California Mountain Unicycle Weekend Report

This thread is for telling your experiences of the CA Muni Weekend. I'll
start off, from the organizer's point of view. Based on the feedback I
got, and through the critical eyes of the guy making the plans, it seems
to have been a rousing success, with lots and lots of happy people
telling me they really enjoyed the trails, and the weekend.

It all started for me on Thursday, with me running around doing
last-minute things, like picking up the shirts, and then people arriving
at the house. We watched some videos, but not the coveted Universe 2,
which had not yet arrived. It came on Friday.

On Friday we organized ourselves into many cars heading down to
Rockville Hills Park. A TV crew was to meet us at about 11:00am, so we
decided to not ride very far, and wait for them. Never wait for TV
people. Their schedule is constantly changing, and you never know when
things will really happen. I thought it was news, but they were from a
1-hour show called Good Evening Sacramento.

They wanted to get lots of footage and do lots of interviews. It ate up
a lot of time, while we hung out in the Quarry area of the park. I hope
it comes out great! It's supposed to be shown next Wednesday evening,
and they estimated something like a 10-minute spot, which is a huge
amount of TV time. They got a shot of everyone riding down the trail
past their camera, which I told them I don't think anyone else has (on
broadcast-quality tape).

So then we went back to the parking lot for lunch, and Lloyd Johnson
pulled out his Trials toys from the back of his pickup. After lunch, we
headed off to see the trails in the park. Everyone seemed to want to
stay together, so the less experienced riders had a hairy time of it as
we toured the most gnarly trails in there.

Several people showed up at Rockville that I was not expecting,
including a small group from San Jose called the One Wheeled Willys! It
was one man and several kids on Schwinns and Torkers, getting a crash
course in MUni. But they seemed to have a great time on both Friday and
Saturday.

At the center of the park is a lake. Jack Hughes decided to try it out,
so we watched him ride into the lake as far as he could, which was about
up to his sternum or so, before falling the rest of the way in. Then we
noticed the "No Swimming" sign. And the geese were very angry. From
there we proceeded to an area called the Rock Garden, with very rocky
sections of trail, allowing multiple lines through it. Very fun! We
stopped at the edge of a cliff to take some group photos. Then we rode
some more rough & tough trails to the north end of the park, down a
steep, stepped descent, and back toward the parking lot.

My original plan for the group dinner was to do it at Mana, the best
Sushi place in Sacramento (Jacquie and my opinion). But we switched that
to Mark & Monicas because they had the big screen, and a better group
price for a meal. So I figured I could still invite whoever wanted
Japanese there on Friday.

Good thing I called ahead, around noon, to ask about it. They told us
not to come until 8:30, so the place wouldn't be so crazy busy. Then
they would be able to serve the estimated 20 people I was bringing. 8:30
is awfully late after a day of riding, but I invited everyone to my
house to watch some more videos and hang out. There were more than 20
people crammed in my living room watching all sorts of old unicycle
videos, getting showers, and squeezing into the hot tub.

8:30 finally rolled around, and something over 35 people showed up at
Mana. Woah! We squeezed into their back room, and also used the two big
tables in the back of the restaurant. It was a little confusing, but the
food eventually got to us, and it was sooo good! I hope people enjoyed
Mana.

That was Friday. Saturday in the next post....


--
johnfoss - Now riding to work

John Foss, the Uni-Cyclone
"jfoss" at "unicycling.com"
www.unicycling.com

"In three months or so, he won't be doing that any more." -- Kris Holm's
cousin Derek, 13, on Kris' unicycling now that he's married

------------------------------------------------------------------------
johnfoss's Profile: http://www.unicyclist.com/profile/832
View this thread: http://www.unicyclist.com/thread/28411

Saturday was the most complicated day, with the most stuff on the
schedule. We started at 9:00 at the Confluence in Auburn, the same place
we started the first three MUni Weekends. We were met by a photographer
and reporter from the Sacramento Bee, so we did the uphill race first.
With great volunteer help from Tony Flusche, Eric Kvamme, Grace Fleming,
Jared Stoltzfus and others, the race was run and finished very quickly!
Jack Hughes was fastest up the hill, in about 17 seconds.

