Isle of Man - Day 6 - The Big Debate

Today has been relatively unexciting compared to the past couple days. The bike is running well, and we only have a few things to adjust in regards to actually having the bike ready to run in the qualifying session on Saturday.

We had some issues with the upper fairing flexing, so Radu added steel stiffeners to the inside.

It wasn't pretty, but the clamping setup did the job.

I worked on getting the modified sharkfin into position. In case you were wondering, it's nerve-wracking to take a drill to the swingarm of your motorcycle.

Installed, the shark fin will protect the rider's left foot and keep it from getting caught up in the chain and rear sprocket.

Allan had some more work to do on his Kawasaki (or Kwacker, for short).

Reinforcements in place, Radu had to push a bit to be ready to have the fairing painted.

He added a layer of fiberglass (fibreglass) over the sheet metal, and it's just about ready for painting.

Allan and Jan have been wonderfully helpful. This is what their kitchen table look like with all of our computers (though one of them belongs to Allan). That's Allan's jacket from the 2007 TT.

Lennon and Randall worked on the software side. With the bike running well, we'd like to add datalogging to the system to help us troubleshoot any problems that come up later on. Ideally we'd add in a GPS unit and transmit data in real-time via the 3G wireless network while Allan is out on the course.

Ever wonder how we got all this gear here? A lot of the smaller electronics arrived in Lennon's suitcase.

Interfacing the datalogger with the two sources of data (the battery control module from A123 Systems and the off-the-shelf 'cycle-analyst' unit) proved tougher than expected.

The workshop/garage hummed this morning, though there wasn't a sense of a huge rush to get something done and meet a deadline.

Breaking for lunch. Mmmm... microwave Indian food. We finished up "Charge", so now we've all seen the whole film and have an idea of what to expect. And a healthy respect for what can go wrong... four teams blew up their motors the first year!

The town of Ramsey, as viewed from the driveway to the cottage where we're staying.


We're now at that point in the development of any design project where we have to decide how much to futz with it. The bike is running well, but we have a short list of 'nice to haves' that we could work on. So we have to balance the risk of messing something up while we work on adding something that we don't technically need in order to be ready for Saturday's qualifying session. They're tough decisions, but I think we made the right choice in staying conservative and not trying to do too much.

It doesn't feel natural to have nothing (or very little) to do on the bike, but it's a lot better than trying to scramble and get it finished at the 11th hour.


So what's left? The suspension needs some minor adjustment to get it to Allan's liking. The fairing is off getting painted, so once it's done we'll need to apply sponsor stickers. Randall and Lennon are adding an on-board datalogger to take data just on the batteries. We're leaving off the cycle-analyst data and the real-time transmission for now. We'll take it out for a speed run this afternoon to confirm the changes we made to the controller electronics, and then comes the hardest part: sitting, waiting, and leaving well enough alone. Our first qualifying session is Saturday at 17:30 BST.

-Mark

Isle of Man - Day 5 - Allan, meet eSuperbike

"An oasis of insanity in a world of health and safety regulations." - Charge [describing the Isle of Man TT]

A new movie came out only a couple of weeks ago about the TT Zero electric motorcycle race. It's called "Charge" and features narration by Ewan MacGregor. It tells the story of the first two years of the electric race, and we've watched the DVD at least three times now. Click here for the trailer:
http://chargemovie.com/

More bike work this morning in Allan's garage. Lennon worked on the tail lights as required by the rules.

Randall cranked away on software.

I worked on swapping out brake lines. The rules have a specification which disallows the original brake lines on the bike. So we had to swap them out with custom lines. Derek at Boston Moto helped a ton on getting those lines in.

Radu worked away on the upper fairing. Not a bad paint shop, is it?

Lots of sanding.

And a bit of fun with rattle cans.

Lennon working on the lights.

Lunch break, watching more of "Charge". Randall is seeing it for the first time, so we're fitting it in where we can.

Back at the garage, Allan made some adjustments to the fairing on his gas bike. He was going so fast that the rear tire expanded and scraped away the back part of his fairing.

I made some progress on stickers. Mark from TurnOneGraphics.com was a huge help on that one.

Our race number is still covered up, but the stickers look great so far.

We had to make an adjustment to one of the parts on the bike, so I got to do a bit of milling at Allan's workplace.

Lennon got the taillights finished (and flashing)... not bad, eh? And visible from 10m away, just as the rules state.

