have some HPV race org experience.

The duties of the observers are listed in the official HPVA observers guide

Buzz Powel has offered to operate the timing system for me. I rent the timing system directly from Al Krause from the HPVA. It is an antiquated DOS based transponder / antenna system - two of them actually, a primary and a backup. Every time I go around the track once, the transponder sends a signal to a tape that goes across the road and the computer counts 1 lap. Then the number of laps is multiplied by the survey distance of one lap, and the result is my total distance. The clock in the computer is calibrated and approved to be accurate. For a third backup, I will either use the web cam at the track, (check it out and remember to book mark that page so you can check in on me on Nov 25th!), a video recorder, or a GPS in CP1.

Ben is driving down with me, and John M might fly down with Helen, so I'll have three pit crew volunteers there which should be OK. Helen is familiar with the routine and will monitor my food and hydration, Ben and John are both pretty familiar with CP1 and are very technically adept, so they should be able to handle any problems that arise.

Also from the Opelika / Auburn area, I have Scott and Jayne from the Auburn Flyers Cycling club who have both offered to help.

As you can see, the weather here sucks. Yeah for long in-door training rides!

Final push to-do list:

Here is my guerilla schedule to get this puppy DONE in ONE week. I call it my "Guerilla schedule to get this puppy DONE in ONE week" plan.

ANY DAY STUFF (these items can be done or thought about any time during the week):
1. Pick up HID light from Speedtek (nick) 250-7751 1655 32 ave NE
2. After we get the light, we need to find some off-the-shelf product to mount the light to, AND something to act as a reflector AND lens. This could be as simple as some large flashlight - or even a small car headlight or motorcycle headlight. This is really the only experimental item left to be done (Ben)

SUNDAY
1. get foam rubber and velcro and bond to frame edge (greg)
2. try to get resin off mold (greg)
3. try to sand down carbon shell (greg)
4. cut and prep carbon, blanket, bag and ply for next layup (greg)

MONDAY
1. layup new fairing shell (Ben)
2. Micro rear wheel well (I decided to do the simplest thing with that rear wheel fairing, and that is to just smear with a bit of micro to smooth over the transition a bit - no time to make a full-on fairing for it.) (greg)
3. cut and prep carbon, blanket, bag and ply for next layup (Ben)
4. Call courier to pick up spider at Gregs work (greg)

TUESDAY (Tuesdays are my long training day. If the weather cooperates, I should be gone all day)
1. Pull out new fairing shell (Ben)
2. layup second and final fairing shell (Ben)

WEDNESDAY
1. Pull out second fairing shell
2. Cut both fairing shells
3. Apply velcro tabs to fairing shells
4. Bond-on canopy bungie hooks
5. finish rear wheel fairing micro and sanding
6. Cut 1" off rear and bottom corner (to fit shipping size) and reinforce with carbon strips.
7. Cut off rear wheel fairing and make a way to bolt back on again.
7. seal up rear wheel discs ( will epoxy leak through?)

THURSDAY
1. Spray paint rear wheel fairing
2. Spray paint rear part of canopy dome
3. Get disc wheel and new parts from Way Past Fast and install (greg)
4. Cut and install the NACA vent(s). (Ben)
5. Install new tires. (greg)
6. Install landing gear hatch

FRIDAY
1. Race City TEST to confirm that everything is cool (Ben and Greg)
2. Add Kevlar to the right hand shell

WEEKEND
1. Test the new HID light and set the correct angle at night (greg)

MONDAY
1. Cut notch in nose of frame for the new light - and place for batteries to go (Greg)
2. Cut hole in the nose of both fairing shells for the light (Greg)
3. Install the light (Greg)
4. Finish landing gear hatch (may have to make the dish deeper) (Ben)
5. Bond new Velcro to LEFT hand fairing shell (Ben)

TUESDAY (Greg training)
1. Build new stand to fit in Suburban ?? (Ben)

WEDNESDAY
1. Continue with stand, headlight, landing gear hatch and other vehicle-fit stuff

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12. Oct 31 2005

Fri, 27 Jan 2006 09:05:37 -0700

Good progress today!
This Podcast was created from the adventures of greg blog. To view photos and videos of todays update, please visit the web site at w w w dot adventures of greg dot com

October 31, 2005

Good progress today!

My screw up yesterday was reversed today when I spend the entire day sanding down my messed up fairing shell. I started with 100 grit, then 200, then wet sanded with 400 and it looks pretty spectacular

Even smoother than it was when it first came out of the mold. The photos are showing it wet from a wash - it's not that glossy yet. We are going to spray a clear coat over it which should make it look like it's wet - nice and glossy.

My dilemma regarding the finish of these fairing shells is one of form vs function. I know that black bodies heat up and that I should be painting it white or yellow. However, the end of Nov in Alabama see daily average high temperatures of only 15 degrees and lows during the night of near freezing. Heat will probably not be a big issue. And, that carbon fiber just looks so cool.

We were able to get the second fairing shell layed up into the mold today and wet out. It's three layers instead of two - hopefully there won't be any leaky pin holes. The inside most layer in Kevlar for crash protection. I will add a Kevlar layer to the first shell also.

Ben shot clear coat over the two rear wheel discs to plug up the pin holes. Shown are the carbon wheel discs on the new fairing shell in the vacuum bag.

The new fairing shells are slightly larger than the old one because of the added bondo on the new plug. As a result, the shell doesn't fit as snugly onto the frame as I wanted. So, we glued a 1/4" thick neoprene strip around the frame, glued a strip of Velcro to that, and put a few Velcro tabs on the fairing shell. The fairing fits perfectly now, and it is insulated from the frame with a soft, quiet rubber bumper. It should be fairly quiet I would think. Also I would hope that the bumper would provide some shock absorbtion to the fairing shell and perhaps the airflow might be smoother.

If you think that 6 or 7 small Velcro dots isn't enough to hold the shell on securely - you would be way wrong. Just getting the shell off is a real challenge!! I am looking at ways to DECREASE the grip of the Velcro so we can get the shell off the frame easier.

Final push to-do list:

Here is my guerilla schedule to get this puppy DONE in ONE week. I call it my "Guerilla schedule to get this puppy DONE in ONE week" plan.

ANY DAY STUFF (these items can be done or thought about any time during the week):
1. Pick up HID light from Speedtek (nick) 250-7751 1655 32 ave NE
2. After we get the light, we need to find some off-the-shelf product to mount the light to, AND something to act as a reflector AND lens. This could be as simple as some large flashlight - or even a small car headlight or motorcycle headlight. This is really the only experimental item left to be done (Ben)

SUNDAY
1. get foam rubber and velcro and bond to frame edge (greg)
2. try to get resin off mold (greg)
3. try to sand down carbon shell (greg)
4. cut and prep carbon, blanket, bag and ply for next layup (greg)

MONDAY
1. layup new fairing shell (Ben)
2. Micro rear wheel well (I decided to do the simplest thing with that rear wheel fairing, and that is to just smear with a bit of micro to smooth over the transition a bit - no time to make a full-on fairing for it.) (greg)
3. cut and prep carbon, blanket, bag and ply for next layup (Ben)
4. Call courier to pick up spider at Gregs work (greg)

TUESDAY (Tuesdays are my long training day. If the weather cooperates, I should be gone all day)
1. Pull out new fairing shell (Ben)
2. layup second and final fairing shell (Ben)

WEDNESDAY
1. Pull out second fairing shell
2. Cut both fairing shells
3. Apply velcro tabs to fairing shells
4. Bond-on canopy bungie hooks
5. finish rear wheel fairing micro and sanding
6. Cut 1" off rear and bottom corner (to fit shipping size) and reinforce with carbon strips.
7. Cut off rear wheel fairing and make a way to bolt back on again.
7. seal up rear wheel discs ( will epoxy leak through?)

THURSDAY
1. Spray paint rear wheel fairing
2. Spray paint rear part of canopy dome
3. Get disc wheel and new parts from Way Past Fast and install (greg)
4. Cut and install the NACA vent(s). (Ben)
5. Install new tires. (greg)
6. Install landing gear hatch

FRIDAY
1. Race City TEST to confirm that everything is cool (Ben and Greg)

WEEKEND
1. Test the new HID light and set the correct angle at night (greg)

MONDAY
1. Cut notch in nose of frame for the new light - and place for batteries to go
2. Cut hole in the nose of both fairing shells for the light 3. Install the light

TUESDAY (Greg training)
1. dismantel frame and build shipping containers for all parts (Ben)

WEDNESDAY
1. Continue with shipping containers and whatever else needs to be done.

FRIDAY
1. Ship the frame and shells to ALABAMA???????????

