Two big Sponsors supporting Salty Wheels at Bonneville

 . . . I am delighted to announce that I now have two major sponsors supporting logistical costs of taking my 250cc pushrod classic motorbike to Bonneville this August for Speed Week record attempts.

www.scotchwhiskyauctions.com

 . . . are a Glasgow based on line spirits auction specialist with a growing reputation internationally as an excellent source for obtaining newer, older and really-older bottles of whisky, other spirits and assorted whisky memorabilia.    With their excellent contacts in the Scotch whisky Industry they are forefront in authenticating rare and obscure bottlings of whisky and also for maintaining a lower commission level than many more traditional auctioneers, both for the buyer and for the seller.
I continue to purchase some interesting old bottles myself on a regular basis.









www.bonaccordpub.com

 . . . the Bon Accord is the U.K.'s 'National Winner Independent Pub Category award 2015'  title holder and enjoys an excellent reputation for the range and quality of the cask ales of which there are over 900 varieties a year.
Also to be found within this alladins' cave of maltiness are hundreds of different single malt whiskies and other quality spirits which are appreciated not just by the regulars but also by the two Whisky Clubs which are based in the Bon Accord and looked after by Proprietor Paul, one of Scotland's foremost publicans with a considerable experience within the licenced trade.    Paul also has a great number of contacts throughout the Scotch whisky industry,    and he's just a great chap to have a drink with whilst talking malt-moment stuff !

Trip Advisor  tends to agree with my opinion of the Bon Accord.

It's wonderful to have this association and I look forward to some blogging and vlogging with my sponsors relating to the Bonneville challenge this year.

Preparing your essentials for Bonneville.

. . . preparing a motorcycle or any other vehicle may be at the core of participation in Bonneville Speed Week but there's more that needs to be done,  even the necessary personal preparation by riders and drivers on the salt through physical exercise, weight loss and improving stamina with connective training (bike trail riding) helps considerably but without logistic and event planning with the practicalities,    your just not going to make it !

Logistics vary depending on location,    if your based in the U.S. it's more direct and is as follows

1 - Ensure vehicle and rider/driver will be ready on time.
2 - Apply for SCTA membership in good time.
3 - Register your competition vehicle and receive a race number and Card.
4 - Book/arrange accommodation either in a mobile home, tent (if your brave) or local hotel/casino.
5 - Ensure your transportation is fit for purpose, particularly over long distances.
6 - Obtain competitive insurance.
7 - Check with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that your vehicle has a consent certificate if required. www.epa.gov/home/forms/contact-epa   

If you based out with the U.S. you will need to organise freighting of your vehicle either by sea or air.
My experience is that it is best to use an experienced shipper who understands all the bureaucracy that needs to be addressed and also if you ship by sea, allow six weeks for the journey.    Shipping by air is much quicker at around nine days from the U.K. and also may be cheaper than sea-freight.

With air freight, cost is calculated on size (dimensions) of transportation crate whilst sea freight is calculated by total weight of the consignment.  

In both instances U.S. Environmental Protection Agency certificates will be needed to take your vehicle into the U.S. for use and should be obtained well in advance of going.   Your official participation card for the event along with three full colour pictures of your machine will be required for these certificates.

All vehicles must travel without fuel and oil in the machines, therefore they must be 'dry' and also any batteries in your container must have both terminals isolated completely and securely.

In the U.K. Carnets (a Formal list of everything being transported) is needed and can be obtained from the London Chamber of Commerce where you can register for a carnet electronically through their website. http://www.londonchamber.co.uk/lcc_public/article.asp?aid=100 

Personal travel visas called an 'ESTA' can be obtained direct from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (  https://esta.cbp.dhs.gov/ )

Preparing a vehicle for Bonneville.

. . . First thing to do is get hold of the S.C.T.A.  (http://www.scta-bni.org/) Year Book.
The latest issue (it's an annual updated reference) is 2016 Rules & Records Dry Lake Speed Trials.
  Whatever the vehicle being prepared, due to regular additions to rules and regulations I advise that anyone get hold of the latest issue and not a yester-year copy.
  Most styles of vehicle may participate so long as they are, for example, not jet powered.
There are other exclusions as advised by the organisers so it is best to check first before applying.
Erosion of the salt surface at Bonneville over the years due to near-by potash mining is causing the level to drop significantly and some parts of the Speed Week courses are very near to bedrock.
How much longer Bonneville will last is anyone's guess !
That's one good reason to take the opportunity while it's there.