Then we did the big traditional group photo, with the Foresthill Bridge
in the background. I've got to count the heads in the pictures still,
but it was over 60, a record for Auburn! There were some new faces in
the group, including a guy who had reportedly only been riding for three
days, and looked like Mr. Bean. Not sure if he rode the Clementine Trail
with us or not.

We split up into two groups. One rode the 1000' ascent of the Clementine
trail, which is mostly on a paved road, but also includes spectacular
scenery under the big bridge. The other group piled into cars and was
shuttled to a spot near the top, saving our energy for Downieville and
the games.

But some of the wrong people chose to ride up, while others took the
cars unnecessarily. A lot of first-timers took off on the trail before I
had a chance to point out to them they would hate it. But once the ride
was all over, all were happy. The reporter from teh Sacramento Bee
actually walked with the riders for the whole 7 miles or so of the
Clementine Loop! That helped her learn a lot about us, especially about
the people in the back of the group.

My favorite trail in the Sacramento area is the Confluence area
(downhill portion along the Middle Fork) of the Clementine Loop. I got
to watch lots of people enjoying their way down, and no cliffside
retrievals there that I was aware of. Back down to the cars, and a dip
in the river for the hot and weary.

Then we went to Granite Bay, another new area for MUni Weekend. Granite
Bay is a town, but it's also a park area along the Western shore of
Folsom Lake. John Hooten rides his unicycle there several times a week,
staying in better cardiovascular shape than me. We played on Lloyds
Trials toys in the parking lot, and headed over to the rocky beach area
for some Trials-type riding and games.

Again, people didn't seem interested in setting up and hassling with
games, rules, tape and stopwatches. They were having a great time either
hopping the rocks, or watching and relaxing. But I did come up for a
simple race idea, a sand race. There were two sections of rocks,
separated by maybe 200' of sand. The sand and rocks were made out of
decomposed granite, so it wasn't quite as soft as beach sand, but would
still be difficult to cross.

We decided to keep it simple and do a head-to-head race. First one
across without a dismount wins! If you fall off, wait where you fell.
When the first person gets to the other side, everybody else stop, and
we note the positions. Ben Plotkin-Swing cruised across first, with
Bruce Bundy about 10' behind. Full results will follow.

The Trials experts were all over those rocks. Unfortunately I missed
some of their riding when they first got out there. Ryan Atkins had a
bloody nose from a fall he'd taken earlier in the day. Apparently it
started bleeding again, and he decided to immortalize the fact. I only
found this out later, when I came across the word "UNI" in 6" high
letters, spelled out on the rocks in Ryan's blood. Ew. But I took a
picture of course. Later, Ryan decided to jump off a cliff. The jump was
a minimum of 9' high, maybe as high as 11', landing in the sand. He
landed with a "snap!" We all held our breath to see if he was in one
piece. He was. The broken thing was his Kinport seat handle. Ryan was
all mad. From his point of view, unicycles are weak, fragile things, and
it gets expensive to ride like Ryan!

It was getting dark, so Jess Riegel invited a group of us over to his
nearby house, where we could wash up and change. It's a beautiful house,
with art objects inside and out, including a metal sculpture of a
unicyclist in the front lawn. I'll have my pictures up eventually.

This is getting long. See dinner in the next post...


--
johnfoss - Now riding to work

John Foss, the Uni-Cyclone
"jfoss" at "unicycling.com"
www.unicycling.com

"In three months or so, he won't be doing that any more." -- Kris Holm's
cousin Derek, 13, on Kris' unicycling now that he's married

------------------------------------------------------------------------
johnfoss's Profile: http://www.unicyclist.com/profile/832
View this thread: http://www.unicyclist.com/thread/28411

At Mark & Monicas, the room filled up quickly. They had presumably set
up seating for 70, which was clearly not going to be enough. More seats
and tables were brought in. We were expecting a box of prizes from
Unicycle.com, but it had not made it in time. Fortunately we had a lot
of generous donations from other people to offset the wierd junk I
always manage to find to give away.

Gilby donated several shirts, and thedan.com (Dan Lucal) donated one of
his as well. Judy Stoltzfus donated a more-or-less unlimited number of
her beautiful posters, which show a woodsy scene with a bear and other
animals on unicycles. I forgot to put up a MUni Weekend shirt. We do
have shirts left over, L and XL. I think they will be sold through
Unicycle.com.

