This is an amazing distance for anyone never mind for a 55+ rider. It will be a challenge to start the second and third laps when you can just get off at those points and go home. Good luck!
This may sound odd but I don’t have a really clear idea of the distance a guy of my age might be expected to achieve! That’s why I was wondering if there were any records of distance against age to give me a perspective. The 50 miler I did a few weeks ago had me at the limit but I had enough daylight hours to plod through it. The 61 miles now gives a much smaller daylight-window and will force me to pace the ride - to say nothing of the extra 11 miles! If I don’t make the distance at least I can fall back to the 50 mile stint!
Haha yeah well said - just what I thought. I think the second lap will be OK because I will only have done 20 miles when I start the second. So I should hit 40 miles. However the temptation to stop at 40 miles will be the hardest to overcome since I will be in my own no-mans-land somewhere between 40 and 61 miles.
Golden Oldy Goals
The issue of what is to be expected from an aged body is tricky. I cannot imagine riding 80 miles on my 29 inch, which would be the rough equivalent of your 100 miles on the 36 inch. When I finished off my uni year at the end of October with 25 km in 2 hours (plus some XMD rest time) I was finished. Very tired legs of course, but it was low back pain that bothered me the most. I can see training to increase leg strength, but back pain doesn’t seem to have a cure despite exercises of various kinds. My aim is to pick body-specific goals with enough challenge to be stimulating but without pushing myself onto a stretcher or the embarrassment of a long walk home dragging the uni and sniveling the while.
That’s a great vid, I’ve been learning just over a year as well and it brought it all back…the sense of achievement when you crack the different aspects is fantatic.
Haha 
surely us mature dudes have lost the will to be embarrased long ago – I know I have. These days it’s mostly other people, like family and friends, I embarrass through my antics…that are set to continue. So a ‘long walk home’ is just the same as riding and you have my respect because you are getting out there and doing it 
Hey it’s nice to compare notes! I experience sense of achievement as Zen-like moments of reflection travelling along the road and momentarily ‘discovering’ myself sitting on top of a big wheel wondering how I ever got there. 
Then I simply slip back into subconsciousness and carry on riding until enlightenment at the next UPD - ouch! 
I wish you all the best Geoff and I know you’ll make it! Maybe for us “younger” riders, we should do a “ride-twice-your-age”! 
I honestly don’t know whether I could do 61 miles, having maxed out at a little more than 50 to date. Have a great ride! 
Now that you mention it Terry, last month I did a “ride twice your age”. At age 50 I rode 100 miles. I don’t know how long I’ll be able to keep that one going.
Congrats! I guess I really have to do it now! I’ll wait 'till about 2/2010 and go for 108 miles!
ready, set, …
Two days to go …
Riding Someone Else’s Age
Riding one’s age is excellent motivation, but comes only once a year, even if the time between rides seems to be reducing. I have ridden my friend Bill’s age twice at the same time he was riding mine. It occurred to me that it can be fun and motivating to ride someone else’s age, even if that person cannot be present.
Now should this extraordinary honour be given to non-unicyclists? It is one thing to ride to honour a far-away unicycle friend, as I did for 47 not-so-gruelling furlongs on Sunday, but should we ride for other people? Is the little treasure in your life going to be impressed with another excuse to ride away from domestic responsibilities? Would it even be appreciated? What about riding for someone you don’t know, like a celebrity or historical figure you admire? Anyone care to remember Beethoven (born 1770)? However 239 is a very large number, even in furlongs (47.8 km).
Or, more down to earth, perhaps we can ride to celebrate birthdays of other members of the +55 uni group. Although my spreadsheet keeps me motivated, having this kind of link with another unicyclist would be a bonus.
I like your idea – and it opens a lot of scope for several interpretations. My particular interpretations would be a preference to ‘buddy’ up with another 55+ from a different country and ride their age. I also think it would be good to ‘honour’ our oldest unicycle member by riding his age. This also opens up the opportunity for a number of 55+ members to simultaneously ride each others age in different geographical locations. Photos could be emailed and combined together to make a composite image of all participants. Yeah! why not ask all 55+ dudes to submit a basic photo of themselves standing with their unicycle then email them to me and I will create a composite image of everyone standing together – 55+ Club 2009
Good idea Geoff. We’ll need to know when birthdays are coming up somehow. To me any challenging distance unit is ok. Furlongs suit me, while others can manage km or miles. Swedish miles at 10 km each won’t be too popular.
Excellent! I’ll have chance to get into these ideas when I’ve cleared my head of my own ride your age.
Of course the forum is a suitable way of liaison between members if most 55+ graduates are enthusiastic to respond. I’ll be keen to look for a so-called buddy and am very interested in organising a 55+group photo from pics that members can send me.
Actually, to begin we only need a hand full of people to participate by submitting pics. If the result is published to the forum it might encourage more to come on board. Similarly, regarding birthdays I guess its a matter of generating enthusiasm to participate.
Another fun challenge would be to just see how far you could ride in a given time; 12 hours for example. This way, rather than trying to complete a specific number of miles, you would be more focused on enjoying the ride itself.
Then when you finish the ride you would find out how far you went. You easily calculate your total ride distance after you finish, rather than continuously glancing at your gps or cycle computer. I like the idea of NOT knowing my ride stats, average speed, mileage, etc., until the ride is over. It would be a total surprise, which I like!
Riding the Pancake
Pre release clip of the movie, ‘Riding the Pancake’. A Ride-Your-Age attempt by Geoff Monocyclism Bond.
