Racing - something a little different

[dinny_g]

Dinny - Looks like we're going fully enclosed now, so we'll heat the cabin rather than the people. Still full survival suits (which arrived to the unit a couple of days ago - still got to collect and trial fit!)

Cool - Really looking forward to following this one...

[JonMad]

Can you get heated gloves that don't look like motorbiking or skiing gloves? My wife has crap circulation so maybe something like that, if possible, would help her out.

[dinny_g]

Raynauds Syndrome??

An ex of mine had this

[Nefarious]

Can you get heated gloves that don't look like motorbiking or skiing gloves? My wife has crap circulation so maybe something like that, if possible, would help her out.

Mrs Nef suffers too. I saw a product the other day that I might investigate - they're woven gloves with silver fibres. They claim to be be better insulators than other fabrics (which I'm a bit sceptical about), but they have little electrodes like a TENS machine, which are supposed to stimulate blood flow (the primary problem with Raynauds).

ETA - a bit like this https://www.raynaudsdisease.com/iglove- ... loves.html, although the claims on these are subtly different from what I saw the other day (i.e. these say primarily pain relief, the other ones were primarily blood flow to prevent the problem in the first place)

[JonMad]

Can you get heated gloves that don't look like motorbiking or skiing gloves? My wife has crap circulation so maybe something like that, if possible, would help her out.

Mrs Nef suffers too. I saw a product the other day that I might investigate - they're woven gloves with silver fibres. They claim to be be better insulators than other fabrics (which I'm a bit sceptical about), but they have little electrodes like a TENS machine, which are supposed to stimulate blood flow (the primary problem with Raynauds).

ETA - a bit like this https://www.raynaudsdisease.com/iglove- ... loves.html, although the claims on these are subtly different from what I saw the other day (i.e. these say primarily pain relief, the other ones were primarily blood flow to prevent the problem in the first place)

Ah, interesting. They all seem to require a TENS machine to use with them, so maybe not practical just to wear out and about.

Mrs said she might try some of these just for an extra layer.

[Marv]

That looks like brilliant fun Carl. Keep us all up to date on how it goes

[NotoriousREV]

Can you get heated gloves that don't look like motorbiking or skiing gloves? My wife has crap circulation so maybe something like that, if possible, would help her out.

Mrs Nef suffers too. I saw a product the other day that I might investigate - they're woven gloves with silver fibres. They claim to be be better insulators than other fabrics (which I'm a bit sceptical about), but they have little electrodes like a TENS machine, which are supposed to stimulate blood flow (the primary problem with Raynauds).

ETA - a bit like this https://www.raynaudsdisease.com/iglove- ... loves.html, although the claims on these are subtly different from what I saw the other day (i.e. these say primarily pain relief, the other ones were primarily blood flow to prevent the problem in the first place)

Ah, interesting. They all seem to require a TENS machine to use with them, so maybe not practical just to wear out and about.

Mrs said she might try some of these just for an extra layer.

What about these:

https://www.sportsbikeshop.co.uk/motorc ... rod/101456

[jamcg]

http://www.makitauk.com/products/cordle ... t-2xl.html

[JonMad]

Mrs Nef suffers too. I saw a product the other day that I might investigate - they're woven gloves with silver fibres. They claim to be be better insulators than other fabrics (which I'm a bit sceptical about), but they have little electrodes like a TENS machine, which are supposed to stimulate blood flow (the primary problem with Raynauds).

ETA - a bit like this https://www.raynaudsdisease.com/iglove- ... loves.html, although the claims on these are subtly different from what I saw the other day (i.e. these say primarily pain relief, the other ones were primarily blood flow to prevent the problem in the first place)

Ah, interesting. They all seem to require a TENS machine to use with them, so maybe not practical just to wear out and about.

Mrs said she might try some of these just for an extra layer.