Some of the prizes from the "John's junk" category we
- JVC dual cassette deck, in perfect working order (Jagur)
- 4' tall stuffed flamingo, won at Cedar Point in the early '80s
- A pair of greasy old pedals
- Ankle guards from the early '80s
- An itty bitty crescent wrench from Unicycle.com
- A Precious Moments "keep our act together" sun catcher for the
window
- Posters from the NY Festival of Juggling and Unicycle Arts (1988) and
UNICON X (2000)
- A steering wheel cover that's too black to use in California
- A frisbee with LED lights that can be programmed to spell words when
it's flying
- John's old T-shirts, including a Japan Team shirt from UNICON I.
- Oh yeah, a "silk" (rayon?) shirt from the '70s with a clown riding a
unicycle on the front. I got it from JeanPaul Jenack. Nathan picked that
one up!

Jacquie was very happy to see all of that stuff go away!

Prizes were given out for our two games events, and for various earned
and unearned distinctions such as:
- Best Knee: Scot Wallis, with a damaged knee
- Best Ankle: Mike Scalisi, twisted ankle
- Best Blood Spelling: Ryan Atkins
- Best Homemade Breakfasts: the Riegel family
- "Hey, did I leave my water bottle in your car, about 4 years ago?":
Geoff Faraghan (I found it while cleaning the garage)
- Best name: "Uni" the dog, who came with Dan Wilson from Telluride,
CO
- MUni Weekend Birthday: Jerry Gruss, whose birthday was on Friday!
- Initials matching the kneepads: Thad S. Arnold, who got a pair of TSA
kneepads

And many more, too stupid to remember.

We had a salad and pizza buffet, with soft drinks. People could also
order from the menu or the bar, at their own expense. Though the pizza
played a hopeless battle of trying to keep up with us, it was very
good.

We showed videos. We watched Charles Kuralt at the St. Helens school
around 1970 or so. We watched Sem Abrahams on his 45' and 72' unicycles,
and Steve McPeak and his crane setting the current record at 101'. We
watched the Amazing Games video from UNICON VI, and flaming puck hockey
from NAUCC 2003 (thanks, the Dan).

Lastly, it was time for Universe 2. This was a special "MUni Weekend"
edition of the video, which was not yet complete. It was about 26
minutes of amazing footage of amazing unicyclists doing amazing things.
Was that too many amazings? No. The footage and camerawork were amazing.
We've been waiting too long for the second SYKO effort. Hopefully we
won't have to wait as long for the third one. We should start a separate
thread to tell about the video.

It's fun seeing a crowd of unicyclists watch something like this for the
first time. You get all the reactions together. The two most common
sounds are hard to spell:

"Oooohhhh!" for cool tricks.

And something like "Aaaaaooooowwww!" on the biffs.

Not to mention the laughs on the funny bits, like Dan unexpectedly
dropping out of site off a wall with the Seattle skyline in the
background. If you like extreme unicycling, this video will be a
must-have. It's expected to be available just in time to order it for
Christmas...

That concluded our Saturday. The bill in the restaurant was for 79
people. Though some were spouses and other family members, that's still
some kind of record for MUni Weekends. I just wish I knew who a few more
of those 79 people were!

I'll try to write Sunday tomorrow...


--
johnfoss - Now riding to work

John Foss, the Uni-Cyclone
"jfoss" at "unicycling.com"
www.unicycling.com

"In three months or so, he won't be doing that any more." -- Kris Holm's
cousin Derek, 13, on Kris' unicycling now that he's married

------------------------------------------------------------------------
johnfoss's Profile: http://www.unicyclist.com/profile/832
View this thread: http://www.unicyclist.com/thread/28411

Sounds like you all had a fantastic time- I am so envious!!!! Especially
in the deluging rain in Vancouver right now (some places got over 200mm
of rain in 24 hours last weekend).