For me the opportunity is a motorcycle,   a 250cc classic style machine that's being built specifically for this mission.    I am very lucky indeed to have the support of a great Team and especially Team-Captain Richard and Team-mate Chris who have done the lion's share of the work on the frame and rolling chassis.    Our friend Ron in Ramsey has applied methodical precision to the methanol engine build and it is a 'masterclass' every time I have seen him at work on the engine he has built for me to race.

Richard and Chris doing the magic !

Team-Captain Richard is invaluable in bringing an experienced eye and knowledge to frame design using donated parts and an angle grinder to taper, cut and weld an ugly-duckling Enfield frame into something bespoke and tailored to speed trials.   Team-mate Chris is an amazingly talented engineer and fabricator and the quality of his components in my opinion match the best of the professionals like Harris Performance UK.

  Both have spent months now tolerating my ineptitude at mechanical stuff and persevering with construction to the highest standard feasible and I am please to see an impressive motorbike slowly appear in the garage      . . . despite my best efforts to assist !

My bike happens to be a 'special-build' but it is quite acceptable to race a standard production machine at the salt-flats.   One only has to be careful to comply to rules . . .
SOME rules include -
Removing rear-view mirrors,   they are not needed.
Removing pillion foot pegs.
Fitting a rear wheel brake is only option, there must be no front brake !
Wheels need to have a minimum diameter of 15 inches.
All axels must be steel alloy or titanium.
Steering dampener is required.
And,   no guns allowed on the salt during the Event !

These are just a few of the rules.   Due to pre-event inspection, and close inspection after a record run is achieved rules must be followed carefully to prevent penalty or disqualification.

Here's the bike so far,   looking good but far from ready !

250cc classical racer

Three Parts to being prepared for Bonnevillle (or any motorcycle event)

 . . . there are three components to getting prepared for a motorcycle Event, in this case it being Bonneville Speed Week 2016.

1 - Personal preparation.

2 - Vehicle Preparation.

3 - Event Preparation.

It is a good idea to segregate the three into separate 'folders' and in doing so it makes things clearer and simpler avoiding confusion and possible failures.
   Basically, compartmentalise and then List !    it's what I used to do on a daily basis as part of my job when I was particularly busy and the consequence of missing something could have been serious causing upset and hurt to a client.    Further more, using red and green pens along with standard black means  I can monitor at a glance what has been done and what needs to be done.

Personal preparation is probably the easiest (technically speaking) to arrange.    Important for Speed Week is to be physically fit, bike fit and   . . . lose some weight to allow the bike the opportunity to go a bit faster.   It's that E = MC squared thing again !

The conventional wisdom is to go on a diet,  eat less and take green coffee tablets or what ever happens to be the fashionable supplement at the time.   This may get you started and some weight loss will be attained, however, my target is to lose 14 lb (7 kilos ) and I am half way there now in just over six weeks losing 1 lb a week.  It's now getting tougher, so we are past the 'conventional diet' stage which is unsistainable in the longer term and my weight loss programme will now change to an Atkins-style of lower carb, minimal sugar, steady exercise format where I will have a low-carb high protein breakfast,   some mixed nuts and dried fruit at lunch, and a small-portion hot diner with plenty vegetables but less starchy component.     Low fat diets are NOT the way to lose weight, significantly reducing sugar consumption and balancing out insulin release is much more helpful.

    Another element of physical preparation is being bike-fit (off-road track biking) and yoga for balance and co-ordination.   I am now attending a bikers yoga class once a week and feeling the benefits already.    If it works for the TT riders, it will do for me !
Walking, swimming, weight training and static cycling are all done on rotation to maintain a higher level of calorific burn-up in order to improve physical fitness whilst burning a few more calories and in doing so, maintain a slight calorific deficit,    . . . this loses weight in the form of stored fat.

   And if I slip-up in a moment of weakness and have a starchy snack,   no worries,   so long as it's at the weekend only and not regular, I will forgive myself.

Here's what I had yesterday, Frazzles, 2 packets, they were yummy but no more till next week end.

 . . .frazzleicious !