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11. Oct 30 2005

Fri, 27 Jan 2006 09:05:37 -0700

Cutting down the frame for shipping, the new fairing shell, training, etc, etc
This Podcast was created from the adventures of greg blog. To view photos and videos of todays update, please visit the web site at w w w dot adventures of greg dot com

October 30, 2005

Cutting down the frame for shipping, the new fairing shell, training, etc, etc

I spent almost the entire day yesterday phoning all the courier companies trying to learn about each of their unique limitations of shipping the CP1 to Alabama. What a pain! Basically, I am looking at air shipping only. Ground shipping is way more lenient as far as the size and weight restrictions go, and cheaper, but I am looking at about 7 working days. When you add customs into that and weekends, I would be looking at two weeks at least. Not good enough. My idea is to wait until a highly probably weather window opens up in Opelika, then buy a last minute flight out and ship the CP1 frame by air. Air is usually overnight, but could be two days which would be OK.

I can break the frame in two parts and roll the fairing shells up, so I should be able to get each part into a fairly small package, and I like the idea of being able to make a call to DHL or UPS and have them pick-up and deliver door to door rather than checking multiple crates in as luggage on my flight.

Here are the restrictions:
Courier Measurement method Maximum size
DHL L + W + H 108" max
Purolator L + 2*W + 2*H 144" max
UPS L + 2*W + 2*H 130" max
Air Canada luggage L + W + H 115" max

I measured and remeasured the frame to see where I could break it in two to get the total dimension of the larger part to fit one of these. I discovered that I could cut the frame directly above the head tube and I could get the total length down to 75". The height is 29" if I cut a small corner off the bottom of the frame, and the width is 5.5" including the over the shoulder bar. This totals 109.5" using DHL's calculation which is 1.5 " over, and exactly 144" using Purolator's formula which is exactly at the max.

The red box is the maximum Purolator dimension

I cut the frame directly above the head tube and made a bracket to join the two parts together using some 1/16" thick carbon plate that I bought when I purchased my carbon tubes. The bracket joins the nose section to the main frame with 3 aluminum through bolts. The bolts pass through carbon tubes that are bonded into the frame. The carbon tubes were filled with micro so the bolts fit through snugly. I still need to chop off a small bit of the frame that extends outside my little red box in front of the wheel.

The new plug was finished by Ben Eadie, waxed 100 times and buffed up to a nice shine.

We prayed a few coast of PVA mold release over it.

We layed in about 5 layers of 5 oz fiberglass using the spray adhesive method to lay the cloth in dry. Then wetted it out with epoxy resin. The photo shows Ben smiling as we were able to get a nice 23" of mercury vacuum with the vacuum bag. He stopped smiling seconds later as the mold started to CAVE IN!!!

The mold is filled with expanding foam and we didn't think it would cave-in, but there were some small air pockets and that's where the vacuum pressure pressed in the glass mold. I turned the vacuum pressure down to the point where the mold wasn't caving in, and some excess epoxy was still bleeding out to the breather blanket. I figured this would probably be OK because we need just enough pressure to ensure that the mold surface finish matches that of the plug. Epoxy to fiber ratio isn't really an issue with the mold.

The mold came out quite nice, and there were no visible dents. We made a plywood flange and screwed the glass mold down to it.

Then screwed down some 2x2's to stiffen the edges even more. We tested a vacuum bag on this to see if it would crush or twist the mold, but because the bag is right up against the back and front side of the mold, the pressure is equalized and there was no bending or distortion at all. This is the way to vacuum bag!!!!

Two layers of 5 oz carbon fabric were layed in with spray adhesive. The weaves on the inside layer run diagonal to the weaves on the outside layer.

The fabric wetted out with epoxy resin

Over 20" of mercury pressure and absolutely NO mold distortion this time!

Ben prying the cured carbon shell out of the mold. It took a bit of work because this shell is so thin, but it came out finally.

Sweet!!

And light - it weighs only 1.7 kg or 3.7 pounds!

To mark a cut line, I taped a marker to this angle and pushed it along the flat table

Nice cut!

Then I proceeded to wreck it. I mounted it to the frame, and let it sit outside for a second while I searched for my helmet and the wind blew it over. Crash! Crushed the fairing side right in. I popped it back out and I could barely tell that it had been crushed except for two small scrapes on the side. The purpose for the test ride was to see if Velcro was an acceptable method of attaching the fairing shell to the frame. I have 8 Velcro tabs holding the shell to the frame and I don't think it's going anywhere. Anyhow, I got in and taxied down the drive way on the landing gear, and the landing gear cable stop slipped, the landing gear retracted and I went over onto the fairing shell again. Way crushed this time. It took three kicks to pop out the crushed areas and again, not much visual evidence of such awful looking damage.

Upon careful inspection I found three creases that had broken through - those, along with the two small scrapes were the only evidence of a crash. I decided to kill two birds with one stone and repair the cuts with additional carbon patches on the inside, and, paint the inside of the shell with epoxy to seal up all the pin holes.

I put the shell back into the mold, and proceeded to apply epoxy to the entire inside shell as well as a few carbon patches and a long carbon reinforcement strip down the middle. You know what happened now right? The epoxy leaked through to the other side, all over the front side of the fairing shell, and all over my nice smooth, shiny mold. Argh!!!

Stupid!!

I figured that I could let the epoxy cure, and since there was mold release wax still on the mold surface, that the cured epoxy should peel right off. Right. uh huh.

So now here I am with a messed up mold, and a total wrecked carbon fairing shell.

I spend the day today trying to get the epoxy off the mold. Tried everything. I mean EVERYTHING. Heat gun, scratch pads, scraper, Varsol, soap. The best weapon against this evil epoxy was duct tape believe it or not. A stripe of tape pressed down onto the mold surface then quickly removed sometimes snapped off an epoxy bead or two. This took hours, and hours, and hours, but finally between my duct tape hair removal technique and a razor blade, I was able to clean off the mold surface.

I spend the afternoon and evening re-wet sanding and applying wax. It looks OK I guess - can't really tell until we pop a fairing shell from it.

I've been getting all kinds of great advice from Matt Weaver. He is the pilot and builder of Virtual Edge, a state of the art speed bike built to set a new 1 hour distance record. It is his recommendation to use a 35 watt HID car light with some rechargable 12 volt lithium polymer batteries. I found one in town and I think I'm going to give it a try. Matt says it will put out 3000 lumins - single car lights put out 500 to 1000 lumins each bulb, so 3000 lumins total seems like it would be PLENTY of light. I will need to mount it in the nose and find a housing with reflector and lens - not sure what to do about that yet.

I'm still finding it REALLY difficult balancing my training with the never ending list of things still left to do to finish CP1. I managed 20 hours of cycling time last week, and hope to bump it to 25 hours this week. My big day last week was Monday / Tuesday where logged a total of 7270 kilojoules worth work on the bike in 15.5 hours. Basically, I was trying to see how many kilojoules I could do in a 24 hour period without going over board. I converted my Kj to watts, and then my watts to speed as if those hours were all spent in CP1 on the Alabama track using the known CdA and Crr. At the minimum, I could predict 618 miles and at the maximum, 731 miles. The record stands at 634 miles. Of course, this assumes the best of all conditions on 'race day' and CP1 performing no worse than previous testing has predicted. Which can all change on race day.

I spent a couple of hours on the phone today with Al Krause from the HPVA. We talked about timing systems, track survey, etc, etc, etc. So many, many things to deal with! Ugh! Anyhow - Both Al and his wife Alice are super great people and have been VERY helpful. It's just such a pleasure working with people who are really into this.

Final push to-do list:

Here is my guerilla schedule to get this puppy DONE in ONE week. I call it my "Guerilla schedule to get this puppy DONE in ONE week" plan.

ANY DAY STUFF (these items can be done or thought about any time during the week):
1. Pick up HID light from Speedtek (nick) 250-7751 1655 32 ave NE
2. After we get the light, we need to find some off-the-shelf product to mount the light to, AND something to act as a reflector AND lens. This could be as simple as some large flashlight - or even a small car headlight or motorcycle headlight. This is really the only experimental item left to be done (Ben)

SUNDAY
1. get foam rubber and velcro and bond to frame edge (greg)
2. try to get resin off mold (greg)
3. try to sand down carbon shell (greg) ??????? (may not be worth trying to salvage)
4. cut and prep carbon, blanket, bag and ply for next layup (greg)

MONDAY
1. layup new fairing shell (Ben)
2. Micro rear wheel well (I decided to do the simplest thing with that rear wheel fairing, and that is to just smear with a bit of micro to smooth over the transition a bit - no time to make a full-on fairing for it.) (greg)
3. cut and prep carbon, blanket, bag and ply for next layup (Ben)
4. Call courier to pick up spider at Gregs work (greg)

TUESDAY (Tuesdays are my long training day. If the weather cooperates, I should be gone all day)
1. Pull out new fairing shell (Ben)
2. layup second and final fairing shell (Ben)

WEDNESDAY
1. Pull out second fairing shell
2. Cut both fairing shells
3. Apply velcro tabs to fairing shells
4. Bond-on canopy bungie hooks
5. finish rear wheel fairing micro and sanding
6. Cut 1" off rear and bottom corner (to fit shipping size) and reinforce with carbon strips.
7. Cut off rear wheel fairing and make a way to bolt back on again.
7. seal up rear wheel discs ( will epoxy leak through?)

