Amazing Unicycle Race in Canada! June 2008

General
1

Overview:
Ride the Lobster is a unique, international unicycle race, unlike any other ever held, scheduled for June 2008 in Nova Scotia, Canada (over 1.5 years away). The distance will be 800km in stages, over 5 days with at least one day having a time trial during that time. With 20 teams of 3 members each from around the world competing for at least $10,000 CDN in prize money; it will be one event you won’t want to miss. Teams will be tracked and mapped so their positions in the race can presented around the world via the internet.

Event: Ride the Lobster (RTL) is a long distance international unicycle race

Where: Nova Scotia, Canada (Eastern Canada, also known as “Canada’s Ocean Playground”)

Website: www.ridethelobster.com (official site to be launched end-January, 2007)

Date: Monday, June 16 to Friday, June 20, 2008 (over 1.5 years away)

Distance: 800km over 5 days

Route: The route will go from Yarmouth in the south (flat terrain) to Sydney, Cape Breton to the north (rugged) in Nova Scotia. Route details will made available by fall 2007.

Prize money: There should be at least $10,000 CDN in prize money. Based on this amount, here is the breakdown: 1st place $5,000, 2nd place $2,000, 3rd Place $1,500, 4th Place $1,000, and 5th Place $500. If there is additional prize money there may be daily cash prizes.

Teams: A team can consist of maximum three riders and one support. Each team is in charge of their own support.

Number of Teams: 20 teams

Team members: Teams can be of mixed gender but there is no “Men’s” or “Women’s” competition. Teams should be from the same country or geographic area. If one or two people from one country want to participate, they can ask to be assigned an extra member or two. The idea here is to avoid one team cherry-picking the best riders in the world to make an unbeatable “Dream Team”. This demotivates the other teams and makes the whole competition less interesting for spectators and sponsors.

Age Limit: There is no age limit for team members but any team member under 18 will need to have a designated guardian.

Qualifying Ride: Before a team can register all team members must do a qualifying ride of 70k for two days. More details in the summer of 2007.

Expenses during the event: All food, lodging, and transportation is covered during the event.

Transportation to Nova Scotia: Everyone needs to pay for their own transportation to Nova Scotia. Depending on sponsors, there might be money available to help teams traveling from far away.

Time Trial: One (or more) of the days will have a time trial that every member will need to participate.

Rules: Detailed rules will be published by fall of 2007. The type of unicycle will be unlimited.

Registration of Teams: Registration will open on January 1, 2008.

International Participation: The goal is to get as many international teams as possible.

Tracking: Every team will have a GPS so progress will be visible live on the website.

Distance per team member: It is up to each team to decide how to divide the daily distance.
Timing: All teams will start out every day at the same time. The times for each day and the time trial(s) will added together to determine the total time and therefore the winner.
Seriousness of Competition: While this will be a competitive event, all levels of ability for long distance riding are encouraged.
Why: Edward Wedler would like to do his part in promoting his area of Nova Scotia, Canada. Nova Scotia is recognized as a great province to cycle. There has been a push recently in Nova Scotia to increase tourism and awareness of the area. Edward lives in Nova Scotia and is in the publishing business.
Interested? Go and fill out the quick e-form and we will put you on the email list for the event. E-form: http://fs19.formsite.com/RideTheLobster/form029675671/index.html

Personal note from Nathan Hoover and Andy Cotter
If you are into long distance riding, this is really one event you don’t want to miss. Where else are you going to find a long distance event where lodging and food is free? RTL is the closest we will get to an event like Tour de France and while we hope to have more events like this in the future, it may be a long time coming. While the event is a competition to make it interesting for the media, in the spirit of many of the unicycle competitions that have been put on around the world it is being designed to be a fun and adventurous time for all participating unicyclists. With over 50 long distance riders this will be the biggest group of long distance riders in one place.
-Nathan Hoover and Andy Cotter

Spread the word
While we have tried to make sure this announcement gets to as many people as possible, there are many long distance riders out there that we have missed. If you know of anybody would be interested in this event, please forward this message to them.

