Two Mango adventures for the price of one this week. On Saturday I raced in Germany, and on Monday I collected some more stock.
Rütenbrock 2011
Again a very enjoyable competition in Rütenbrock, for which I have to thank the Bentlage brothers who put a lot of work into organising it. It's a 55 km ride from here to their village, so I rode there first and back again afterwards. I made this film, starting on the way there. My intention had been to have a camera facing forwards as well as the one backwards, but unfortunately the forward camera stopped working:
Jan Eggens made a film from the side of the track:
I'm still waiting for official results at the moment (they'll appear here). All I know at present is that in the one hour race, Daniel Fenn won with an amazing 44.8 km/h average, Peter was 9th with just short of 38 km/h, and that I was (I think) 15th out of 37 competitors with an average of about 36 km/h. Lots of fun.
Today I went to collect some more racks for the shop. I thought a bit about this. Pulling the trailer behind the Mango obviously slows it down. It's not all that aerodynamic and a bit like pulling a parachute. This is difficult to calculate for. However, the effect of the extra weight on the return trip is also very easy to notice and the online calculator shows that the effect of the weight alone takes about 5 km/h off my speed or, if you like, makes the journey 15% "longer". However, the round-trip of 75 km still took well under three hours, which isn't so bad.
Yesterday there was a race in Rütenbrock in Germany. Rütenbrock isn't too far away, it's 50 km between here and there. Last year, I rode over there with Harry to take part in the event. This time, Judy and I rode together. It made for a very enjoyable day out.
The cycle paths between here and the race are (mostly) rather wonderful. This one, for instance, which goes on for many kilometres, during which you can pretty much ignore the few cars on the road alongside.
It was great fun. The Rütenbrock circuit is quite unusual in that it twists and turns on roads through the village. The road is a bit rough in places, and the corners are very tight for a three wheeler, with speed bumps and posts to negotiate as well. It's quite common to end up on two wheels on some of the corners. This makes it fun. Also, there's a great atmosphere. The course goes through residential areas, and people sit in their gardens to watch and to cheer the contestants on. Fantastic.
I was right behind both Peter and Harry for the first few laps, but Peter got away quite quickly, and then Harry did too. In the end, Peter finished 10th, myself 16th, Harry 26th after getting a puncture in the last lap and Wilfred 28th. Full results can be found here.
Ymte won the race - he often does ! Daniel Fenn was perhaps best placed to beat him, but due to a mechanical problem he had to stop. It seems there was a bit too much weight shaving off a wheel hub...
After the race Judy and I rode back home again. Judy's computer recorded 111 km for the day's riding there and back (and once around the track to see what it was like), which is a new record for her in one day.
And for me, I'd done the two races as well so my computer said just over 160 km for the day. It's also ten months almost to the day since I got my own Mango and by the time we got home, the total recorded was just over 9100 km.
Yesterday we went racing in Germany again. This time it was in Rutenbrock, which is 50 km from Assen. I rode the Mango there with Harry and rode back with Peter. I'd done 157 km at the end of the day, including racing. Harry started from 30 km further away and continued to his girlfriend's house 140 km further on so he'll have ridden over 250 km in total.
Alain Hinzen won both the single lap time trial with 46 km/h and the hour long criterium at over 43 km/h. Peter took sixth place in the time trial with 43 km/h, but due to a crash ended up just behind me in the hour race. Harry came in 18th in the hour long race at 37.3 km/h and I was 23rd at 36.5 km/h. I've ridden my commute faster than that ! These speeds are all a lot slower than last week's races.
Of course, there is a reason for the relative slowness. Different courses suit different people, and this one was especially tricky for velomobiles, there being many tight corners around the residential area where it was difficult to exceed 30 km/h, and where you could be slowed down a lot if there were many other people at the corner at the same time. It takes time to get the speed back up again.
There was also a 12 lap (3/4 hour) race for uprights on the same course, and while the fastest results were from recumbent riders, the uprights did very well too. I think the course suited bunched racing on lighter bikes quite well. Full results here.
Update 19th August. Harry made a video while racing:
Another video, showing Pjotr on a practice lap taking the corners faster than I dared, can be seen here, and another from Harry of his time trial lap is here.
