If you’ve not been following the WHPSC Facebook page or other sites, I’ve included a couple of links below for updates from folk at Battle Mountain.
But, suffice it to say it looks like it’s been a bit of a tough year for many of the teams. There have been a few crashes including Toronto’s Titan as well as Liverpool’s Arion5; for both riders. Luckily no one was hurt and the bikes were ready to go after minor repairs. It seems Adam crashed as well and did a bit more damage to his bike but in true Battle Mountain spirit, people from many other teams jumped in to lend a hand getting him back on the road for the Wednesday morning heats.
Amongst the crashes there have been many successful qualifications and runs including the Japanese team who made it out on the course on Wednesday morning. But, it sounds like most of the setbacks have come from the wind. It seems that the winds are particularly strong this year and have been prone to very sudden drops and increases. Most notable, as Jo Kuga notes, was Rosa doing 75.24 into a 7 mph headwind!
But, despite all the challenges the riders and teams have faced there have been numerous successes. Yasmin set a British women’s multitrack record in Arion5, Ken Buckley was close to the British men’s multitrack record. Andrea and Fabien both broke 80 mph earning them each a prestigious hat, similarly Bill breaking 50 mph earning a hat for himself, and the there’s a new Women’s world record! Rosa Bas from Delft/Amsterdam broke the long standing women’s world record with a run at 75.88 mph or 122.12 kph. Well done Rosa and Delft! (also note her non-wind-legal run above!).
Three more days to go. Hopefully the winds will be stable and calm, the teams will be rejuvenated by the build to the end of the week, and we’ll see many more successful runs! All the best to everyone out at Battle Mountain!
https://jnyyz.wordpress.com/2019/09/01/bm2019-preview/
May need a translation:
http://ihpva.org/whpsc/index.htm