First Pilot baseline power tests - a rainy day in Woodside

We conducted the first Pilot baseline power tests at Canada Road in Woodside on Saturday.  We started with a limited number of pilot/riders because we knew the first time through there would be some glitches, and we wanted to learn from that.

The biggest glitch turned out to be the weather -- mostly blue sky at my house in Santa Clara at 7:00 a.m. and limited radar returns unfortunately did not equal no rain in Woodside at 10:00 a.m.

We decided to soldier on and try to get some data to at least make this "dry" run worthwhile for helping our tests in the future run smoother.

We found we had some issues with the pedal swapping (frozen pedals on the diamond frame bike, and reversed pedals on the funky reverse pedaling recumbent we had at our disposal), so that will get fixed before the next round of testing next weekend.

We also learned that most people are not familiar with the recumbent position at all, and that made it difficult to ride hard.  So we will offer some practice rides a few days before the tests so people can get more comfortable before doing the ride.  (We are also testing in both upright and recumbent positions so we can find the true power output of people who are not yet comfortable with the recumbent position.)

We confirmed that the course is a good one for a short time trial to determine power levels, but also determined that if you are soaked to the bone for 2+ hours, that time trial is not going to be a very fast one! :-)

Onward to next weekend, and a hope for dry weather! (we will cancel next time if it is this rainy).

One of the riders had a good time trial before things became too wet and cold and everyone else had a sub-par performance.

Test Trike up and running

I received a big box at my house last week that contained the trike, and a small box courtesy of Quarq that contained our power meter.

After I brought it to our work space, we met on Wednesday 2/16 to discuss how we are going to turn this into a test trike for testing our drivetrain including prop, and our avionics.  Whiteboard scribbling ensued:

We then proceeded to tear the bike apart and get it almost put back together with the new power meter, but we were missing a bolt and a spacer.

Later in the week, we got the missing bolt and installed it (and even later, the spacer to take out the side-to-side slop).  Tom got the Ant+ receiver working, and integrated it with the realtime display on Golden Cheetah so we could see realtime data coming off of the sensor.

Now, we just need to finish the design of the new parts to add to the trike, do some cutting and welding, and prop testing fun will ensue.

More pics of the trike are available here:  https://picasaweb.google.com/alec.proudfoot/14Feb2011_DaSH_Trike_and_powermeter#

Alec

New Trike

Modifying the trike to become our propeller and drive train test bed.

Constructing the prototype propeller

Constructing Propeller 1

Why we're doing it

Alec on why we're doing it.

9 more work tables finished!

Tonight a dozen people made short work of 9 more work tables (joined into 3 long 24 foot X 4 foot tables).  We finished 9 tables in the same time it took to make 3 a few weeks ago.

Now it is time to build some plane parts!