The Australian Muni Weekend Thread...

Nic Price mentioned the idea of an Aussie Muni Weekend in another thread
and although I'd somehow never even thought of it before, I reckon it's
a great idea. The next UniNats is almost 2 years away and I'm going to
need something to tide me over until then. Plus in about 6 weeks I'll
have 3 months of holidays before going to uni so I'll have some free
time then to work on the idea. I nominate Brisbane as the location for
the event not only because I live here and wouldn't have to travel but
also because it would be really appropriate. Here's what I've been
thinking of so far:

GENERAL POINTS

- Although I think this time it should be in Brisbane (some time next
year), the AMW could be anywhere in Australia.
- It would have to work around Unicon next year and UniNats 2005.
- Shirts could be made available. Maybe we could get people to tell us
in advance so there aren’t too many produced or sell extras through
unicycles.com.au and/or unicycle.co.nz as John suggested today. I'd
like to try to make them free for competitors. I guess maybe some of us
could do some busking to pay for them or something like that.
- Generally it'd be good to keep the price for the event right down
because some people would be paying a fair bit to get there already.
Ideally it'd be free but I don't think that would be possible without
one of the organisers having to fork out a lot of their own money.

SATURDAY EVENTS

Novice/social muni ride on Mt Cootha:
- One or two groups going on a series of shortish rides centred around
the picnic area on Mt. Cootha.
- Covering flattish singletrack and firetrails of varying steepness. On
Mt Cootha there's something for everyone.
- Plenty of stops for socialising and resting.

Trials playground in the Mt Cootha picnic area:
- Running most of the day at the picnic area.
- The more advanced riders not interested in the muni could play on the
trials obstacles.
- Fun trials competitions including gapping comp, high jump/grab, narrow
rail riding comp, stillstand comp, etc.
- We've already built some pretty okay trials obstacles but I'd like to
have a big range of things for a really interesting day of trials.

Picnic lunch
- Work other events and rides around a social picnic lunch in the picnic
area of Mt Cootha.
- Jugglers bring their equipment for fun juggle session during/after
lunch.

SUNDAY EVENTS

Advanced technical muni on Mt Cootha:
- There are plenty of really technical and fun tracks on Mt Cootha for
the more advanced riders.
- Maybe we could have a freeride competition (like the All Terrain
Mountain Bike Challenge from a few years ago and the Red Bull Rides,
etc.) just for fun. In this sort of event you're 'judged' (although
it'd just be for fun) on your technique and how controlled you are
rather than your speed. There are several different lines to choose
from ranging a lot in difficulty.

MONDAY EVENTS

Advanced Ride at MTB Park:
- Hire a bus to take everyone to the Mountain Bike Park that has opened
up near here.
- Maybe get one with a little TV so we can watch unicycling videos on
the way there (it's about an hours drive).
- Do northshore in the playground as well as more advanced stuff out on
the trails. There are some really great northshore tracks currently
being built.

So that's what I've been thinking of. I was looking through the BMW
photos and noticed that they were broken into different 'teams' of
varying difficulty. I think that idea has a lot of potential for the
Australian Muni (and Trials maybe?) Weekend. Also, I'm sure we could
encourage some media photographers to come along at some stage. That'd
be really good publicity for unicycling in Australia. At UniNats we got
some group shots taken by an Inside Sport photographer.

I'd love to hear peoples' suggestions because if we do end up doing this
I want it to be really fun for everyone. I'd feel really guilty if
people made the effort to travel to Brisbane and it didn't meet their
expectations. I was just thinking how great the weekend could be and
had to do a little bit of planning...I'm excited!

Suggestions would be much appreciated as I've never been to or paid too
much attension to any muni weekends.

Thanks,
Andrew


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One small suggestion: I think you should call it the Weekend of
Australian Muni (WAM). A good acronym is critical in these things.
Nobody misses a BMW and nobody would want to miss a WAM.


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Good point.

