Solar RV cycling blog June 29, 30. Greater than 1% leakage is catastrophe.

6/29:

Yes, truly seems like a major evolution from better to even better.

Building on recent weeks, on recent months, on recent years.

Number one. Embrace being in viscosity.

Number to. Not the knees, not the feet, not the lower legs, but the Mid to upper thighs.

Where did this number two come from? Don't know.
Seems to be a first, not even an old friend. Put it solves a multitude of sins without incurring any price it seems. It solves the problem of the lower legs being limp. It seems to solve the problem of asymmetry between the legs. And there seems to be no downside. And it is a natural and nearly complete enabler of number one, embrace the viscosity.

James' body is relentless at trying to escape effort. Sometimes this has led to at least temporary breakthroughs but I think almost always To almost immediate breakdown… there is no free lunch.

But there is more efficient and sustainable expenditure of power.

Why this number one, embrace the viscosity works, that is, what the body mechanics are James does not yet know. Maybe he never will. But it so definitely works. And with this on going logging and attention being paid maybe even though James can't trace the body mechanics he can hold on to it?

Now, James has also decided to reduce the odds of making the body averse to this journey by more liberally applying the ratio of motor to human. But still he is carrying himself plus probably 70 pounds. And the metrics are quite good with a average of 100 and 30 human W per hour being sustained. This is about 10% better than recent months. This has been speculated, that enabling a higher rpm which today is 48 as opposed to the 30 or 35 of just weeks ago, this bears out speculation that with similar perceived effort higher metrics would result.

But numbers 1 and 2 above having said all this surely seemed to be sustainable major breakthroughs.

With an attempt to be reasonably precise, the point of effort is about 4 or 5 or 6" back from the knee toward the groin, about a 3rd of the distance back from the knee toward the groin.

Regarding amplitude, with few if any exceptions in this very decent voiage, one of the best, the amplitude of the legs although not exaggerated is very full. Much of the time this is natural, sometimes it happens fairly easily when attention is so directed.

6/30. Red Alert!

It is so easy to overlook some competence that is unconscious but responsible for some of the excellent performance, referring to yesterday.

In this case the conscious competence seems to have been the recent habit of containing all energy in the thighs avoiding leakage to the lower legs and feet.

Oh yes, that tire blowout. It was a 3in wide High Traction Tire that was an experiment. Delivered substantially better traction but lasted only a hundred miles, not designed for this terrible weight and climbing. Two and a half hours to replace it, an hour in the dark. Oh well.

After the tire blowout and additional 50 minutes of travel took place. It was substantially less ideal then the discussion above.

Despite substantial fatigue it was decided to push things this morning with another several miles traveled.

The first 30% of that travel was suboptimal as was the last 50 minutes last night.

Even with the attempt to embrace viscosity, and to Center the power in the upper two-thirds of the thigh it was far from optimal.

Then, mercifully, the recollection of keeping 100% of the energy in the thighs came to mind. And the reasonably ideal performance of most of yesterday's Voyage returns.

James, Earth to James, 100% of the energy felt in the thighs.