THURSDAY
1. Spray paint rear wheel fairing
2. Spray paint rear part of canopy dome
3. Get disc wheel and new parts from Way Past Fast and install (greg)
4. Cut and install the NACA vent(s). (Ben)
5. Install new tires. (greg)
6. Install landing gear hatch

FRIDAY
1. Race City TEST to confirm that everything is cool (Ben and Greg)

WEEKEND
1. Test the new HID light and set the correct angle at night (greg)

MONDAY
1. Cut notch in nose of frame for the new light - and place for batteries to go
2. Cut hole in the nose of both fairing shells for the light 3. Install the light

TUESDAY (Greg training)
1. dismantel frame and build shipping containers for all parts (Ben)

WEDNESDAY
1. Continue with shipping containers and whatever else needs to be done.

FRIDAY
1. Ship the frame and shells to ALABAMA???????????

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10. Oct 19 2005

Fri, 27 Jan 2006 09:05:37 -0700

Oh, what a day!!!
This Podcast was created from the adventures of greg blog. To view photos and videos of todays update, please visit the web site at w w w dot adventures of greg dot com

Oct 19, 2005

Oh, what a day!!!

This one definitely goes down as a day I will never, ever forget.

It started at 6:00 am when the phone rang and it was the CHQR radio morning show. They wanted a live on-air interview which I granted them. Then 15 minutes later it was another local radio morning show wanting the same thing. As the day progressed, so did the media attention.

Why? Well, I guess it's time to let the cat out of the bag, so here was the press release that my awe-inspiring PR wizard Neil Bousquet sent out the previous day on my behalf:

The 24 press release

24 hour HPV record

That pretty much says it all. I had been avoiding releasing anything about what my true intentions were regarding the new streamliner CP1 until I knew for certain that I could make an honest attempt at the existing record. Also, it isn't recommended to publicize your intentions too early, as it could generate some unwanted competitive interest.

I suppose another reason I might want to avoid any kind of prior publicity is in case I fail, but I am not afraid of failing. We learn by failing and in this case, it is a very real possibility.

The 24 hour human powered distance record of 1021.36 kilometers was set in 1995 by Axel Fehlau in Cologne, Germany on an M5 Carbone (that could be the M5#8 fairing - not sure). Details of that record attempt and some early ideas on how I was going to set a new one is in an old password protected update:

http://www.adventuresofgreg.com/HPVlog/Protected/01-26-05.html

I had password protected all of the updates that appeared with an appended (p) because they all directly dealt with the record attempt. I just removed the password protection, so those pages are now available.

All of the updates are here: http://www.adventuresofgreg.com/HPVMain.html

I believe that setting a new record for the 24 is within my capabilities, but by NO MEANS do I think it is going to be easy! When you do the math, you discover that an averagely decent streamliner with a CdA of .5 can go farther than 1021 km in 24 hour on a mere 114 watts of power. But what you don't realize is that it is nearly impossible to maintain 114 watts steady for an ENTIRE 24 hour period. When you stop peddling, your watt average declines dramatically! Taking short breaks here and there would mean that you really need to average 130 to 140 watts, just in order to end up with an average of 114 !!

And if you think a 24 hour average of 140 watts is easy, then you probably haven't tried to maintain that average over a 12 hour period - not to even mention 24 !!! And further, add to the fact that you are cooped up in a tight fitting carbon fiber shell looking through a thin piece of scratched up pop bottle plastic - well, you get the idea. Maintaining high watts during a 24 HPV event in a streamliner is very difficult for many, many reasons.

10 hour practice run at Glenmore

I had scheduled a big dry-run day at the Glenmore track on Tuesday, Oct 18th to get a feel for being cramped up in this human powered missile for hours on end, and more importantly, a good opportunity to thoroughly test out the vehicle, my hydration and nutrition plan as well as support from my crew.

And what a day it was!

I would like to extend a HUGE thanks to everyone who came out to support me yesterday. What a huge success! I felt like a fish in an aquarium - actually no, more like a fish in a fish bowl. Looking out at everyone looking in at me, and wondering what was going on. I can't tell you how great it was to see all of you there and speak with some of you on the two-way radio. It went a long way in taking my mind off the monotony of going around and around and around.

Special thanks to my wife Helen who was by my side for almost the entire day, Ben Eadie and John Mackay who stayed to help for most of the day and huge thanks to Dev the manager of the park who was especially helpful. He had a staff member at our disposal all day long and even swept and dried the track for us before we arrived. Thanks to my sister Carol who brought chairs, a table, coffee and donuts. Others I wish to thank for their support on Tuesday are Bill Bakke (an Olympian ski jumper and local Randonneur), my buddie Greg Bradley who tried to race me with his triathlon bike on the track (and lost, of course), Jennifer Armand who shot some of the great photos shown on this page, my bro Alan who made the logo for CP1, my other sister Theresa, Helens mom and dad, my buddies Gary, Cyrille, Tom and Murray, fellow local recumbent enthusiast Greg Nuspel who kept my brain occupied for quite a while as we discussed recumbent bikes and velomobiles by two-way radio, Annie (my hero and Cancer survivor) and her husband Roy Elliot.

Some of the media that showed up to cover the event were:

1. The Global TV noon show who did an interview AND their noon hour broadcast from the side of the track!!!
2. Shaw TV interview
3. CBC TV
4. CFCN TV
5. CFAC TV
6. Global evening news
7. Radio interview on the Breeze
8. Radio interview on CHQR
9. Radio interview on Don, Joanne and the Coach
10. Telephone interview by Dose magazine
11. Radio interview with Q107
12. Calgary Sun (page 2!)
13. Calgary Herald
14. Goodnews video

And various other photographers and reporters who showed throughout the day who I only saw from inside my little canopy bubble.

Results

Because the track is so short (400 meters) and even with the inefficient draggy rubber surface, I was unable to maintain my goal intensity of about 140 to 160 watts because speeds up near 40 kph were a bit of work to manage on those tight corners. I ended up averaging 104 watts of power, 32.4 kph, 109 bpm heart rate and traveled 281 km over 8 hours, 43 minutes of actual riding time. The total time was 10:45 hours, but there were many stops for interviews, etc.

If I take that power output and apply it to the efficient paved, long and straight track in Alabama, I would have covered a total of 628 miles in 24 hours with a 15 minute break every 3 hours. The 24 hour record is 634 miles, but again, the power output from yesterday was much less than my potential, so I still think setting a new record in Alabama is something we (CP1 and myself) are capable of.

CP1 performed flawlessly. I need to examine it carefully now for any signs of stress, but I think she's good and warmed up now for a REAL ride! The fairing which was CFD designed by Ben Eadie also performed exactly as per our design specs with a CdA of .3 sq ft, so big props to Ben!

As far as being ready for a record attempt in Alabama goes, there are still a few things that need be completed / issues resolved:

1. Ben is working on a new fairing mold which will be super glossy, smooth and more aerodynamic. I expect to be able to pull new shells off the mold early next week.

2. I need to build a break into the frame to split it into two pieces for shipping. My plan is to pack the frame into two bike boxes and roll the fairing shells up into another case. That way, I can fly with the CP1.

3. Lighting at night is still an issue. The track was fairly well lit-up by street lights in the area and was not a fair comparison to the darkness of a 3 km long road cut out of the forest in Alabama. I found that the glow stick markers we used yesterday work, but in order for me to maintain a decent power output and speed, I needed much better lighting. I am looking into renting some portable over head lights for the track.

Here are some photos of the day from Jennifer Armand and Ben Eadie (click for larger):

My interview with Tish from Global news noon show

I wasn't this happy during my 8th hour of doing circles!

Ben and the camera man from Global

CP1 rounding the corner at 40 kph. I can see by the photo that I really do need to smoothen out that rear wheel dome.

My interview with Shaw TV. They did it twice actually. The first time without video tape in the camera. They came back an hour later and repeated everything.

Greg B and me racing (you can see the nose of CP1 just behind Greg)

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9. Oct 15 2005

Fri, 27 Jan 2006 09:05:37 -0700

Finally some drag coefficient numbers!
This Podcast was created from the adventures of greg blog. To view photos and videos of todays update, please visit the web site at w w w dot adventures of greg dot com

Oct 15, 2005

Finally some drag coefficient numbers!

