Where did those last 3 months go?

So, Whoops is now being cut up to fit over my new vehicle... a TILTING Trike. You see the prototype here. At rest, the rear wheels are locked in the vertical position. Once moving, you unlock the rear end & ride it like a 2 wheeler. I'm cutting 30cm of the Whoops fairing (race rules) as well as removing the rear wheel cover (no longer required). It's really fun to ride... stable at rest, dynamic at speed. I'll add a 70tooth chainring & realy crank it up. More soon.

3 Kyles & a Gale

SO, whilst reading this, turn on 3 fans really near your face. Then use that wind to imagine what it was like at Casy for the 6hr challenge. WINDY! Cold, but mostly, really WINDY. SO windy, Whoops & her sister, Black Betty, were simply blown over when riding. The wind just lifted the front wheel off the ground & over they went. twice each.

That's Matt racing around, but without the back top... it was too windy to control Whoops fully setup.




And then, to make matters really bad, a rain storm passed trough. SO, before you could say Chester Kyle 10 times fast, the race was abandoned & we all went home!










But, there were 3 copies of the original Kyle Edge racing: my Whoops, Jeff in Black Betty (built by Ben at Trisled, and seen here passing the pits) & Ken in Chain reaction (seen below). Pity the conditions didn't allow us to race at our full potential.
So, hopefully we'll get onto the Holden track soon & with some fine conditions, we'll erally be able to crank these babies up.

Casey 6 hour Challenge preparations

Sunday Sept 24 will see Whoops running in a 6 hour challnge at the new Casey Fields track. We have made a few changes of late to help ride comfortably for that length of time.
1. Ben modified the fork so the crown(top) of the fork is now just above the tyre, with an extension added under the existing steerer tube so the wheel remains in the same position. This will prevent knees knocking the forks, which is very painful.








2. I've made a neoprene cover to fill the gap between the front & rear sections. This will help the airflow significantly, and keep the rider warm. That's Matt in the bike. Matt will be partnering me in the 6hour race. He's even bigger than me, at 194cm tall & 90kg! Never thought I'd need to made Whoops fit someone bigger than me! AS you can see, time for a re-spray.

3. I've installed a landing gear, which allows starting & stopping without the need for putting feet &/or hands on the ground. It works well, though on roads with a severely curved edge, there is a tendency to fall over. When riding, the wheel springs back inside the fairing. When required, I just pull a riope & the wheel pops down. All very simple. Not elegant yet, but simple.

2 World Records Broken

Well, just to keep us honest, 2 of the 3 world records we are going to challenge have been broken:
Greg K from Canada just added 25km to the 24hr record taking it to 1046km, and 49yr old Fred Markham added 1500m to the hour record to take it to just under 86km.

A New Back

AS you can see, I've made a new back top section for Daily Whoops. It's made of polystyrene (insulation) foam & epoxy. If you look closely, you can see the strips of polystyrene, which I hot glued onto a template, and then covered the whole thing, inside & out, with a very light fibreglass cloth & epoxy resin. This part is really light (under 2kg) but really quite stiff. You can also see my foot sticking out of the new neoprene hole covers. The gap between the 2 top pieces will be filled in soon with stretched neoprene covers.



Here is the back section prior to attaching to the lower body. The template was made of 2 pieces of styrene, and then 40 strips of 12mm thick styrene glued over the top. Without the fibreglass, the structure is pretty fragile. I also made the widest point too high, so will attempt to re-shape the mid section, to bring the widest point lower & improve the airflow around my shoulders. Building this whole structure took about 10 hours all up. I've ordered paint to match the rest of Whoops... Can't have her looking drab now, can we!

Full Battle dress!
SO, I've finally managed to get some pics from the Lang Lang ride, with Whoops in full battle mode. That's Jeff over there taping me in prior to the run. The black thing in front of the windscreen is a NACA duct, which directs air into my face, with apprenetly little increase to the aerodynamic drag.







Now, the astute amongst you will notice you can't see my eyes. Which, by reverse, means I couldn't see yours, if you were hypothetically somewhere in front of me whilst riding. Yes, visibility was NOT good. All I could see was the banking up to my right. I had NO idea where the left edge of the track was. SO i wobbled around the track for 30 minutes, rarely moving into the 2nd lane, mostly staying in the 3rd & 4th lanes. BUT, it was fun cruising along at 55kmh or so.
My helmet was hard up against the bubble, and I felt EVERY bump in the road.





You may also notice the bulge in the join between the front & rear top pieces. Big Shoulders! Somehow, the tap stayed on & I was kept dry. I had tried to seal up the front wheel hole somewhat, so despite the rain, I got out of Whoops pretty dry.

Post DM

So, despite a lack of updates, lots has been happening. Much can be seen at Ben's blog:
www.trislednews.blogspot.com
Whoops has been ridden by Jeff during training, so I've not had time to ride or modify.
So, when she came home, I decided to make her more road ready... i cut a big hole in the floor, in front of the seat:















Then with considerable skill & patience (i.e. none at all) I cut a piece of 3mm neoprene to size & glued it over the hole. This wil allow me to put my feet down when stopping, but not dramatically reduce the aerodynamic shape of the fairing. The neoprene has actually reduced the overall hole size. If I turn the wheel too far, it'll just nudge the neoprene out of the way, without wrecking it or the tyre. A big hole would slow me down, allow too much wind into the bike, and increase any dust/debri coming in off the road.

My next job is to create a quick easy rear section of the fairing, and then make a neoprene cover to fit between the front & rear top fairing sections. Again, with the aim of allowing easy entry/exit from Whoops when being ridden on the road.


To do this, I'll be using the Burt Ratan mouldless construction method. My front template will be drawn using my back & head outline, and trying to create a smooth transition to the very narrow back end.
More as it happens.