Kris Holm


--
danger_uni - Kris Holm
------------------------------------------------------------------------
danger_uni's Profile: http://www.unicyclist.com/profile/21
View this thread: http://www.unicyclist.com/thread/28411

Because I had taken a shorter route I got to town before the main group
and was blown away when they all came riding up like a true muni militia
one wheel death squad, imagine about 2 dozen riders in full armor
covered in dust rolling into this small western town.
The Power of One


--
muddycycle - Nonchalance

"What can possiby mystify a madman?"
Hegira: Greg Bear
------------------------------------------------------------------------
muddycycle's Profile: http://www.unicyclist.com/profile/1283
View this thread: http://www.unicyclist.com/thread/28411

johnfoss wrote:
*This thread is for telling your experiences of the CA Muni Weekend.
I'll start off. Based on the feedback I got, and through the critical
eyes of the guy making the plans, it seems to have been a rousing
success, with lots and lots of happy people.*

I'll jump in and confirm the rousing success/happy people element, at
least from my view. I had a blast. Highlights for me:

Riding the quarry at Rockville. Some of the lines I successfully rode
were similar to challenges that I couldn't ride six months ago at Moab.
First inkling that my skills are slowly improving.

Deciding at the last second to forgoe the shuttle on Saturday, and
making the 1000 foot climb. I was sucking wind and had to walk some of
it, but I made it without having John Hooten nipping at my heels during
his sweep.

The amazing Confluence downhill that followed that 1000 foot climb. This
may have been the best single muni ride I've ever done.

Finally getting to check out the famed Foss Garage. Wow.

Watching Lloyd Johnson construct an entire trials playground out of the
back of his pickup truck, including full stairs, skinny bars, a rainbow,
teeter totters, ramps, you name it. Requests for stunts not already
built prompted immediate construction with his pile of spare lumber and
battery-powered friggin' circular saw.

Watching Dustin Kelm nail a backwards ride down the above-referenced
stairs. And nail long stillstands just about everywhere.

Hearing the creak of Jack Hughes's profiles behind me going up a steep
hill...an early warning system that I was about to be blown by at
amazing speed.

Watching the Next Gen do some amazing hopping and dropping.

The quality hang. Unicyclists are such great, varied, interesting
people. Great comaraderie the whole weekend. Really enjoyed the time I
spent with Myo, Jack, Cliff, the Johns, the Mikes, Stoltfus x 3, The
Texans, The Telluriders, Jagur and Dudley, the Hoovers, and everyone
else I'm neglecting to mention by name.

Can't wait for Moab in the spring....


--
tomblackwood - Registered Nurtz

The epitome of Just-Too-Muchery....

------------------------------------------------------------------------
tomblackwood's Profile: http://www.unicyclist.com/profile/3762
View this thread: http://www.unicyclist.com/thread/28411

muddycycle wrote:
* I got to town before the main group and was blown away when they all
came riding up like a true muni militia one wheel death squad, imagine
about 2 dozen riders in full armor covered in dust rolling into this
small western town. *
shame to miss that,while on I-5.


--
jagur - Random Unicyclist

---------------------------------------------------
-searching for the real one wheel deal,the one that wont but will...
all i ask is one rotation,on this vision of singular creation...-[image:
http://newserver.unicyclist.com/gall...x_flipped.gif]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
jagur's Profile: http://www.unicyclist.com/profile/502
View this thread: http://www.unicyclist.com/thread/28411

The weekend was a fantastic experience for me. It was impressive to see
that many people who ride so well.

*Special thanks to:*
John Foss for the great organization, and for worrying so much about me
riding on my messed up knee.

John and Sue Hooten for allowing us to stay at their home and helping
us/me with food, ice packs, and medical advice. Great people.

Matt Wilhelm (Myocardial) for providing good conversation when I was
having to sit out the Friday ride. It really helped. Also for the
shuttling you did. I am hoping we can get together for a ride
sometime.

*Embararrassing moments:*
1. Being the first to get hurt.

2. Explaining the sport of Muni to someone in the parking lot, then
finding out I am talking to Geoffrey Faraghan, long-time muniist and
maker of the Telford unicycle. (We had a really good conversation after
that, on a whole different level)

3. Getting an award for having a failed body part.


My fellow Texans, Eric and Jerry, were great to hang with the whole
trip. John Childs was a great room mate, and he travels very well
prepared so he is good to have around. But man, do his shoes stink.
Bevan (Gerblefranklin) is as full of … information and advice…
in person as he is on the forum, but he is a smart kid and a great
rider. I think Jerry and Eric’s constant semantics badgering finally
beat Bevan into submission.

It was great to meet everyone, but especially those frequent posters who
we all feel we already know, but whose online personas my not always
match the in-the-flesh version. For instance, Jagur is a really nice
guy! I wish I would have had more time to hang with him and
DudleyDoRide. Oh and thanks for having ibuprofen when I really needed
it.