Here is a really great video of the CP1 with canopy bubble going around the Glenmore track

I need to know if the drag coefficient of CP1 is good enough to accomplish my goals, and finding out exactly what that is, is much more difficult than you would think.

If I were in outerspace, the smallest amount of input power would eventually propel me to a speed very close to lightspeed. However, back on earth we have some physics we have to deal with. Two forces to overcome; the first and primary is the force required to push the vehicle through our dense air mass (called aerodynamic drag), and the second is the force that wants to stop the wheels from rolling across the ground (called rolling resistance).

During a test a few months ago, I determined what the rolling resistance (Crr) of the tires were on the pavement in front of my house. The test is called a slow speed coast down test and is basically the average of a bunch of out and back coasts over a set distance at slow speeds. The amount that the bike slows down over this set distance can be used to calculate the rolling resistance of the wheels and tires. Using one calculator I have, I got a value of .0038 and using another calculator, I got a value of .0049. A component of this calculation is an estimation of the drag of the vehicle, and since I was running the tests on the CP1 frame-only, I could only take a rough guess at what the CdA is - thus part of the reason for the variation in the two Crr values.

We were able to get out to the Glenmore running track on Thanksgiving day to run some high speed tests around the track to see what the CdA is, and also to do some slow speed coast down tests to measure what the Crr is on the soft running track.

The Crr (rolling resistance) tests showed a Crr of .0086 which show just how slow this soft rubbery track is.

The CdA (aerodynamic drag) test was done the following way:

1. I maintained an average power output of 100 watts for exactly 10 loops around the track, marking the start and stop of the 10 loops on my SRM watts meter computer.

2. Then, I did another 10 loops around the track, but this time, maintained 140 watts of output power for the entire 10 loops.

3. Then I downloaded all of the data into my computer and used the SRM software to retrieve the exact average speed and average wattage output for each of the two runs.

4. Using the PDGUSC11 spread sheet, I input the Crr value of .0086 along with the average watts and average speed for the 100 watt loops, and it returns a resulting CdA (aerodynamic drag) value. Then I repeat this for the 140 watt runs.

I repeated the above 4 steps for 5 different configurations: No canopy bubble, with canopy bubble, with and without canopy bubble and a taped together fairing shell, and finally, a half canopy bubble (wind shield - type).

The results were at first a bit confusing, then upon discussing them with John Tetz, made perfect sense. The resulting CdA values got consistently better as the streamliner got more aerodynamic (ie: canopy bubble, tape, etc). However, all of the 140 watt runs were LOWER CdA than the 100 watt runs. And this was consistent throughout all of the 5 configurations. At first this was very confusing because the CdA can't change as you start going faster -well, not as much as I was measuring anyhow.

The reason, as it turned out, was because the Crr was changing as the CP1 starting to move faster. The faster I went, the more the tires dug into that soft rubber track, and the resulting rolling resistance went sky high.

Here are the results using .0086 as the Crr rolling resistance (temperature, pressure, weight were accounted for and there was very little wind)
Configuration Low speed runs High speed runs
Ave watts Ave Speed (kph) CdA Ave watts Ave Speed (kph) CdA

no canopy bubble, no tape
on fairing shells 108.4 32.22 .64 145.5 38.01 .71
no canopy bubble with tape
on fairing shells and covering
seams and holes 106.3 32.25 .6 146.5 38.94 .65
half-canopy bubble (wind shield style),
with tape on fairing shells and covering
seams and holes 102.4 32.26 .5 139.5 38.77 .55
full canopy bubble, no tape
on fairing shells 101.1 32.52 .45 133.5 38.81 .48
full canopy bubble, with tape
on fairing shells and covering
seams and holes 100.3 32.97 .39 138.9 39.39 .5

So - to confirm this, I was able to meet John Mackay and Ben out at the Race City Speedway paved road course track to repeat the test. The day was calm to start off with, but quickly got windy. I don't think the wind effected the results because there was no difference between any of the loops around the track during varying wind conditions (from a mild breeze to 25 km gusts).

Using a Crr of .0049 on a paved road, I was getting the following data:
Configuration Ave Watts Ave Speed (kph) CdA
no canopy bubble, with tape on fairing shells 85.6 39.43 .35
no canopy bubble, with tape on fairing shells (repeat of first config as a wind control) 85.4 39.06 .36
full canopy bubble, with with tape on fairing shells 64.1 34.16 .28

Since the CdA values are all better than the ones at the Glenmore track, I could attribute that to the fact that the .0086 Crr value I was using for the Glenmore calculations did NOT consider the increase in Crr as the bike went into the corners.

Ben is making good progress on the new fairing plug. It should be glossy smooth and should be worth a further increase in aerodynamic efficiency - meaning an even lower CdA.

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8. Oct 10 2005

Fri, 27 Jan 2006 09:05:36 -0700

Dry run and media event
This Podcast was created from the adventures of greg blog. To view photos and videos of todays update, please visit the web site at w w w dot adventures of greg dot com

October 10, 2005

Dry run and media event

I can’t believe that I think I can actually see some light at the end of this tunnel....

The two hour ride the other day around the track did wonders for my confidence that I just may pull this off.

I spent today and yesterday working on a simple removable canopy bubble and all the cockpit goodies like my iPod holder, two-way radio, food and water, etc...

http://www.adventuresofgreg.com/HPVlog/10-09-05.html

I am at the point now where I may need to make a more serious commitment to going for the record soon. I want to do a 'dry-run' this weekend (weather permitting) at the rubber track at Glenmore. I'm thinking 10 hours straight and I'll probably start at about noon and go to 10:00 at night so I can test out the night operation.

I'll need various volunteers throughout the day so nobody gets too board.

I also want to make the dry-run event a sort of 'media release' event. I have a PR guy (Neil) who will be doing the PR stuff. If I'm going to do the dry run, I'll get my PR guy to issue a press release to all the local media. They can swing by and take some photos, talk to me, etc, etc

Ok - so, Before I take this next HUGE step (the dry-run / media release event) I need to know that this record is a possibility for me and for the bike.

From recent training, I know I can maintain 130 watts for over 12 hours. I would hope that on 'race-day' I could end up averaging the same wattage average over an entire 24 hour period. Well, lets make that assumption for now.

According to my spreadsheet to beat the current 1100 km record at typical Alabama conditions, at 120 watts and Crr of .004, I would need a minimum of .5 CdA (sq ft). That would be pushing it really - touch and go, but possibly worth a shot.

I want to proceed with the dry-run / media event next weekend if we can do a highway watts run with the canopy and we can both be assured that we are getting at LEAST .5 CdA in the state it's in now (without the finishing touches, and without the new fairing shells, etc, etc). Then maybe after refinements and the new fairing, I can get a .4 or something. That would be cool.

So - I am doing a couple of hours around the Glenmore rubber track tomorrow morning at 10:00 am to make sure that the canopy works and my seating position and viewing or OK. Then I would like to get out to a highway in the afternoon for a watts test. If all goes good with the tests, then I will proceed with the plans for the media release and dry-run.

CP1 To do:

1. Fully test seat position, canopy bubble and venting
2. Watts test on highway to make sure I am in the ball park!!!! (IMPORTANT!!)
3. Add a headlight and do a night test !!!
4. Make a 'windshield-only' canopy bubble to work with faired helmet
5. Fix landing gear retraction so it fits inside the fairing - also the hatch cover
6. Get 650 disc wheel
7. Build a new fairing mold from the new plug
8. Pull carbon fairing shells from the new mold
9. Mid-drive lightening holes (James Kenny)
10. New carbon fork?
11. Add a thin coat of epoxy to the left hand wheel disc because it is not air tight
12. Finish micro'ing rear wheel fairing attachments (wait for final fairing shells)
13. New light-weight bottom brackets
14. Dura-ace chain

Event to do:

1. Make short list of observers, timer and tech (Helen)
2. Confirm track survey OK (email to Al)
3. Confirm removable parts (lights) ?
4. Timing system
5. Shipping (Helen)

Training to do:

1. 10 hour dry run on track (this weekend??)
2. ride EVERY DAY!!

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7. Oct 9 2005

Fri, 27 Jan 2006 09:05:36 -0700

Cockpit gadgets and canopy
This Podcast was created from the adventures of greg blog. To view photos and videos of todays update, please visit the web site at w w w dot adventures of greg dot com

October 9, 2005

Cockpit gadgets and canopy

you know the drill - click on the little picture to see a big one. Or what ever.
PETG Canopy bubble

I had previously experimented with vacuum forming PETG plastic by making a fiberglass mold from one of Garrie Hills Varna canopies. I had fairly good success and it just so happens that the canopy size and shape fits perfect for the CP1 top.

