3 Oceans Unicycle Tour: Across Australia

End of part 1 :slight_smile:

A few hours after the Tour de France riders stormed into Paris finishing their ride, a lone unicyclist pretending to be the wearer of the famed yellow jersey wobbled onto the Champs Elysees…Ooops! I meant King William Street in Adelaide. That’s right, I was getting quite delusional by the end

Mimi the Unicycle and I reached Adelaide (map) last Monday after 58 days on the road and 3687km. The last 1000km from Ceduna wasn’t as cruisy as I had hoped. Instead it was the toughest section. It began with some intense winds and rain on the Eyre Peninsula that at times slowed me down to walking speed. The weather took its toll on my knees and the last 10 days of the trip became quite painful. Even Mimi was getting a bit ‘crank-y’. But as we got closer, I just put my head down and pedalled. A few harrowing moments getting into Adelaide (road trains coming so close that the suction they caused pulled the unicycle from under me) didn’t deter me. I was relieved when I was finally done. And now I am back home in Melbourne/Frankston.

It’s gonna be back on the road in November to pedal the remaining 2000km from Adelaide to Sydney (via Melbourne and Canberra).

Fundraiser:
If you live around Melbourne, please do come to the 3 Oceans Fundraiser.
Date: Aug 7, Friday
Time: 7:30p.m. to midnight
Venue: Airport Lounge and Sir John’s Bar at Building 10, Monash University Clayton
Pre-sale Tickets: $10 ($15 on the night).
It’s going to be a an evening with music and laughter with the live music of the Better Than the Wizards, stand-up comedy, raffles and prizes and of course, Mimi and I.

The blog will be completely updated over the next couple of days. Do take a look and also at the website for updates. The wesbite doesn’t seem to be functioning properly on a Windows XP/IE8 combination. I will redo the whole thing in a month or so.

Sid :slight_smile:
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Steveyo: You told me about Denali when I first joined the forums. He’ll be running circles around us in no time :slight_smile:

Dangerdog: I haven’t updated the blog in a bit. I will do it over the next couple of days. The ride had a total of 16 metric centuries with 145km being the longest day. Though the 127km on Day 57 was the hardest day. I seem to prefer a couple of long days and a rest day, instead of many medium days in a row. I use the rest day to do some sight-seeing.

Nathan and Wolfgang: I was riding an ungeared KH 36". For the supported section I used 125mm cranks. For the unsupported section I used 150mm cranks. By the end I was riding as fast with my gear on 150mm than with no gear on 125mm. I think 140mm might have been the right length. I’m not too keen on trying 125mm cranks with all the gear because my left knee is a bit wonky.

I had a rear rack. Almost the same one in the link by Wolfgang. The rack weighs about 1kg. It is made up of three parts that can be separated. I think a 2 part rack would save weight. On the rack I carried a tent (1.3kg), a sleeping bag (600g) and a down jacket (700-800g). I tried to pack most of the weight as close as I could to the seat post. You can feel the difference when the weight is even a little bit away from the seat post. I don’t think the rack is the best way to carry gear as you can feel the pressure on your legs and in the long run, it may hurt your knees. Mine hurt towards the end. And if you notice, for a 1kg rack, I wasn’t carrying too much gear on it. The rack can take a max of 9kg.

The rest of my gear was carried in my backpack (1.5kg). The gear included:
Spare clothes: (1 cycling jersey, 1 pair thermals, 1 pair shorts, 1 t-shirt, 1 rain jacket (240g), 2 pairs gloves, 2 pairs socks, 2 lightweight face towels). I wore the thermals at night. I could have not taken the t-shirt and the shorts but I wanted something decent to wear when I wasn’t riding and in a town. Apart from all that while riding I wore: a jersey, cycling shorts (and a ripped out padding from a pair of cycling shorts to make it double padding), socks and leggings.
Toiletries in small portions.
Head torch (35g), swiss army knife, spare battries.
Map, money, indentification, ATM card.
Video camera, phone (with camera), netbook, USB modem and chargers.
4.5lit water carrying capacity in 3 Nalgene plastic cantenes.
Food and water.
Very basic first aid kit
SPOT satellite messenger (350g). I used this only on the Nullarbor when I didn’t have reception.
Tools (only the ones I need to change cranks, pedals, tighten things) and spare tube (and lots of patches).

The netbook crashed early on, so I was carrying 1.2kg of deadweight the whole time. Bummer! Maybe without the laptop I may have tried to carry the sleeping bag and down jacket in the backpack and attached the tent to the seat-post. This would eliminate the rack.

The rack helped coz at the start the saddle soreness was bad and even though there wasn’t much weight on the rack, it still made a difference (even if it was a placebo). Towards the end my butt got a little bit more used to it. So, I’m still undecided about the rack (3600+ and still undecided…damn!). A long tour with lots of gear: use the rack and know how much weight you can take. A shorter tour with not a lot of gear: just use a backpack.

Interesting. I had experimented with a similar rack set up:

http://dcuni.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/cimg4704.JPG

I attribute my knee injury to using that seatpost mounted rack though. There is just too much awkward weight.

It does save crotch pain, but if I ever do any other self supported trip…I am ONLY carrying the weight on my back. For the most part though, I don’t see myself doing self supported trips with a tent and sleeping bag on a unicycle anymore. That kind of thing is much better suited for a bicycle. If I do multi day trips on the uni…it will probably be credit card touring and staying at hostels.

Anyway, I love the pics and it sounds like quite the adventure!

good to read an update and by the way I love that certificate.

john.

Sid, You are an amazing rider

Congratulations from UDCA on your ride ; we have been following your ride and what an achievement. You are pretty amazing.
Cheers
Mal

Sounds very reasonable (with the exception of the netbook). Do you know the total weight you carried on your back? My guess would be at least 15kg, as short to 5kg are for water only.

I think the most I carried on my back may have been about 13kg (including water).

Like Siafirede said, if you can get away without a tent and lots of camping gear by getting places to stay, then that’ll be a better option than carrying all that gear. I’d use the rack only if the place I was riding is remote.

http://blog.adventurecycling.org/2009/08/one-track-minds.html
This piece also has a reference to Gracie’s and Matt’s Great Divide ride and Ken Looi too.

http://picasaweb.google.com/Sid.Denali.Rajan/3OceansUnicycleTourPerthToAdelaide#5367400526745709906
A video I made up to show friends and family (watch the HQ version). It’s not fully edited though.

3 Oceans Unicycle Tour Part 2

Hey folks,
The 3 Oceans Unicycle Tour across Australia resumed about 2 weeks ago. In the first part I rode 3687km in 58 days from Perth to Adelaide along the southern coast of Australia. Part is around 2000km from Adelaide to Sydney via Melbourne and Canberra.

I’ve already ridden the 1000km to Melbourne in 15 days. The ride began in a heat wave and I started off slow but things picked up in the final 8 days (700km+) when it cooled off a bit.

Check out the blog and the website.

I’ll post some pics when I’m back to my computer. Only 1000 more km to go :slight_smile:

Sid

Good luck Sid! Are you heading to Unicon? cough Hockey cough

I was going to, to cap off the year. But immgration here means I have to stay put for a few months without leaving. So, no hockey :frowning: Would have loved to join the team!