Australian Cycling Forums - Bicycles Network Australia

Update on the Phantom HPV record Attempt taking place in Geelong this week.

From Tim Corbett:

"The record attempt will take place this Wednesday the 18th of April.

It will be held at the Geelong showgrounds, Melway 452 E10, entry is via Gate 2
from Breakwater road and it's free to attend.

The weather is looking fantastic.

The bike is sorted and pulling higher speeds than I'd imagined. I'll be looking
to get rolling by about 10am, but we might start a bit earlier or later
depending on when we're ready to go. I'll be finishing up about 4pm. There
will be a short period before and after for anyone who would like to ride a few
laps of the circuit on recumbents/streamliners etc.

If the track will let me, I'm looking to go out hard(ish) for the first hour and
see if I can crack the Australian one hour and world low altitude trike records
in the first hour before it gets too hot, then settle into the grind for the
next 5 hours and see what kind of benchmark we end up with!

I'll be making a very quick appearance at the 3 hour mark (approx 1pm) to take
on more fluid/food..

Enter via gate 2. You can park inside the showgrounds, its free!

I'll be running on the paved/bitumen loop around the main oval. I'll have a
gazebo set up and a few chairs (hay bales!) for spectators to watch from. Bring
your own food, I'll be busy for most of the day so I won't be able to field and
questions until afterwards

Jordan Lucas will be posting live updates from the track."

I hope the weather is kind and it goes well

I am going to head down there at lunchtime....

Good luck Tim !!

Any word on how this went, if he nailed it?

Tim ran into some technical issues......

I'll copy the text from his Facebook page !

Here's the info from the Facebook page:

"Hey guys, sorry about the lack of "live" updates - our IT guru couldn't make it at the last minute.

As Jordy said, I aborted just after an hour. There was clearly something wrong with the bike and it was running much slower than testing indicated was possible from just a few days beforehand at the Geelong Velodrome. I made a couple of small modifcations but they didn't seem to improve the running speed. I also made a trip back to Geelong Velodrome to re-test the bike there, and it seems that a combination of factors were working against me.

Firstly, although the surface at the showgrounds is nice and smooth, it is rather bumpy. Over time this resulted in on of the main fairing mounts snapping and the fairing then hung low which increased the aero drag and also caused the fairing to rub on the rear wheel. I could definitely feel a significant increase in the amount of effort required to maintain the required lap splits, and the guys from timing also confirmed that there was a distinct change in lap times at about the 30min mark. I'm assuming this was when the fairing mount broke.

Also, although the circuit is much larger than the velodrome, the corners are not banked and so it was in fact more difficult to maintain speed around the corners, which was also probably working against me.

It was pleasing to note that when I put in some laps at the Velodrome, my heart rate dropped from about 177-180 that I was previously working at the showgrounds, down to about 143 to maintain the same average speed of approx 52km/hr. I've still to download the power data and compare figures, but its nice to know that I wasn't imagining to figures that I saw last week in the lead up to this attempt.

I'm not sure what my plans are from here. I need to gather my thoughts for a few days and I'll let you all know what the new/next plan of attack is!"

-

Bugga!

william wrote:-

Bugga!

Agreed

Thanks people for the kind words! I only just stumbled on this forum tonight...

Since Easter this year, we re-attempted at the Ford Proving Grounds mid October. We lucked out with superb weather, but hit some new snags on this attempt. At the half way mark I was almost 15km in front of the current World Trike 6hr record, but I had a pretty severe case of hyponatremia which prevented me from staying on pace for the 6hr duration - I had averaged 56.5km/hr after the first three hours. I was able to hold on to pass Jeff Neilson's 6 hr trike record of 310.8km by 600m.

I'm aiming to re-attempt again over the Easter period this year. I'm continuing to update the trike, and hydration/nutrition plans. You'd think after almost 15 6hr+solo mtb races in the past two years, and several full length trike training sessions and attempts I'd have it sorted by now ...Salt is a good thing.

Hey Little Tim !!