I clamped a sheet a 1/6" thick PETG plastic into the frame, then turned the infrared heat lamps on (about 12" above the surface of the plastic). As the plastic sheet heats up, I pull a tiny bit of vacuum to stop the sheet from bubbling up. This process continues for a few minutes - very slowly pulling the hot sheet down to the surface of the mold.

I had to mark the plastic sheet with a felt marker to see when it touches the mold surface. As soon as it comes in contact, remove the heat and continue to apply enough vacuum to allow the plastic sheet to contract a bit, pulling back off the mold surface about 1/8". This keeps the surface finish of the plastic nice and clear. I wait until the plastic has completely cooled, then unclamp it and pull it off the neoprene gasket.

I wanted to keep the canopy attachment as simple as possible. This would allow me to mount a half canopy, full canopy or no canopy at all depending on the circumstances. Also, it needs to come off to allow the fairing clam door to open.

I didn't get any photos of how it attaches to the fairing top. I curved a 1/2" wide strip of Sintra Plastic by using a heat gun, then bonded it to the inside of the bubble. The two ends that protruded fit into two slots cut in the fairing sides. An elastic cord hooks onto these tabs and pulls the bubble down onto the top.

There are slight openings on each side for fresh air intake. I am not sure if I will require more fresh air for breathing and cooling. If so, I can also lift up the front of the bubble slightly for additional air flow.

Cockpit coolness!!

Since I plan to be 'locked' into this baby for a while, the cockpit needs to be my home away from home.

For communications with my crew, I use a Motorola two-way radio mounted onto the left handle bar. The microphone is mounted on the over-the-shoulder bar on the right and is right beside my mouth. There is a push to talk switch on the mic, or I can move my thumb to the yellow button on the side of the radio without moving my hands off the handle bar.

And this works really slick: the radio ear phone (ear bud) fits into my right ear under my iPod headphones. I can't even feel it and if I get a call while listening to music, I can hear the call perfectly - works very well!

For in-flight entertainment, I reply on my trusty iPod Nano packed with my fav tunes and a collection of audio books.

The SRM power meter displays my speed, average speed, maximum speed, watts output, average watts output, distance, heart rate, cadence, heart rate, temperature, date and time.

There are two 3 liter bags mounted to the back of my seat - one holds water and one a concoction of liquid food (diluted hammer gel, Boost and Ensure). Both bags are easily accessible from the right hand gull-wing door opening.
Ready for blastoff!

CP1 To do:

1. Fully test seat position, canopy bubble and venting
2. Watts test on highway to make sure I am in the ball park!!!! (IMPORTANT!!)
3. Add a headlight and do a night test !!!
4. Make a 'windshield-only' canopy bubble to work with faired helmet
5. Fix landing gear retraction so it fits inside the fairing - also the hatch cover
6. Get 650 disc wheel
7. Build a new fairing mold from the new plug
8. Pull carbon fairing shells from the new mold
9. Mid-drive lightening holes (James Kenny)
10. New carbon fork?
11. Add a thin coat of epoxy to the left hand wheel disc because it is not air tight
12. Finish micro'ing rear wheel fairing attachments (wait for final fairing shells)
13. New light-weight bottom brackets
14. Dura-ace chain

Event to do:

1. Make short list of observers, timer and tech (Helen)
2. Confirm track survey OK (email to Al)
3. Confirm removable parts (lights) ?
4. Timing system
5. Shipping (Helen)

Training to do:

1. 10 hour dry run on track (this weekend??)
2. ride EVERY DAY!!

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6. Oct 7 2005

Fri, 27 Jan 2006 09:05:35 -0700

Over-the-shoulder top bar, new seat and more testing
This Podcast was created from the adventures of greg blog. To view photos and videos of todays update, please visit the web site at w w w dot adventures of greg dot com

October 7, 2005

Over-the-shoulder top bar, new seat and more testing

you know the drill - click on the little picture to see a big one. Or what ever.
What took me an entire day to make, took about 10 minutes to destroy. My seat came off quite easily - much to my happiness, and also much to my dismay. It should not have come apart that easy - my add-on carbon wasn't bonding to the old carbon like it should. I'll have to start paying more attention to how the surface is treated first - sand it to make it rough, then clean it well.
I decided that rather than building a new seat, I can scavenge the nice carbon seat from the rocket velomobile since I have stollen other parts from it for CP.
I bent up a couple of aluminum brackets that worked like crap. They look like they should work well, but are flexy like crazy. The seat wobbles back and forth. I decided to cover them with a few layers of carbon to see if they will stiffen up. I like the fact that I can raise or lower the seat back angle. So CP1 is still convertible to a camera bike.
I removed my temporary steel weldment and was very surprised at how much twisting flex the frame had without that top bar in place.

I put new over-the-shoulder bar on the right hand side - opposite the clam shell door on the left.

The nice thing about working with composites is you are not restricted to shape. It took me about 20 minutes to carve out a suitable form for the bar. I glued layers of foam together using hot glue, then hot glued the form to the frame.

I wrapped a few layers of carbon fabric + wound a strip of carbon unidirectional tape around it. Then I wetted it out with epoxy resin and mummified it with multiple layers of tight cellophane.
I poked holes in the plastic wrap to allow the excess resin to bleed out.
I was pleased with the result, and it was WAY stiffer than the temporary steel bolt-on.

I also covered the seat brackets with a few layers of carbon. The seat is stiffer now, but not as stiff as I would like. I also added a layer of closed-foam high density foam (the white layer) + a thick open cell cushion on top (black). VERY comfy!!!
One of the benefits of buying a TIG welder and learning how to weld rather than relying on brazing. I can't count the number of times I didn't have a fastener or other small simply part that didn't fit. It is so easy to simply weld-up a bolt to the exact length required - takes about 2 minutes including turning the welder on, un ravelling the cables and actually joining the two parts. I needed this longer bolt to pass through the thick shoulder bar to hold the fairing door hinge into the frame.
I got Angle to micro-fill and sand down the holes where the windows used to be. This is still just a 'work fairing', but I still want it to be as smooth as possible.
I am happy to say that I was able to do 2 hours straight on the Glenmore track today.

The new seat and position is super, super, super comfortable. It's different though - all of my training to date has been on a lower seat back angle position, so this new position is introducing some slightly different muscles. After a 5.5 hour total riding in the new position today, I find my gluttes are feeling it a bit.

This 2 hour simulation was very good for me today. A chance to get used to going around in circles and being cramped up in the streamliner. There is NOT very much room in there! now that my head pokes through a little hole in the roof, I barely have room to move my hands around. Eating and drinking are going to be a challenge.

I used John Snyders PWRDRAG2.xls nifty little spreadsheet to calculate my rolling resistance and my drag again. It works on the principal that at high speeds, aerodynamic drag is a larger resistor than rolling resistance is at slow speeds. You input 2 sets of watts / speed data, one high speed and one low speed. It estimates what your CdA (aerodynamic drag) and Crr (rolling resistance) is.

Here is what I got:

High speed: 124 watts, 35.6 kph
Low speed: 94 watts, 29.18 kph

CdA = .47 (sq ft)
Crr = .0104

The Crr seems very high, but that may be accurate because of two factors: First, the surface of the track is very soft rubber. You can depress it with your finger. And second it was only 7 degrees C. The colder the temperatures are, the higher your Crr. I previously measured the Crr on a warm day on a flat and smooth road at around .0058

Above is a comparison of the two seat positions. Note the new skater helmet - It's more lowracer friendly because there is not pointy thing in the back.

To do now:

1. Build retractable landing gear
2. Build a window for the nose
3. Fit and securely fasten fairing into place, then cut a removable door for self-entry/exit. I'm thinking a simple hinge at the top would work
4. Make THIRD fiberglass plug for body work
5. Finish micro'ing rear wheel fairing attachments
6. Test out the new windows / pan cam
7. Make new seat
8. Replace steel 'over the shoulder' support with carbon
9. Make PETG bubble

Cockpit management:
1. Someplace to attach 2 water bags, one with water and one with liquid calories
2. Radio (walkie-talkie) - microphone, push to talk switch on handle bars, somehow incorporate into iPod headphones?
3. Ipod mounting place (control?)
4.

To do eventually:

6. Build a new fairing mold from the new plug
7. Pull carbon fairing shells from the new mold
8. Build proper SEAT!
9. Mid-drive lightening holes (James Kenny)
10. New carbon fork?
11. Add a thin coat of epoxy to the left hand wheel disc because it is not air tight
12. Carbon wheel disc for front wheel (or buy a 650 disc wheel)

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5. Oct 4 2005

Fri, 27 Jan 2006 09:05:14 -0700

First fully faired velodrome test!
This Podcast was created from the adventures of greg blog. To view photos and videos of todays update, please visit the web site at w w w dot adventures of greg dot com

October 4, 2005

First fully faired velodrome test!

