Just a shout from the rooftop to express the fun that was had on the Montour Trial today by me and Billham. I got a fantastic new Coker for Christmas (inspired gift of my wife), and today was the first day to really get on it and see what it was all about. Beautiful day, mid-40’s, overcast and low wind. Very comfortable riding weather. The trail is converted rail lines from the steel era here in SW Pennsylvania…actually coal lines which moved the stuff from the Pittsburgh coal seam to the furnaces along the Monongehela, and Youghigheny Rivers…I still have no idea how to pronounce those.
We set out on a paved section, smooth dry and lightly populated with couples, families, and other groups that had no apparent connection, mostly encouraging…we didn’t get by anybody without saying “hi” to them. I learned quickly what a false sense of security you can have when the nice smooth pavement suddenly has a less than graceful pavement joint as we crossed a bridge…no biggie…just a typical UPD without incident, followed by a freemount and a return to our pace. I’ve ridden this trail many times on my bike with my family and have wanted to be able to keep up on a uni, and now I’m confident I can. We established an 8.7mph average speed with a spike at 14.7mph over the course of 6.9 miles…the halfway point of our ride. In the middle of the ride there is a beautiful horse farm, and then a quick ascent to a grade crossing with a road which I assume must have been a filled in tunnel, as the trains would never have been scaling that hill in either direction. This was my location for my higher speed UPD that came when I started to lose speed going up the grade only to lean forward to accellerate and not be able to recover from my lean…I gained some speed alright, it was just wasted by me taking the palms of my gloves off and grinding into my wrist guards for a few feet. I snagged my left kneecap on the pavement for a minor strawberry (but one I’m no less proud of). Unfortunately this UPD happened in front of the biggest group of people we had seen on the trail so far in the ride, so there was no hiding the fact and quickly remounting with the “meant to do that” look on my face. Since the hill was fairly steep, I decided to walk the last 20 meters or so to the top.
The second half of this ride was over finely crushed limestone which can squish out this time of year, but was remarkably firm with only a few areas that gave us the clay stripe up our backs. Another badge of honor in my book. The highlight of the trip for me was passing a nice lady on a bike who reacted with great surprise to two unicyclists speeding by on her left. We stopped to take a few pictures up the trail, and she showered the praise for our bravery on our little quest. The last stop for us was at a farm house which has a rooster that my family traditionally stops to hear “cock-a-doodle-doo” from. This time there was only a goose who was feeling rather shy.
The beautiful thing about old rail lines is that they are at nearly imperceptible grades and we had been going uphill slightly the whole time to the turnaround point, so we started picking up the pace on the way back to the cars. We ended up with a 12.8 mile ride, 9.2mph average speed, and a blistering (for me) 15mph high speed…I’m actually taking credit for Bill’s computer readout. I near his pace but lagged behind a few yard a couple of times.
So far, this is the kind of riding I’ve always wanted to do on a unicycle…I’m in heaven having one under my belt and all the next ones to look forward to. Hope everybody out there is having a great winter and experiencing the joy that zipping along on one wheel can bring.
Sincerely,
Bob Lauver (unidaddy)
… and it only gets better! I wish you the best of luck on your new machine. Now that you 've joined the ranks, I look forward to hearing more about your adventures riding your Coker on those converted rail lines. Happy (and safe) riding!
There ought to be a coker event in this area in the future. I’m looking forward to getting to one of the already scheduled ones one of these times.