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

joemarshall wrote:
The geared hour record is a joke - any bugger with a schlumpf and
access to a flat loop could set that higher tomorrowJoe



I presume it was beaten at Unicon in the marathon and probably during
RTL but not officially recorded


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siafirede wrote:
How does a world record apply to the marathon if it is held on the road
with variable terrain/elevation changes from year to year? Can't the
course change a lot from year to year?

EDIT: I think I am stuck in a Unicon mindset, I guess the Marathon
record means the fastest 26.2 miles on a unicycle, and it doesn't
necessarily have to apply to Unicon.



Isn't that fairly simple: if the route is messured at a certain length
(10 km for 10 k, 42,195 km for marathon) then it counts. Then the
unicon-hosts (or anybody else hosting a race) may decide if they want a
hilly route with less record-setting potentiel, or a complete flat route
with a lot of potential for going at high speed. - the only thing is
that the start and the finish should be, if not the same place, then at
least in the same height, so one don't get a going downhill advantage.


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siafirede wrote:
Now THAT would be awesome. Maybe unisk8r can rig this up on one of his
set ups and see how it rides.



This has to be one of the best threads ever!

I thought about running a Schlumpf on my jackshafted design, but what a
handful that would be! The highest ratio I ever rode was 2:1, and that
was too much for me. At a 1.89 ratio on the 36" (22t x 16t cogs),
you're only turning 88 rpm at 15mph, and 118 rpm at 20mph. So a 3:1
gear ratio would have an ungodly slow cadence at any speed under 25mph.


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DustinSchaap wrote:
... Combined, all the fastest times including geared AND ungeared.
Geared, all the fastest times ridden on geared unicycles, including the
Unicon 13 fastest geared times and Pete Perron's hour record.
Ungeared, all the fastest Ungeared times.

Cheers,
Dustin



I have no idea if the current Hour holder Patrick Schmidt(sp?) was on a
direct drive or guni. I know Ken Looi and Sam Wakeling were on direct
drive. I do not even know if anyone else besides myself has attempted
The Hour on a guni. I heard someone from The Netherlands was supposed
to...
The point of my attempt 3 1/2 years ago (!) was to introduce the guni
as a race machine. I was running in the low 15mph range before my fall
near the end, and would say that I was "in shape" at the time (i.e. it
wasn't all guni doing the work).
Pete


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joemarshall wrote:
... The geared hour record is a joke - any bugger with a schlumpf and
access to a flat loop could set that higher tomorrow - whereas the
ungeared one is hard (although I presume chuck will beat it).

Joe



Thanks for the support, Joe.


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siafirede wrote:
How does a world record apply to the marathon if it is held on the road
with variable terrain/elevation changes from year to year? Can't the
course change a lot from year to year?

EDIT: I think I am stuck in a Unicon mindset, I guess the Marathon
record means the fastest 26.2 miles on a unicycle, and it doesn't
necessarily have to apply to Unicon.



The same way that the running marathon records are set on different
courses with variable terrain. Some courses are fast, and thus
conducive to world record times being set. Others are slower.

It would be harder to define an off-road world record...as what
constitutes off-road is pretty variable. But for road records, I don't
think terrain is a factor except to say that some courses would be very
hard to set record times on.

The Unicon 13 marathon was not even 42.2km, it was 43km.


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DustinSchaap wrote:
Very good work Chuck, I'll add my thoughts when I have some more time,
untill then can everyone please check this?

http://eenwiel.nl/index.php?menuid=59&pageid=162

It's all the geared and ungeared unlimited records (except for the 2008
female records), if everyone is OK with this layout I will translate it
to English, but I'm sure everyone will understand what it says, as it's
just times and distance.

Combined, all the fastest times including geared AND ungeared.
Geared, all the fastest times ridden on geared unicycles, including the
Unicon 13 fastest geared times and Pete Perron's hour record.
Ungeared, all the fastest Ungeared times.

Cheers,

Dustin



Thanks for that Dustin. It looks great. I actually would like to get
all the IUF records up on a website along with some proper IUF criteria
for people wanting to set official IUF records. We had an IUF records
committee a while ago it seemed to just fizzle out.

Thanks for separating out geared and ungeared. I think it will be
important for historical reference.

Time to get it going again.


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The SINZ Unicycle Tour 2007....South Island, New Zealand
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GizmoDuck wrote:
But for road records, I don't think terrain is a factor except to say
that some courses would be very hard to set record times on.





A little off topic...

What are the rules for the hour record, or any of the current records?
Couldn't I simply start my ride at the top of a mountain and have a much
easier time setting the hour record? Same thing goes for the 100 mile
record. Starting at the top of a mountain with a nice slight decline
for 10 miles or so and then making the rest of the ride a flat valley
ride would surely be the way to go instead of a circular flat track. I
cant think of a geographical example right now, but I am sure there are
some areas in the US to accomodate this. What are the rules regarding
those records, if any?


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nickjb wrote:
I presume it was beaten at Unicon in the marathon and probably during
RTL but not officially recorded



I think there needs to be strict criteria for measuring unicycling hour
records. Point to point records are too hard to measure (?maybe by
GPS), but there needs to be rules about elevation gain, wind direction,
drafting etc.

When I set my 24hr record, I had to use a surveyor to certify that the
tract I used was 443m at it's innermost circumference (where the
measurement is taken from). Also it was flat and a circuit which
therefore minimised any wind assisted advantage. It is also different
to RTL and the Unicon Marathons where people ended up drafting (except
for Chuck who rode off the front!).


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siafirede wrote:
A little off topic...

What are the rules for the hour record, or any of the current records?
Couldn't I simply start my ride at the top of a mountain and have a much
easier time setting the hour record? Same thing goes for the 100 mile
record. Starting at the top of a mountain with a nice slight decline
for 10 miles or so and then making the rest of the ride a flat valley
ride would surely be the way to go instead of a circular flat track. I
cant think of a geographical example right now, but I am sure there are
some areas in the US to accomodate this. What are the rules regarding
those records, if any?



For my 24hr record, I followed the criteria Guinness sent me, simply
because the IUF didn't have any that I could use.

However, I think that's one of the priorities for this years IUF exec
(will speak to Connie about this), but we need to set some criteria so
that each record can be comparable.

Some of the Guinness criteria I had to fulfil:

Evidence of record:
-Witnesses- I needed signatures from a certain number of witnesses, and
people of standing in the local community (including the local sports
minister)
-Photographs of the track and during the event
-Videos during the ride
-Media coverage of the record attempt

Measurement:
-I had two witnesses tally every single lap I did and countersign each
tally mark
-We used two stopwatches
-I used a surveyor to measure the inner circumference of the track
-The track was a circuit with no elevation gain or loss
-I sent in the district plan for the track and also an aerial
photograph


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The Uninam Tour 2008.....Hanoi to Saigon!!! www.uninam.net

The SINZ Unicycle Tour 2007....South Island, New Zealand
www.sinzuni.org

The Induni Unicycle Tour 2009. Unicycle Tour of India. Email me for
details.
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