A successful velodrome run today!

I taxied once around the 'drome to get comfortable in the streamliner and hit a crack which threw me over onto my left side. Ouch!! Again, on the same elbow I have fallen on 3 times now!!

The first fall was on my right elbow when I was doing a fairing test with Angel 2 weeks ago. The right elbow is still sore from that one. Then I fell over again that same day onto my left elbow cutting it open on the inside of the fairing. Then I fell on my right elbow again during last weeks fairing test with Cody, then over onto my right elbow again that same day. On Fridays 370 km mega ride (15 hours!), I was climbing up Springbank hill at 8:30 pm in the dark and a car came too close and forced me off the side of the road where the M5 slipped out from under me and down an embankment. Of course - my left elbow took the fall. Then today's tip over back onto my left elbow.

The left fairing shell crushed in and Helen was unable to upright me, or to get me out. Since I have a steel bar around the left hand side of my head now, there was nothing I could do but lie under the bike, helpless and pinned. Luckily Dev was watching and came over to help. Dev is the manager of the athletic park and is super helpful - a totally great guy. Anyhow, between Dev and Helen they were able to pick me up, stand me back up on three wheels and punch the fairing shell back into shape. The fairing fit back on perfectly and amazingly is still in pretty smooth shape. It has been completely crushed at least 4 times and still pops back into shape. Since I was already bolted into position, I decided to just take off - and avoid the lengthy and potentially dangerous taxi. I got up no problem and did about a dozen loops around the track. It was VERY bumpy and LOUD!! Since the fairing shells aren't really fastened down tightly yet, they were bouncing and smashing around like nuts.

It got it up to a high speed of 50 kph on 220 watts immediately and it was handling just fine - no problems what so ever. I had forgotten to inflate the rear tubular tire, so was rolling resistance was probably poor. Also the temperature was only 4 degrees C, and I know that effects Crr as well. When I got home, I off loaded the SRM data and used both John Snyder's PWRDRAG2.xls spread sheet and John Tetz spread sheets to estimate my Crr and CdA. Since I already determined my Crr to be .0035, because of today's cold weather, underinflated tire and cracky surface on the track, I roughly estimated my Crr to be .0065 which resulted in a CdA of .7 square feet. Pretty poor. That was based on average watts input of 87.9 and average speed of 31.7 kph, and a high watts input of 220 watts for 50 kph.

This CdA value is really very crude. Another factor to consider is the bank on the velodrome track supposedly destroys aerodynamics on a streamliner. I'm not sure yet if that is true, but that is what everyone says about banked corners and heavy streamliners. Even if .7 is close to a true value, my head is not yet covered by a canopy, the trike wheel is still sticking out of the side, the right and left fairing shells were bouncing around like crazy, there is large gaps between the fairing shells and the frame where the rear wheel exits, and there is a very large opening around the front wheel that needs to be covered with some neoprene.

I am still hoping for somewhere around .3 to .5 (sq ft) on a flat, smooth road, with a PETG transparent canopy cover, properly inflated tires and properly fitting fairing shells, etc.

Check out the movie!!!!

Before we left the velodrome, I wanted to try out the running track that I noticed was covered with a rubber surface. I asked Dev if I could give that a try and he was more than happy to accommodate me. It was a TON smoother - actually a joy to blast around and very quiet. Since the rubber surface is soft and kind of gritty, I was much slower on it, but it is more suitable for training because it's so quiet and smooth. 113 watts produced 31 kph on the soft track.

To do now:

1. Build retractable landing gear
2. Build a window for the nose
3. Fit and securely fasten fairing into place, then cut a removable door for self-entry/exit. I'm thinking a simple hinge at the top would work
4. Make THIRD fiberglass plug for body work
5. Finish micro'ing rear wheel fairing attachments
6. Test out the new windows / pan cam
7. Make new seat
8. Replace steel 'over the shoulder' support with carbon
9. Make PETG bubble

To do eventually:

6. Build a new fairing mold from the new plug
7. Pull carbon fairing shells from the new mold
8. Build proper SEAT!
9. Mid-drive lightening holes (James Kenny)
10. New carbon fork?
11. Add a thin coat of epoxy to the left hand wheel disc because it is not air tight
12. Carbon wheel disc for front wheel (or buy a 650 disc wheel)

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4. Oct 3 2005

Fri, 27 Jan 2006 09:04:46 -0700

Plan Z
This Podcast was created from the adventures of greg blog. To view photos and videos of todays update, please visit the web site at w w w dot adventures of greg dot com

October 3, 2005

Plan Z
The new format is in response to news that the AOG web site is currently using up over half of my small ISP's total bandwidth allocation. The photos are much smaller, but you can still click on the ones you are interested in viewing and see large versions.
Well, I gave plans A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, and Y my best efforts, but after todays fully faired road test, I came face to face with something I kind of knew all a long. I am going to have to start looking at a head-out configuration - Plan Z. No choice.

First, I ran some tests using the pivot camera and had nothing but problems. It was WAY, way to wobbly due to the pivot, so I removed it and fixed the camera directly to the frame.

Ben came over on Sunday morning and we fastened both fairing shells to the frame. I taxied out to the straight road near my house and with both Cody and Ben on bikes to watch for traffic, I blasted off.

Getting off the landing gear was easy and navigating by monitor was OK. The camera image was all over the place due to the vibration, but that wasn't why I was unhappy.

The image was probably as good as it could get, but a far, far cry from where it needs to be. With intensive concentration and focus, I was barely managing to stay in the middle of the road for each 30 second run. I couldn't imagine having to do that for a minute - or an hour, or more! Forget it. It's just not worth pursuing anymore.

I have wasted enough time and money on attempting to maintain the simplicity of the fairing shape by incorporating a monitor and camera into the vehicle. (The photo at the right is a picture of the video monitor from inside the cockpit)

Here is a short movie of the camera bike road test

Plan Z is a head out the top configuration - something I didn't want to do, but also something that I had sort of planned for when I first designed CP1. My biggest resistance to the head-out was primarily aerodynamics. The drag increases fairly substantially when you have a large bump that the air has to make its way around. Secondly, all my training to date has been done with a low seat back angle. In a way, it's like starting from square 1 now with a more vertical seat back angle.

As a test, I welded up a steel bar to support the top of the frame and cut the carbon top bar out. Then I raised the seat back angle with some foam, cut a hole in the top of the fairing and went for a spin. Loved it!

My eye level is still very low - I still couldn't see much of the road directly in front of me, but I could make out way more of the entire road by looking right and left down the nose of the fairing. Far, far, far easier to handle, balance steer, etc. Also steering and balance is way better - probably because I am sitting more upright and able to use my upper body more than the extreme laid back position.

Anyhow, it won't be as fast as the camera version, but it will work for my purposes.

The plan is to cover the head opening with a PETG clear plastic bubble, and to replace my temporary steel welded structure with a dual carbon one. I also need to re-make the whole seat since the angle is totally different.

I want to get out to the velodrome tomorrow for a full fairing test - the first and I should be a ble to get some drag coefficient data also.

To do now:

1. Build retractable landing gear
2. Build a window for the nose
3. Fit and securely fasten fairing into place, then cut a removable door for self-entry/exit. I'm thinking a simple hinge at the top would work
4. Make THIRD fiberglass plug for body work
5. Finish micro'ing rear wheel fairing attachments
6. Test out the new windows / pan cam
7. Make new seat
8. Replace steel 'over the shoulder' support with carbon
9. Make PETG bubble

To do eventually:

6. Build a new fairing mold from the new plug
7. Pull carbon fairing shells from the new mold
8. Build proper SEAT!
9. Mid-drive lightening holes (James Kenny)
10. New carbon fork?
11. Add a thin coat of epoxy to the left hand wheel disc because it is not air tight
12. Carbon wheel disc for front wheel (or buy a 650 disc wheel)

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Click here to go to the HOME PAGE

3. Sept 29 2005

Fri, 28 Jan 2005 16:36:29 -0700

Rotating camera, rear wheel fin, carbon seat, fairing primed and new plug progress

...This Podcast was created from the adventures of greg blog. To view photos and videos of todays update, please visit the web site at w w w dot adventures of greg dot com

September 29, 2005

Rotating camera, rear wheel fin, carbon seat, fairing primed and new plug progress

I bought a new Sony mini-camera. It has interchangeable lenses and is very low lux for night vision. I think one of the issues with the camera view, it the lens on my Marshall 1/4" CCD camera is 3.7 mm which is a wide angle view. When I was going around the track the other day using the camera to view, I noticed that I would come very close to the track edge, and before I could correct for it, I would be off onto the grass. The same thing was happening on the street out front of my house - I would tend to veer dangerously close to the edge of the road without really realizing it. The reason I am sure, is because of the wide angle view from the camera lens. You can see more of the road on each side of you, but visual feedback from your movements from side to side and greatly reduced. You just don't even notice when you are steering off to the side of the road.