What about these:

https://www.sportsbikeshop.co.uk/motorc ... rod/101456

Funnily enough I'd seen those on Amazon, but cheaper here, ta (+ battery pack).

[drcarlos]

Funny, I'd looked at the heated gloves but guidance from the old hands say that regular Ski gloves are fine. They say that you get coldest in between stints from standing on the Ice (suggested borrowing the floor mats from the hire cars to stand around on).
I'm going for layering up.
Compression thermal based layers top and bottom.
Race trousers and Ski Trousers below.
A winter thermal cycling top, a fairly thick jacket and waterproof up top.

This means that up top I can shed the cycling jacket without too much bother if I get too hot and the water proof outer layer too as the jacket is waterproof too. If I need more I'll take a couple of wool jumpers to supplement the layers up top.

Gloves wise, I've invested is some fairly decent waterproof ski gloves and the suggestion is to also wear the silicone or nitrile work gloves beneath them.

It's all a bit mental and i'll probably look like a drifting Michelin man, but it's an experience I wanted to try. I'm not sure I'll keep going back like some do, but at least I can say I did it.
I do hanker after returning to Belgium to street race again but they only did it one more year after we went as someone from the village pulled a strop and decided to walk down the main straight during a race to their car and got collected by a mower! After that there was no appetite to run it again.

Carl.

[evostick]

Looks like great fun Carl. All the best with it

[Jimmy Choo]

It's all a bit mental

In the best possible way!. Good luck.

[dinny_g]

They say that you get coldest in between stints from standing on the Ice (suggested borrowing the floor mats from the hire cars to stand around on).

A closed cell foam camping mat would be better

[unzippy]

The condition specific prep is to:
Fit extended rear hubs to widen rear track - This is because we run 13 inch tyres all around for this race, firstly because there is a stud number limit that's enforced and on the smaller diameter the studs are closer meaning more grip. Secondly the ice tyres are only available in 13 inch and the snow tyres available in 15 inch wear too rapidly on ice as they are soft compound for snow. So as we lose width as well we have to fit extended hubs to get back the lost width.
Protect the drive system - the belts slip when covered in ice and snow, so we'll fit a cover that covers it more than our lightweight plastic cover.
Set up gearing - because of the smaller rear tyres it royally screws up my calcs and ratios, so i'll need to recalculate it and fit a different intermediate sprocket to up the ratio a bit.
Throttle - Protect the mechanism on the carb, even though it's on top of the cylinder it still freezes up and a sticking throttle is not good.
Throttle 2 - fit a protected hand or foot throttle, again because of icing but also make sure it doesn't foul on lock if it hand and also light so can be operated with a finger.
Mudguards - fit some protection to stop snow build ups.
Footplates - replace ally play with steel mesh, firstly it saves weight, secondly snow falls straight through so buildup doesn't happen.
Engine - Refit our old Honda GX340 engine, torque from the bigger GX390 currently fitted will not help us, but the revvy nature of the GX340 with a free flow exhaust is better suited.
Drive - Well replace with belts and chains too.
Tidy it up - We'll try and make it look smarter for the race (well keep the inbetweeners colours the boys used) it's looking a bit of a mess after 2 endurance races in the hands of novices.

Lights?

[drcarlos]

