Future of Unicycle Road Racing (here's what I think; what do you think?)

Lots of people do train for "standard unicycle" (24") races. Certainly
Japanese and Germans, but others too (including myself). I like the
heritage aspect of it, even though I ride my 24" only to practice for
those races.

If you would have seen the expert finals 100 m at Unicon14, you
wouldn't call this size clown's unicycles. Seisuke Kobayashi won in
12.69 seconds, and the whole stadium went "WHOA" when he squeezed out
his end sprint. Truly remarkable.


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Klaas Bil
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Klaas Bil wrote:

If you would have seen the expert finals 100 m at Unicon14, you
wouldn't call this size clown's unicycles. Seisuke Kobayashi won in
12.69 seconds, and the whole stadium went "WHOA" when he squeezed out
his end sprint. Truly remarkable.



Sure, it's remarkable for what it is. It's still boring compared to
big wheel racing, both to do and to watch.


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tholub
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Wow, what a great thread. As a novice GUni rider I don't know how much I
can contribute. I have really enjoyed the rides I've done on it so far
(all 3 of them) and plan on many more. It is definitely not EASY - I
look at it as a totally new skill I am learning.

I think there should be the current two categories in racing: limited
(24"/5" crank) and unlimited. I don't buy that there is a difference
between geared and ungeared other than effective wheel size. Of course
there are differences: cost, weight and slop - all of which favor
ungeared. None of those matter. It's an UNLIMITED unicycle. It has one
wheel and it's human powered. As Sam said, you better get to work quick
if you want to win anything ungeared on a 36" wheel these days. It is no
longer 2006. You are going to have to get a larger wheel if you don't
want to gear up.

I don't think unicycling is silly. As Kris said, all sports you do for
their own sakes are equally silly. I don't feel silly unicycling, or
playing darts, or racing mountain bikes or ... anything else.

I love the idea of keeping historical track of the records with
equipment notes. I like how Sam wants to see his record beaten ungeared
but admits it's just for "old times sake" and really what he wants is to
see how far someone can ride on a unicycle in 24 hours (and then
presumably to get a Guni and go out and reclaim the record with
something well over 500km!)

We did a ride 2 day ago that was really fun: me on a Guni, Beau and
Chuck and others on fixed 36ers - Chuck was riding my Hunter36.
Surprise surprise, he's still fast as hell. At one point I had the Guni
going pretty fast (certainly over 30kph) - I thought that was cool, but
Beau cruised by on his fixed 36er and put me in my place.

Chuck, THANKS for your posts in this thread. As John says, you are the
man!

---Nathan


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nathan
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