I figured that a narrower field of view lens would fix that problem, but the Marshal camera has a fixed lens. So, I went to the Spy Shop here in Calgary and purchased a nifty Sony low lux, high res camera with a 8 mm lens. During a test with the 8 mm lens, the image is about exactly what your eye would see, and it is much easier to judge where you are on the road, and also your orientation for balance inputs. I don't think the issue before was due to a lag in the video system - I think it was due to the wide angle lens. The normal angle lens seems to resolve that issue.

However, this narrow angle view limits how much of the road I can see. So, I decided that it might be cool to make the camera rotate (or pan) from side to side. This works VERY SLICK!!

The aluminum strip below the cross bar on the frame attaches to the top of my helmet. When I turn my head from side to side, the camera rotates with it. For the 'proof of concept' version, I used a threaded rod through a skateboard wheel which is screwed onto the frame. The rod goes through a hole in the frame and attaches to the control strip. The action is very smooth and I can't even feel it. The motion is very intuitive and I can see from one side of the road to the other.

My helper for the day came all the way from Paris, France to assist me. In fact, it was Francois's idea to join the rotating rod to the top of my helmet. My idea was this convoluted over complicated push-rod contraption. From now on, I'll call it the Francois pan cam.

Francois is a recumbent builder from France and is in Canada touring through the Canadian Rockies with his girlfriend for three weeks. He had a spare day, so he called me up and volunteered to spend the day with me.

For every successful idea, you must go through at least one failure. Before the pan cam, I duct tapped an aluminum rod to my helmet, taped the camera to the top of it and hooked the camera up to a head mounted virtual display. It generally worked, but the view from the video goggles was super crappy. Very small and a bit blurry and almost no color at all. I'm going to send the goggles back - not impressed with the product.

Video goggles way too silly to be shown (as if this isn't goofy enough...).

To supplement the 100th attempt at getting the video system to work for me, I cut new larger window openings for the fairing and spliced in some PETG windows. The window splice method I used seemed to work fairly well - This fiberglass fairing is just a 'work' fairing, so everything is still kind of experimental with this fairing. When Ben finishes the new plug, then I'll make 'race-worthy' carbon shells and do the windows super nice.

I printed out an oval shape from my computer that is based on the same shape as the fairing. I traced that onto both shells, then cut out the hole with my Dremel. Then I found a piece of PETG from a previous attempt to vacuum form the fairing that had a similar curve to the fairing side. I taped the plastic to the back of the hole, and traced the hole onto the plastic. I used scissors to carefully cut the oval out of the plastic, then placed it directly into the hole cut in the fairing. I used tape on the back side to hold the plastic in place, then spread a small strip of silicon around the perimeter of the cut line which filled in the seam.

Then my shop helper Angel spray painted the fairing shells with primer:

Angel cleaning the PVA off the fairing shells. Yes, that's SNOW!!! Our first snow fall of the year and it's still September!

Bens fairing design called for a single long fairing to enclose both the front and rear wheel:

At this point, I'm thinking that it's just too much work so I made a rear wheel fairing by adding a fin to the front and back of the rear wheel dome.

The photo shows the fins epoxied into place before sanding. They were actually fairly easy to make:

1. I used a sheet of clear PETG plastic to trace the shape I wanted:

2. Then I transferred the shapes to a piece of 1.5" thick Styrofoam:

3. I cut the shapes out, then sanded them using a wire brush and sand paper:

Then I sprayed a light coat of contact cement on the foam part, and 2 layers of 5 oz carbon fabric. After wrapping the cloth around the foam I wetted it all out with epoxy, then wrapped it up tight with electrical tape.

I used basically the same process to make my carbon seat. I cut out four shapes from a piece of sandwich board that I had cut out of the wheels from the original sandwich board that I cut the frame out from. I clamped the shapes onto the frame and drilled two holes through the whole stack and bolted it together:

Then I used a grinder and sand paper to rough out a slight 'cupping' shape for the seat. Then I epoxied the shapes together and onto the frame, then spray glued a single sheet of 11 oz carbon fabric to the seat.

After wetting the carbon with epoxy, I wrapped plastic wrap around the whole thing to keep the carbon fabric tight to the seat.

To keep the wet carbon down on the top, I put crumpled rags on the seat, then 25 lb weights on top of the rags.

Ben is making good progress on the new fairing plug. He fastened the fiberglass shell to a base:

Then filled the shell with expanding foam to make it strong enough to bondo and sand:

Man this IS a lot of work!!! I can't believe that on top of all the work and progress on CP1, I am still keeping up my training. That, plus every time I make some serisou progress I seems like a dozen more things need to be done. I have indicated before that I am getting the CP1 ready for an event of some sort (details will be forth coming - no, not Battle Mountain on Oct 3rd), and I feel like time is running out. Not because there is any actual official date of any sort, but because the weather here is slowly closing in on me. To continue my training, I need the weather to cooperate. We have already had our first snow - by the end of October it isn't unusual to be taking the kids out for Halloween wearing full winter gear and dealing with ice and snow on the sidewalks.

Tomorrow I am planning a 14 hour training day - probably around 375 km I figure. I will probably wake up at 4:00 am, put a few hours in on the CP1 frame on the wind trainer inside, then head out at sunrise on the M5 for another 11 to 13 hours - basically to sunset or a little after.

I got some really good news from the Glenmore Velodrome today. Dev is the manager there and he's super enthusiastic about what I am doing. He is willing to let me use the velodrome anytime I want as long as it doesn't interfere with another booking. And, they have lights for night time available!! I want to start incorporating more velo time in these long rides, but the CP1 isn't quite ready yet - soon. Very soon.

The goal for next week is to Definitely do a velo run with the fully faired CP1 !!!

To do now:

1. Build retractable landing gear
2. Build a window for the nose
3. Fit and securely fasten fairing into place, then cut a removable door for self-entry/exit. I'm thinking a simple hinge at the top would work
4. Make THIRD fiberglass plug for body work
5. Sand down rear wheel fairing attachments
6. Test out the new windows / pan cam

To do eventually:

6. Build a new fairing mold from the new plug
7. Pull carbon fairing shells from the new mold
8. Build proper SEAT!
9. Mid-drive lightening holes (James Kenny)
10. New carbon fork?
11. Add a thin coat of epoxy to the left hand wheel disc because it is not air tight
12. Carbon wheel disc for front wheel

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Click here to go to the HOME PAGE

2. Previous updates

Sun, 29 Jan 2006 08:56:17 -0700

How far can a man travel
under his own power
in one day?...

This Podcast was created from the adventures of greg blog. To view photos and videos of todays update, please visit the web site at w w w dot adventures of greg dot com

....

...

The Human Powered Vehicle 24 hour distance record attempt

Greg Kolodziejzyk is a retired entrepreneur on a mission to break the existing 24 hour human powered distance record of 1021.36 km set in 1995. That's almost the distance from a snow shovel in Calgary to a palm tree in California. He has exactly 24 hours to do it and it will be strictly under his own power. No wind or stored energy of any sort allowed.

Greg designed and built a custom carbon fiber bicycle called "Critical Power". More appropriately called a "Human powered vehicle", Critical Power is a two wheeled recumbent bicycle encapsulated by a bullet-like streamlined body called a fairing. The sleek body was computer designed for maximum aerodynamic efficiency by Ben Eadie of Mountain-wave.ca. CP is capable of achieving speeds in excess of 100 km per hour and was built to maintain a cruising speed of 50 kph on a flat road with effort levels that would see a paltry 20 kph on a typical mountain bike.

The actual record attempt will be held on a closed track in Eureka, California some time within the next few months. The record attempt is sanctioned and recognized by the International Human Powered Vehicle Association (http://www.ihpva.org) who set the rules and monitor the event.

Greg believes that a vigorous, active lifestyle plays a HUGE role in the general health and psychological well being of every individual. We live in an automobile dominated, convenience food world and, unfortunately, physical activity is the first thing neglected. As a society, our reliance on burning fossil fuels to drive the kids down the street is disturbing. Aside from the obvious ecological costs of our passivity, the lack of physical activity is costing us BILLIONS in increased health care obligations every year, warns Greg. His hope is to inspire others to get up, get out and get moving.

It is his goal to direct attention to these pressing issues by combining an extreme physical challenge with innovative, cutting-edge green technology. "I would really just love to remind everyone about that bike in the garage. Dust it off and get out there and ride it - You'll be amazed at how great you'll feel". More on Greg's message here.