With more of the bike finished, we put it in Allan's van to take down and talk to the scrutineers.

Allan gave us a tour of the east side of the island as we rode down to Douglas and the start/finish line.

The view on the way down was pretty idyllic.

Pushing the bike through the crowd, our bike got a fair bit of attention.

The chief scrutineer for the electric race looked things over, and was happy with what he saw.

We got a bit of interest while we were there, and even heard one person comment that "the electrics are looking better every year."

Heading back out of town, we passed by the Isle of Man Electric Tramway station. Who knows... maybe we can work out some sort of publicity thing to get the electric bike transported by the electric railway to the start of the race. :-)

Scrutineering makes a student hungry, so guess what we stopped for fish and chips.


Finally back from scrutineering, it was time to give Allan a chance to take eSuperbike out for a ride. We went back out to the same testing spot from yesterday. We hadn't realized it before, but you can see part of the TT mountain course from there. Allan even said he could see a bike running up the road.

Lennon rode the bike out to the testing spot, then handed it over to Allan.

Allan, meet eSuperbike. eSuperbike, meet Allan. Now play nice, boys.

This was my attempt to snap a photo of Allan as he rode past (he was just going too darn fast). Maybe with a couple more passes I would have gotten the timing right.

No, we don't look like hoodlums, do we?

I'm working on posting videos, but we'll see how they turn out. Allan came back with a smile on his face, and said he really enjoyed the bike. He's looking forward to the race, and we're all looking forward to getting him there.

- Mark

Isle of Man - Day 4

Isle of Man - Day 4

Things are moving fast now. Including our bike. :) These are all from yesterday, but I hope to get a few more from today up later on.

Allan had a good practice on Monday night. The session was flagged right towards the end due to bad weather on the mountain part of the course, but Allan still got in two official laps.

Here he's going through scrutineering before his practice session. Race officials check over his bike to make sure it's safe to ride on the course.

Waiting in the Parc Ferme for his race. Lately Allan's ridden mainly classic bikes, so he's still adjusting to the speed of a modern 600cc superstock bike.

I'd say he's doing pretty well... he hit 143mph at the Sulby Speed Trap the first time around the course.

Coming back through the start/finish area he clocked 136.6mph. That's faster than I've ever been on a motorcycle.

Allan ran another practice session last night, and now he's got four laps under his belt. His second lap would have been at an average of over 110mph if he hadn't slowed down behind a rookie rider towards the end. We've come up quite lucky to find him, as he's got the right combination of ability on the faster modern bikes (with wider tires like our bike) and experience on classics which have a similar power output to eSuperbike.

We also picked up a new set of race tires (tyres) while we were in the paddock.


Back in Ramsey, the guys have been working hard. We finally got the bike out for a test run after lunch. Lennon got suited up in one of Allan's old riding suits for the practice.

Allan suggested heading out to some quiet roads on the north part of the island where he sometimes tests his classic bike. The road had some nice bends in it, and allowed us to ramp up the speed quite a bit.

We got a bit of video too... take a look at youtube for that.
http://www.youtube.com/user/lennonrodgers#p/a/u/0/ax6KNE1eZx4

After a few runs, Lennon handed over the controls...

...and I was so excited to get on the bike that I left my (non-riding) boots on the side of the road.

It was only a little taste of what it must be like on the course, but to scream past tall green hedges like that was pretty cool. Lennon and I both remarked on how we could see this getting addictive.

We topped out the session at 103mph and the bike did great. Our motor temperature readings were a different from each other, which caused a bit of concern. We hit full power though, and everything held together just fine.

This is what it looks like when a couple of guys go grocery shopping for food for four guys. I think this will last us for maybe three days, if that.

A reporter friend of Lennon's had arranged for us to meet Dave Roper who, until last year, was the only American to have ever won a race at the Isle of Man (last year Mark Miller won the electric race).

He and Lennon got a photo op with Dave on an old Indian motorcycle from the very early 1900's.

Back at the garage, Radu cranking away on the fairing.

And then back out on the roads to try and answer that motor temperature question.

The goal was to heat up the motors again and take measurements. We did such a good job that the bike didn't have quite enough juice to make it back to Allan's house. We were less than a mile away though, so the pickup was pretty easy.

Gotta run again... we're heading off to the start/finish to meet with the chief scrutineer for the electrics. We won't officially go through scrutineering until just before our qualifying session on Saturday, but we don't want any surprises at that point.

-Mark