Battle Mountain - Day 6 - Award Dinner

A quick shower, a change of clothes and then we head to The Owl's Club, which is one of the two steakhouses in town. It is already pretty busy when we enter. We shake hands, sign posters and find a place to sit. Dinner is reasonable good today. Beside the salad bar they even serve warm vegetables and the taste of the lasagne is pretty good too. When everybody has finished eating, Mike Mowett is called forward. Mike is the one who manages the speed list. He notes down all results and surveys the results of the fastest sprinters and endurance riders in this country and abroad. He also manages the list of results in Battle Mountain. Mike calls forward all 35 competitors one by one. Special circumstances are mentioned and everybody receives a certificate with his or hers personal results of the previous week. Extra attention is given to the new record holders, Tom Amick and Phil Plat with the tandem and Gareth Hanks with the trike.

David finished 12th, Thomas 5th just behind Aurélien Bonneteau. That is a very good result when you come to realize that Aurélien is the current world record holder on the hour in the unfaired catagory. Now we have got to the fastest three of this week. The room is as quiet as a mouse. Did they register a time for Jan-Marcel or... Mike explains that only speeds are interesting to him. And even though the racing committee could not officially measure a time, they were however able to make a very conservative estimate of his speed by using the bikes video. On that basis Jan-Marcels speed is determined to be at least 79.4 mph. That is why Jan Bos is called forward first, then Jan-Marcel en as fastest Sebastiaan Bowier.




Then it is time for the official part of the evening. All volunteers are thanked warmly with a standing ovation and a medal. Then everybody, where applicable, gets his or her new hat. All three Cygnus riders get a new one. David gets a 65 mph, Thomas is very lucky and gets both the 70 and the 75 mph hat and Jan-Marcel also gets his 75 mph one. Then the three fastest women and men are called forward. Kira Prokopakis is third, Ellen van Vugt, second and Barbara Buatois is first. Jan-Marcel ends on a third place in the mens category, Jan Bos second, and Sebastiaan is the unrivalled champion of the World Human Powered Speed Challange 2012.

Then it is time to say goodbye. We shake hands, congatulate people and are being congratulated. It's time to get some sleep. We will pack our belongings tomorrow and be off. We will then be on our way home.