I was really happy to meet Nathan, Beau, and Grace, and they were the
friendly, easy going people I knew they would be. I didn’t get around
to telling Nathan this, but watching the “Unizaba” trailer of him and
Kris 2 years ago is what got me into muni, so it was an honor to meet
him. Kris, I wish you could have been there.

Scott Cooper and Dustin Kelm were both great to talk to, and humble
also. Tom Holub, Scott Arnold, Carl Hoyer, Hans Van Koppen, Tom
Blackwood, Eyal Aharoni, all good people that I got to spend at least a
little time talking to.

There are still others I would like to mention, but this post is getting
long. Maybe I will add more later.

*Request:* It would be great if everyone would post a photo of
themselves in the faces gallery so we can remember the names of the
people we met, or look up the names of those we saw but did not meet. I
will do it if you will.

I am very much looking forward to John Foss and others putting up
galleries of their photos from the weekend. I will get mine up today or
tomorrow.

Scott


--
S_Wallis - MUni motivated

"I am always doing that which I can not do,
in order that I may learn how to do it."
Pablo Picasso
------------------------------------------------------------------------
S_Wallis's Profile: http://www.unicyclist.com/profile/1520
View this thread: http://www.unicyclist.com/thread/28411

Sounds like everyone had an awesome time! I really wish I could have
been there, but instead I was having fun writing mid-term exams! Maybe
next year...

--Dale


--
dale.nichols - avid unicyclist


"It's kind of fun to do the impossible."

-Walt Disney

------------------------------------------------------------------------
dale.nichols's Profile: http://www.unicyclist.com/profile/3806
View this thread: http://www.unicyclist.com/thread/28411

Sunday was an *EARLY* morning. Our projected departure time was 6:30, to
get there in time to set up for 10:00 shuttle rides. It's a 100 mile
drive with lots of windy road, so we started by consolidating ourselves
into as few vehicles as necessary. At my house, with the help of the
Scott and Eyal mobile (pickup), we were able to put all the MUnis in
there with the two of them, and 7 riders in my Caravan. The three guys
from Canada rode in their Canadiamobile.

We arrived in Downieville before 9:30, where I started making sure
everyone was hooked up with one shuttle or the other, and figuring out
how many would be left over. This was kind of impossible, because not
everyone was there yet. So the first 19 available people were loaded
into the bus from Downieville Outfitters and sent on their way.

Then we had 12 seats reserved on the Yuba Expeditions van (and one poor
bicyclist). When the van was finally loaded and we went to pile in,
there were 14 of us. Hmm. We crammed in anyway, and experienced the
drive from the point of view of a world-class downhill racer who drives
the route nearly every day for a living. FFAAAASSTT! Scott and Eyal,
with the extra cycles, struggled to keep up. I didn't realize there was
another vehicle behind them, containing Scot Cooper, Deseree, and Hans
Van Koppen. They missed a turn and were lost for a while. I should have
provided driving directions to the Packer Saddle starting point...

Anyway, not including the 2 lost riders, we seemed to have 34 riders
assembled at the top of the trail. Wow! The guys at Yuba Expeditions
didn't believe me when I told them I wanted to reserve all seats, and I
didn't believe that big group! 36 including Scot and Hans, who started
about an hour later, and 37 including Zach Jucha, who rode from the
bottom. But off we went.

The most notable thing about the Downieville Downhill, from a
unicyclists perspective, is the "down." Funny the town's name is
Downieville. You ride more than 4000' downhill to get back there from
the Sierra Buttes.

Not just downhill, but downhill with plenty of technical sections. Some
places, like where you first hit the dirt after riding on a paved park
road, are just plain steep. But most are rocky, with steep sections. And
plenty of gnarly sections, water crossings, and even an area where a
little stream runs down the center of the trail. The easiest line is to
just ride right down the middle!

As the organizer, I was worried about people getting broken down or
injured, and having to walk a long way to get out. I was especially
concerned about Scott Wallis with his injured knee, and tried to talk
him out of doing the ride from the top. Fortunately he was in better
shape than I thought, and he did just fine.

Once we got going, I was worried about the front riders not stopping. I
thought they'd stop for fun at the technical sections, and we'd then
urge them on as the group caught up. But we never caught up to the
Trials guys and other fast riders at the front.