The condition specific prep is to:
Fit extended rear hubs to widen rear track - This is because we run 13 inch tyres all around for this race, firstly because there is a stud number limit that's enforced and on the smaller diameter the studs are closer meaning more grip. Secondly the ice tyres are only available in 13 inch and the snow tyres available in 15 inch wear too rapidly on ice as they are soft compound for snow. So as we lose width as well we have to fit extended hubs to get back the lost width.
Protect the drive system - the belts slip when covered in ice and snow, so we'll fit a cover that covers it more than our lightweight plastic cover.
Set up gearing - because of the smaller rear tyres it royally screws up my calcs and ratios, so i'll need to recalculate it and fit a different intermediate sprocket to up the ratio a bit.
Throttle - Protect the mechanism on the carb, even though it's on top of the cylinder it still freezes up and a sticking throttle is not good.
Throttle 2 - fit a protected hand or foot throttle, again because of icing but also make sure it doesn't foul on lock if it hand and also light so can be operated with a finger.
Mudguards - fit some protection to stop snow build ups.
Footplates - replace ally play with steel mesh, firstly it saves weight, secondly snow falls straight through so buildup doesn't happen.
Engine - Refit our old Honda GX340 engine, torque from the bigger GX390 currently fitted will not help us, but the revvy nature of the GX340 with a free flow exhaust is better suited.
Drive - Well replace with belts and chains too.
Tidy it up - We'll try and make it look smarter for the race (well keep the inbetweeners colours the boys used) it's looking a bit of a mess after 2 endurance races in the hands of novices.

Lights?

Good point, yes there will be, racing starts at 9am and it's dark by 4pm so lights are needed for about 5 hours. We have a slight disadvantage as our engine has no charge circuit (pull start) so we have to run a total loss system. With this in mind we will run a pair of MTB Spot lights (Single Cree XML-T6 emitter running at 900 lumens each) off of a splitter to a single 6 cell lithium ion battery. This will be swapped every hour and charged up again, we have 4 batteries so should only need one charging and using a second time but we'll still have 2 chargers topping up the cells as they lose efficiency in the extreme cold.

Most of the prep has been done now. So far we've:

Replaced the entire drive train as it was destroyed at the muddy 6hr race
Replaced the brake mechanism for a better one
Replaced hand throttle for a foot throttle (cold hands cause problems here)
Serviced the prime engine and replaced crankcase gasket and bolts
Serviced the backup engine and tested
Made up open exhaust mounts (it sound nice and bassy with an open pipe now)
Replaced all wheel bearings
Made new steering arms
Cleaned and lubed steering rose joints
Cleaned and lubed all steering bearing
Repaired bonnet and made new mountings
Set up gearing and calculated gearing range for smaller tyres
Fitted studs to tyres
Made up a spares package

Got a few things left to do this week before it gets sent to be transported on Saturday.

Carl.

[Rich B]

Looks rubbish and no fun whatsoever....

Good luck Carlos, bring some silverware home!!! Some photos of your machine would be cool too?

PHOTOS!!!

[JLv3.0]

What sort of speed will you be doing Carl? My pushbike lights are about the same output so let's say OK to about 50 kph - I'd want a bit more output above those sorts of speed.

[drcarlos]

Looks rubbish and no fun whatsoever....

Good luck Carlos, bring some silverware home!!! Some photos of your machine would be cool too?

PHOTOS!!!

Trying to get some paint on it and may it a little more presentable before it's shipped on Saturday, it was looking very sad after the 6 hour race and the cold damp weather is not exactly conducive to painting.

In the meantime here's my eldest racing it at the 12 and 6 hour races:







We will be sticking with the inbetweeners (red/yellow) colour scheme mainly as I have paint left and spending has gone a bit nuts on it.

Carl.

[Nefarious]

Out of interest, how are you getting all your kit out there and what sort of cost (we might want to do some testing in Sweden towards the end of the year)?

[drcarlos]

Out of interest, how are you getting all your kit out there and what sort of cost (we might want to do some testing in Sweden towards the end of the year)?

18 mowers are going so we have a communal transport arrangement setup by a fellow committee member. One of our patrons (also runs a race team) has a motorcycle training business so he has a van and a couple of trailers, add that to another members van and they had enough room for 20 mowers.
They are road tripping it and leaving from the UK on Sunday driving up the coast of Europe to Estonia and then catching a Ferry across to Finland.
Cost per team for a mower, 3 persons kit and spares package plus communal tools (every team supplying something) is £325. It would obviously be a fair bit more if we were hiring vans and trailers but obviously the beauty is as it is a necessity for racing most people have vans already so that's already covered.

Carl.