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The thing about this sport is that it takes all the work out of figuring out what to do with my vacation time.

I don’t think I can miss this.

3

Team NZUNI will be there!

4

Cool. The only other time I ever raced unicycles for a cash prize was also in Canada, at the International Cycling Festival in Hull, Quebec in 1988. And still Canada doesn’t have a national unicycling organization. Go figure!

5

Wouldn’t want to miss it, now I have to create a team Holland though :smiley:

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I would have thought that there will be at least one if not two "Team UK"s.

Sounds great. :slight_smile:

Roger

7

O man I totaly won’t be missing this. I can’t wait. Now I just need to get training and get a team together. I can’t wait. I have been wanting to do a long distance tour ever since I heard of the Laos tour, and I have wanted to try something a little closer to home before I go running off to the other side of the globe.

8

Who is sponsering and organizing it?

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Edward Wedler is the guy who’s sponsoring the whole event.

10

Edward is organizing and promoting this event - it’s his idea. But the corporate sponsors are still being lined up. I don’t think he’ll be announcing the company names for a while - many deals are in the works and as far as I know, only a few are concrete at this point.

—Nathan

11

I have a couple questions about the qualifying ride. Is this 70 KM twice, and is it a race where the top riders of that then go on to form teams who then compete in the final 800 km race?

I know there aren’t too many details as of yet, but that would probably help me decide how much training I will be doing.

12

The qualifying ride works like this. Your team picks a pair of consecutive days after a certain date and before a cutoff date and you do two rides together. Each ride has to be at least 70km long and have a certain amount of climbing (500m or 750m or whatever). One of the team members does a short writeup and includes a photo or two - then that team is qualified. It’s actually not required that you all ride together or qualify on the same two days - just recommended.

We do the same type of thing for our uni tours. We don’t yet have details such as when this has to be, but you get the idea. You will have to document that your team can accomplish rides like this before your registration is accepted.

—Nathan

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Ahh ok cool, That shouldn’t be too bad then, especialy since they don’t have to be two consecutive days of 70 km each like I thought.

As you can tell I’m really really excited for this. Something epic going down on my home turf is something I definatly can’t turn down. I just did my first 80 KM day so now I feel like the sky is the limit. I can’t wait to start training, stupid ice storm.

14

This is so cool!

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Ntappin, it does have to be 2 consecutive days.

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My bad, I guess I will just have to ride up to my cottage, get some nice muni done aswell :p.

17

I’m definitely considering entering this race. The scenery alone will be worth the airfare.

How much is the entry fee? I assume it’s alot since the prize money is so big, or do you have sponsers hacking up that kind of cash?

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There is no entry fee. Lodging is free. Food is free. Transporation (when not on a unicycle) is free.

The only thing that will cost you is getting to Nova Scotia. But, they are trying to get some money for that as well (although those traveling from the other side of the world may have first dibs on that money).

Edward is getting sponsors to pay for this event. He is much more connected than I’ll ever be. Nathan and I have been talking to him about this for about nine months and he has made a lot of progress.

A quick note on the pre-reg ride. If a day during the race is 200km long and there are three riders then each rider will roughly do 70km (providing the distance is split evenly among the riders). Two days with 70km each day for a pre-reg ride is a sample on what the event will be like. We want people to be a minimum level of long distance riding before signing up with the hopes that every team can finish the race. While 70km may sound like a lot, it isn’t really that much with some proper training.

-Andy

19

This idea is really intriguing, but I would rather see the unicycle type limited to fixed-gear, or else have different prize categories for fixies and guni’s.

20

I really want to do this. First I have to get into distance riding, but that shouldn’t be too bad, I have 1 and 1/2 years to prepare. Sounds awesome. Traveling from Ottawa shouldn’t be too bad, much better than you guys comming from NZ!