I heard a rumor they were going to stop at "the bridge." The only bridge
I remember along the ride was one that was way down th trail, past much
of the best technical sections. But then there we were, at the bridge
with everyone waiting. That old metal bridge, which carries the trail
across the river, only seemed far from previous rides, because we
stopped a lot along the way to it.

I asked Ryan Atkins why the front riders didn't spend more time playing
on the technical rock sections, and his reply was something like "We
seemed to clear pretty much everything on the first try." Grr. I'll
have to change my expectations for the future. And keep practicing!

At the bridge we did some group photos, and watched Ryan, who appears to
have a nuclear power source or something, while he hopped all over the
rocks in the river while the rest of us ate and rested. After this it
was less than 6 miles to the road crossing along the 2nd Divide Trail,
or less than 4 on the 3rd Divide. 3rd Divide was the easier way out,
where you could wait and get picked up by one of our shuttle drivers,
Matt Wilhelm or Mr. Colegrove (father of Tim from CT). I think only
three people opted to go that route, and some or all of them continued
riding, and didn't take the shuttle.

Everyone else took the 2nd Divide, and rode lots of rocky ups & downs
along Pauley Creek. Way above Pauley Creek, that is. Eric Lancaster lost
his unicycle over the side; a "cliffside retrieval" of maybe 80' or so.
Just as he was helped back onto the trail with his unicycle, John Hooten
lost his grip on his helmet, which plummeted down a similar distance. I
heard of at least one other cliffside retrieval along that section. I
don't think any of the cycles, or riders, were damaged.

After lots more challenging trail riding, with plenty of tough ups &
downs, the trail finally emerged onto the dirt road. This was a pickup
point, where weary riders could be given a ride back to town. Much to my
amazement, hardly anyone rode in the cars! I was one of the few, as I
thought I should be back at the town and mobile in case people needed
more rides or other help.

By the time Mr. Colegrove and I stopped back at the restaurant near
where we'd all parked, I saw Tom Acevedo and Dan Wilson already there.
Tom had been the first rider out, after taking the 3rd Divide and then
riding the dirt road down to the 1st Divide and taking both sections of
that trail down into town. Soon after, large groups of unicyclists
started coming down the street, to the stares of the locals. I think a
lot of the locals knew we were coming, from seeing the Sacramento Bee
article that was in that day's paper. They're used to seeing lots of
mountain bikes every day, but hardly ever unicyclists!

We waited around a while to make sure everyone got out. We heard from
bikers that Scot and Hans had gotten started about an hour behind the
group, and they were okay. Some riders opted to get food in town, while
my group decided to head down to where there were more choices. Most
riders had come out of the trail by 4:00.

Oddly, there followed a repeat of the meal experience from an earlier
MUni Weekend. I think it was '97 when we stopped at the Chevy's in
Auburn, to find out the wait was too long. Then, to make a long story
short, we ended up at the same Chinese buffet place we had stopped at
after being turned away from the same Chevy's in '97!

WEATHER:
As it was at the first MUni Weekend, the weather was unseasonably hot
this weekend. In '96, the highs were in the upper 90s and the day after
the weekend was over, the temperature topped 100. This time we were a
little later in the year, and seemed to have mid to upper 80s. Yesterday
(Tuesday) was a new record at 93 (from 90 in 1929) so summer ain't over
here. That's why we like doing MUni Weekend a little later in the
season. Next year it will probably be in September, however, so we can
ride the lifts at Northstar, or possibly a different ski mountain.

SO
It's Wednesday now, and I can pretend to walk and function normaly, but
it still hurts. I'm definitely better than I was yesterday. After my
first Downieville ride, which was in 99, I was sore for a week, my
worst-ever muscle soreness. It pays to be in better shape, and spend
less time playing on the technical spots!


--
johnfoss - Now riding to work

John Foss, the Uni-Cyclone
"jfoss" at "unicycling.com"
www.unicycling.com

"In three months or so, he won't be doing that any more." -- Kris Holm's
cousin Derek, 13, on Kris' unicycling now that he's married

------------------------------------------------------------------------
johnfoss's Profile: http://www.unicyclist.com/profile/832
View this thread: http://www.unicyclist.com/thread/28411