15 Degrees.

 . . . anyone who enters a motorcycle into Bonneville Speed Week needs to get hold of a "Rules and Records" up-to-date book in order to understand and comply with participation regulations.   These regulations fall into two part, those affecting the machine and those affecting the riders suitability to participate and protective gear worn.

     Here I am illustrating one component of the machine regulations,   the 15 degrees rule.

   The steering range of the front forks must not exceed a 15 degree turn both left and right and steering must be restricted from turning any further than the specified allowance.   This is for safety reasons as excessive turning angles, particularly at speed could contribute to a riders loss of control of his or her motorbike resulting in a crash.

   In calculating the margin, we used a measured disc (plastic filler tin lid) with a guidance pin (some straight wire) to measure this out and then cut and welded two restriction brackets onto the front of the frame to ensure a simple and obvious compliance to the regulation.   This will make it easy for an event scrutineer to see what has been done to comply with requirements.    Simple problems are often best addressed with simple solutions.

         A steering damper has also been added to assist in the control and stability of steering.

Parts of the Sum.

. . . all things created are the embodiment of a process.     This process can be of many parts cumulating into one creation, and this is exactly the situation with any motorcycle, the parts being the the designers ideas and drawings, the metals, alloys, rubber, glass and plastics, in fact everything that is a raw material contributing to the product.     Engineers and technicians, often experienced professional people create the shapes which suit the function of individual parts from castings to bolts to sprockets which are brought together in a final purposeful entity,  a motorcycle.

The vast majority of motorbikes are mass-produced in factories on assembly lines, many now partially or fully automated and we see such machines competing at Bonneville Speed Week and doing well.  They have a participation class of their own.

My bike is in another class, that of special production as the individual components making up my machine are bought as 'separates' or manufactured by team members.      

Both Richard and Chris are experts at own-fabricating and as I am not ready to show the whole bike yet, I will introduce to you two individual components made by Team members and ideally suited to the function of Speed on Salt !

 . . .  this fibreglass cowl seat has been made by Richard who has decades of experience in working with fibreglass in relation to time-trials bikes.   The material is light, strong and very easily moulded prior to hardening and he has done a magnificent job in contouring the seat to fit the frame of the bike.    As with most difficult to do things, Richard makes it all look so easy,   it's not,  and takes considerable time and patience.





. . . Chris has selected aluminium to fabricate
the battery box for the bike,   this is a strong yet light metal which provides protection and containment for the battery within the frame whilst minimising additional weight on the bike.   Welding aluminium is hard to do but fortunately Chris is a highly experienced welder with knowledge of how metals behave and react to heat and how they fuse under a welding torch.   Watching Chris at work is seeing a master craftsman with a considerable level of skill tackle challenges with ease.



I will introduce more components as time progresses and will explain what considerations are involved in preparation for Bonneville.

Losing is gaining !

 . . . it will seem quite obvious to a physicist that E = mc2, however just how much weight should I lose to be at an optimum weight for my Bonneville bikes best (fastest) performance.
The bike can only produce energy (E) to a finite level which translates from internal combustion through the engine, then gear box, then chain and sprockets and finishing at the base of the back wheel through to a semi-static salt surface.
the speed achievable (c2) is therefore less the greater the volume of mass, (excluding drag factors).

So we start with E = mc²   

which on introduction of pressure and volume is 
M =

E₀ + pV₀/c²

In terms of relativistic energy the equation is       which basically means,   despite other contributory factors,  I need to loses some weight to go a little bit faster.

The real skill with this is to avoid diets at all costs, they don't work because bodies adapt to food restriction and go into 'preservation' mode of lethargy and cravings.

'Nutritional adjustment' is a far better policy with a collective of simple annoying processes replacing the outright anxiety of a traditional diet.

Nutritional adjustment strategies are -

1.  Eat sensible, nutritious meals and use a slightly smaller plate to eat the meals off so as to fractionally reduce portion size.

2. Cut out bread (savoury cake) sweets, chocolate, beer and wine which all contain non-productive calories.

3.  Do fifteen minutes of intense aerobic exercise every second morning before breakfast stimulate metabolism.

4. Imagine going faster weighing less,   think about it when tempted to cheat with sweets.

5. Drink green tea with lemon and a little honey.

6. On one day a week have a bottle of beer as a reward,    . . .  but two beers are a failure.

7. Think thin,  looking great tastes good all the time.

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