I was also thinking about making trials a bigger part of the weekend and
allocating a whole day to trials of different skill levels. What do
people think about that? It would screw around with the name a bit
though I guess.

Also, I was surprised that at UniNats this year if it rained we were
planning to just watch videos inside. I'd still be very keen to go
muni-ing in the rain at this event. I guess trials would be a bit
tricky and maybe dangerous in the rain.

Andrew


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Muni riding is all-weather (we actually had a hailstorm during a BMW
ride...), but trials would be different. Still, I think most any
improvised outdoor activity would be better than videos. Not that the
vids aren't good, but you can watch them at home.


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Yeh, I had a good long look at all those photos...they're great. We
just need Kris to come along to our muni weekend.

Does anyone here live close enough to Australia to consider coming to a
muni weekend (other than the New Zealanders, all of whom I expect to
come along )

Andrew


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andrew_carter wrote:
- Generally it'd be good to keep the price for the event right down
because some people would be paying a fair bit to get there already.
Ideally it'd be free but I don't think that would be possible without
one of the organisers having to fork out a lot of their own money.

The way the BMW has worked is that people pay for their own camping/
accomadation at a nominated campsite and pay a share of any car parking
chrages at the trail head. Food is bring your own or go to a local take
away or cafe. Prizes (we don't always have any) have been things donated
from where ever we could scronge stuff from. Momentoes , thats the tricky
one, either ordered and paid for up front OR some one has been brave and
put the money up front and then sold them at very slightly above cost.
So far there has been a T-shirt one year, a mouse mat and a mug, with no
souvenior two years.

BMW is very low key organisation, no insurance, no block booking at
campsite, just a bunch of like minded people meeting up to ride
together. The expectation is that you look out for yourself and if you
bring kids along they are your responibility. So far its worked pretty
well.

sarah

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I supposedly organised BMW this year.

I think there are two key things that need to be done for a muni
weekend.

1) Have somewhere for people to sleep
We always use campsites because they're cheap and easy for people who
are disorganised. Don't organise a muni weekend on a busy weekend (bank
holiday / public holiday or whatever) or dead in the middle of summer as
this means people will have to book the campsite. Here September and
October are good months for this as are April/May/early June except any
school holidays.

If the muni riders are anything like in the UK 90% of people who turn up
will not have pre-booked the campsite, so it's a good idea to find one
that isn't going to fill up. If possible you should also know of another
campsite nearby in the worst case that one does get full.

2) Have some ideas for rides

Ideally you should know and have ridden most of the stuff that is
planned. Whilst it's sometimes good to go somewhere based on reputation
alone, some bike trails are dull for unicycles. Running it locally like
you're suggesting is the ideal thing to do if you live near good
riding.

If you're splitting up into several groups doing different rides, then
you'll need to have some maps, or a good description of where trails
start.

Other than that -

Personally I'd suggest that you don't need to do the advanced and easy
muni on different days if you've got a varied area to ride in. Also,
anything that is going to involve some planning and having everyone
there, such as driving a bus to somewhere, should always be on the
middle day, otherwise you have to take the bus back as soon as the first
people want to leave to head home and it all gets complicated, whereas
the middle day, no-one is in a hurry to get anywhere.

Personally I'd advise against getting a bus unless you're definately not
going to have enough cars for people to drive there with unicycles, and
there's no public transport alternative. I guess this depends on whether
people take a plane to get to Brisbane or drive there. Where unicyclists
are concerned, it's best to minimize the amount of organisation and
pre-planning required.

As for trials, a good thing to do is to have a bunch of trials obstacles
set up at the campsite, so that when people are hanging around in the
morning or evening they can ride them.

Oh yeah, also, if possible have lunch somewhere with a cafe/snack shop,
or start rides near somewhere to buy lunch as there will be some people
who aren't organised enough to have planned lunch in advance.

Joe


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Thanks a lot Sarah and Joe. I'm going to send out emails through the
AUS contacts and see how many people would be interested.

Andrew


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