For two pins
Keep on running
6th November before noon
Today, Adam is in Northamptonshire at Rockingham Motor Speedway - Britain's fastest motor racing circuit - to see how fast he can propel himself using his own (he's only human) power, Science Shack technology and a BBC budget. The Champ cars that zoom round this track average 215 mph. Will Rockingham need to build a faster track for Adam and his four-wheel bicycle?
9.30am
Bicycle building begins. The Flywheel Bicycle - built by Chris, designed by Jem (and not driven by Italians if they can avoid it) - is one of the 'technologies' the team are working on to help Adam propel himself into the record books. He is going to cycle as fast as he can - with the bike jacked up - to 'charge' the flywheel (Jem says the flywheel will be spinning at over 200 mph, geared up by a little wheel between the back bicycle wheel and the flywheel).
The bike will then be dropped back onto the floor and then the flywheel will be lowered back onto the back wheel. What happens next is anyone's guess - but I have just been told Adam has gone off to buy a new crash helmet.
10am
Jem, the inventor of the flywheel-propelled bicycle is confident in the scientific principles that underlie his brilliant design. He reveals its secrets: 'The polar moment of the flywheel which we'll refer to as 'I nought' gives an idea of its rotational inertia. Multiply this by omega squared - omega obviously being the angular velocity of the flywheel - divide it by two and you get the kinetic energy stored up in the flywheel. It's as simple as that'. Yes, Jem, as simple as falling off a bicycle.
11am
The four-wheeled bicycle that the team is adapting for Adam's new human power record is still looking somewhat abandoned in the pit stop workshop. The idea is to attach massive plastic tubes to the back of the bike which will serve as pop bottle rockets.
All Adam needs to do is pump them up by hand or foot, get cycling, then release the rockets. But last night the manufacturers of the tubes (which can withstand huge water pressure) told Science Shack producer Jonathan that for some inexplicable reason the PVCU plastic they are made from cannot withstand even a piffling amount of air pressure.
So new tubes are being sought out at this very moment.
12noon
Adam has a moment alone to gather his thoughts and ruminate on the nature of existence before firing himself down Britain's fastest racetrack on a rickety bicycle connected to a bank of huge water bottle rockets. You too, might need to put your life in perspective if you were Adam and could see what was going on in the Science Shack and Rockingham's Motor Speedway pit stop workshop.
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