Critical Power Speedbike cruising at 60 kph around the race track in Eureka, Ca.

About the challenge:

The 24 hour human powered distance record of 1021.36 kilometers was set in 1995 by Axel Fehlau in Cologne, Germany with the M5 Carbone streamliner on an indoor 200 meter velodrome track. The previous record of 1003 km was set by Myhee in 1993 at the race track in Eureka, Ca. A list of all human powered vehicle (HPV) records is here.

I believe that setting a new record for the 24 is within my capabilities, but by no means do I think it is going to be easy. When we do the math, we discover that an averagely decent streamliner with a drag coefficient of .3 (sq ft) can go farther than 1021 km in 24 hours on only 110 watts of human power (enough effort to go 15 kph or 9 mph on a mountain bike). But what most people don't realize is that it is difficult to end with an overall finishing average of 110 watts after an ENTIRE 24 hour period. When the cyclist stops peddling, his watt average declines dramatically! Taking short breaks and occasionally coasting would mean that one really needs to average 140 to 150 watts, just in order to end up with an average of 110 !!

And further, add to the fact that the rider is cooped up in a tight fitting carbon fiber shell looking through a thin piece of scratched up pop bottle plastic - well, you get the idea. Maintaining high power output for 24 hours in a streamliner is very difficult for many reasons. You need to stop to replenish your food and hydration supplies, for clothing changes as the daily temperature fluctuates, to stretch, and to deal with bathroom requirements. Unfortunately, the clock doesn't stop when you stop.

The average healthy human has the ability to maintain less than 50 watts on an upright road bike for 24 hours, but trained first-class athletes can maintain 200 watts. I am probably somewhere around 130 watts in the recumbent position, and 150 to 170 in the upright road bike position. Remember, these wattage values are finishing averages. To end up with a finishing average of 130 watts, a constant 150 to 160 watts are required as often as possible.

The most optimistic scenario would be an average of 140 watts of power over a 23 hour period (allowing 1 hour for breaks, stops, etc) in the Critical Power streamliner resulting in a potential of 1200 km which is 120 km over the existing record. At a minimum, If I can maintain an average of only 100 watts for 23 hours allowing for 2 hours of planned and unplanned stops, it would net me about 1030 km which would still result in a new record.

My 15-20 hour training week consists of one long endurance ride that slowly increases in duration to a maximum of 15 hours per ride. I also do one, 2 hour high-intensity tempo training session per week, and fill the rest of the days in with fat burning and recovery rides of 1 to 2 hour durations.

My first attempt at the record was at the NCAT test track in Opelika, Alabama on November 25th, 2005. I cycled 828.4 km (515 miles) in 20 hours, 22 minutes before I had to quit because of mechanical problems. The full record attempt report is here.

About the bike:

The chassis of Critical Power is a carbon fiber recumbent bicycle also known as a short wheel base, remote steered, front wheel drive lowracer. The frame was constructed from a single piece of carbon fiber sandwich board, then the frame shape was cut-out of the board. The edges were laminated, and the components were installed with aluminum brackets.

We ran finite element analysis stress calculations to determine where the frame needed to be reinforced for maximum strength and stiffness, then reinforced those areas with additional carbon fiber.

The front wheel is a 650 cm carbon fiber disc wheel that fits between my legs. It is driven with 155 mm cranks that hold a special meter called an SRM power meter used to measure the amount of power in watts that I am applying to the peddles. I use this to control and evenly spread-out my effort throughout the 24 hour period. The crank turns a 39 tooth chain ring that drives a small 24 tooth chain ring on a mid-drive. The large ring on the mid drive is 54 teeth which runs down to a standard 9 speed gear cassette on the front wheel. The purpose of the mid drive is to allow me to turn the front wheel (to steer) and drive the wheel at the same time. The other purpose for the mid drive is to step-up the gearing - with the aerodynamic fairing body on, the bike can go very fast with very little power. In the top gear, I can go 60 kph (37 mph) at 80 rpm cadence with 160 watts of power input.

The rear wheel is a 700 cm carbon fiber disc wheel that spins inside an enclosed wheel shroud. This is more efficient because the spinning wheel does not 'churn' air around as much as an exposed wheel would. Both the front and rear tires are high pressure, low rolling resistance clincher tires (Michellin Pro 2 Race).

The cockpit of Critical Power is very crowded! I communicate to my support crew via a ChatterBox motorcycle two-way radio system. I can make or receive cell phone calls through the radio, as well as listen to music. Behind the seat are two 3 liter water bags with feeding tubes that are mounted directly in front of my mouth. One holds enough water for about 3 hours, the other holds 3 hours worth of food in the form of Boost - a meal replacement drink.

When the streamliner body is on CriticalPower, there is no way I can balance by putting my feet on the ground when starting or stopping. I accomplish this with a telescopic landing gear. I pull a handle attached to a cable below my seat on the right hand side of the frame which pushes a wheel through an opening hatch on the fairing body. A leg with a roller blade wheel telescopes down and I can lock it in place with the pull cable handle.

When 'taking-off' I simply 'taxi' on three wheels until I am moving at least 5 to 10 kph, then jerk the steering wheel to the right which lifts the bike off of the landing gear wheel. Then I retract the gear by releasing the pull cable which is pulled in with a bungie elastic cord. Once the gear leg has been retracted, I close and lock the landing gear hatch door with another cable. To "land", I slow down to about 10 kph, open the landing gear hatch door, extend the gear leg and lean to my right. The bike falls over onto the gear and I coast to a safe stop.

Here is a video clip showing how the landing gear extends and retracts

About the body:

The Critical Power streamliner body was designed by Ben Eadie of Mountain-wave.ca using a state of the art computer 'computational flow dynamics' application. Ben designed the fairing shell to have a drag coefficient that would allow me to achieve at least 50 kph on less than 130 watts of power.

Using the computer model, the mold for the fairing shells was machined with a large 5 axis CNC machine out of a 3 thousand pound block of wood. The shells are made from 2 layers of carbon fiber for strength and lightness plus one inside layer of kevlar to protect me from carbon shards if I were to crash. To stiffen the shells, we added narrow carbon covered foam ribs on the inside.

Fresh air intake is through a NACA duct in the top of the fairing shell via a tube that is directed to my face. If the windshield fogs up, I can lift the canopy bubble slightly to allow more air to enter from the under the front windshield. The canopy bubble was vacuum formed from a 1/16" thick sheet of PETG plastic - the same plastic they make pop bottles from. The canopy bubble is reinforced with 2 layers of fiberglass on the inside.

Critical Power human powered vehicle is one of the most energy efficient vehicles in the world. With a drag coefficient of .25 (CdA sq ft), wheel rolling resistance of .0050 (Crr) and weight of 70 pounds, if it were equipped with a high efficiency gas engine, it could be capable of over 10,000 miles per gallon! (Estimated from Shell eco-marathon vehicle data).

Here is a chart comparing the efficiency of Critical Power to some more common human powered vehicles:
Vehicle: Speed at 100 watts of power Speed at 150 watts of power Speed at 200 watts of power
Critical Power speedbike 45 kph (28 mph) 58 kph (36 mph) 67 kph (41 mph)
Time-trial road bike 28 kph (17 mph) 33 kph (20 mph) 37 kph (23 mph)
Mountain bike 22 kph (13 mph) 26 kph (16 mph) 29 kph (18 mph)

Photos and videos of Critical Power:
(click on the photo to enlarge)

New paint

New decal

New paint job

HPV official Rob Hitchcock

Eureka, Ca test and tune day

Eureka, Ca test and tune day

Eureka. Ca test and tune day in the rain

Critical Power freshly painted

Alabama record attempt 2005 NCAT test track

Glenmore running track media day

Greg and his better half Helen

Greg training ride

Alabama record attempt 2005 NCAT test track

Alabama record attempt 2005 NCAT test track

Alabama record attempt 2005 NCAT test track

Alabama record attempt 2005

Alabama record attempt 2005

Alabama record attempt 2005

Alabama record attempt 2005 NCAT test track

Alabama record attempt 2005 NCAT test track

Media day at Glenmore Athletic Park

Greg Kolodziejzyk

Greg and freshly painted Critical Power

Alabama record attempt 2005

CP 'rat racer' at Race City Speedway before Alabama

CP 'rat racer' at Race City Speedway before Alabama

CP 'rat racer' at Race City Speedway before Alabama

CP 'rat racer' at Race City Speedway before Alabama

Critical Power logo

Eureka test and tune day video
Alabama record attempt Video #1

Alabama record attempt Video #2

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1. INTRODUCTION

Sun, 29 Jan 2006 08:56:17 -0700