Holy moly Geoff. Just looking at that narrow road and those huge lorries gives me the willies. Tell us you made it man!
Thanks for your concern Bob - yeah small roads big vehicles - lol. I continue to have nervous uncontrolled giggling spells when I think back to the experience! Coped with the traffic, made peace with the elements and sorted my head…then it got dark!
Full report, video and stills anticipated this weekend.
Riding the Pancake
This is a personal account about riding a specific distance in celebration of my birthday. Originally inspired by a thread started by Bob ‘Olduniman’ entitled, “Calling Mature Unicyclists (age 55+)”. Thence posted as a new thread in RSU entitled, “55+ Ride Your Age”.
OK let me clarify one thing. I failed. Yup, I failed to do what I set out to do. That was to ride my age in miles – 61 miles. So, that’s the punch-line up front. I’m reminded of Neo when he is just about to make his first ‘building-jump’ in The Matrix. Of course he fails to make the distance and hits the ground….but bounces (literally) back! I just failed to make the distance……so…
So, along with the attached video I hope the rest of this post forms an entertaining read. .
Out of the whole world it is by coincidence that I live within unicycling distance of a world-famous unicyclist. That’s right folks; my nearest mono-wheeled neighbour is Sam ‘Redwelly’ Wakeling. What’s the significance of this? About a week ago Sam posted me with a view to joining me on my Ride-Your-Age attempt. Through the thread he had seen the route I planned to ride and offered to accompany me. Woah! My first thought was, ‘Can he ride slow enough!?’ My second thoughts focussed on how I might drain this guy of several thousand questions about being a more competent unicyclist - the Vulcan mind-meld was an option for a fleeting moment.
I have entitled my ride after a comment Sam made about my chosen route when he wrote, ‘You’ve got about as close to a pancake as Wales will offer’. Thereafter I just had to be riding a pancake
My birthday fell midweek and pressure of work meant I planned my ride on the weekend before. Is this an appropriate time to mention the weather? Nope…I’m not going to mention the torrential rain, the thunderstorms and floods and the wind. Nope not me…ignore that I just used those words.
The itinerary was plain. Ride 20-and-a-bit miles in one direction, turn around and ride back – then repeat two more times to give 61 miles. And so it was on a cold Saturday morning I apprehensively set off from Newtown. I say apprehensively because I was unsure of myself. This was the first time I had been ‘let-out’ on big roads. Previously I restricted my rides to ‘B’ roads with relatively little traffic. So, with riding lights flashing I meandered out of Newtown under the precipitation of a steady drizzle.
Hey! After five miles I’m thinking this is easy. Got rhythm, and I’m going somewhere. But is that thunder behind me, hmmm that low rumble seems to be getting closer – glad I’ve got my wet gear on. Uh-ho…nope replace the thunder with 30 tons of juggernaut and a diesel engine that just throbs with malice. Jeezus-H as it closed in on me I could feel the warmth from the radiator and was sure it would have licked me if it had a tongue! 
The first of several white-knuckle experiences took hold as I tried to relax my grip on the T7. Then with several hisses of contempt it changed gear and ‘flowed’ past me in a cloud of water spray all I could do was focus on not falling under wheels that seemed as big as a 36er but with several kilos more rubber attached. Yeah this is living! I survived. Yeah this was like graduation! Like an initiation experience. 
Great! I look into the distance – a flat, straight highway reaching towards the horizon and I settle into a regular cadence with the 137 Moments
I reach the end of the first 20 miles surviving several more close-encounters of the juggernaut kind, although god only knows how I avoided being clipped by the rear end of a coach that didn’t seem to have any brakes. I recall with a nervous pallor, as the vehicle rumbled past me, out of the corner of my eye, the driver seemed to be ‘playing’ the steering wheel like a disc-jockey ‘scrubs’ a record – and the front of the coach turning back in before the rear end had passed me. But by then I had become ‘invulnerable’ 
– yeah! Hey I’ve got flashing rear lights they protect me. Throughout the ride I found myself almost permanently riding a narrow ‘corridor’ of the road, three or four feet from the edge of the kerb to avoid close-encounters from vehicles. In fact, for me this took a bit of focus that was most tiring.
At the 20 mile break I contact my video volunteer who is driving to meet me. We meet and do some video. I am in good spirits and loaded for the return trip. However, the outward trip had revealed a preponderance of ‘juggernaut-ness’ between Newtown and Welshpool - the first stage of my route. I decide to ride back only as far as Welshpool to avoid ‘Duelling’ with metal monsters. My driver goes off using his car odometer to re-calculate the distance I should be riding to make up my 61 miles.
And so the adventure goes on. Motorists flashing lights, sounding horns and giving signs of approval with thumbs-up gestures - some motorists even improvising with two fingered gestures. Worse were the people-carriers full of kids that slow down next to you, as close as any juggernaut, so the kids inside can gawp 
So, back to the riding stuff. Distance recalculated and another twenty miles is added in a blur of wind and rain, analgesic muscle rub, ibuprofen and diminishing light levels – especially in my brain. I recall glibly the satisfying feeling of hunkering down on the T7 and leaning into the wind – not!
In the end the video hints at impending doom. Starting out on the last 20 miles I felt fine as I mounted and set off in what was relatively quickly to become darkness. In my first year of unicycling most of the things I have done are new to me – happening for the first time. The whole Ride-Your-Age event was full of experiences I have never done before – that has made me a more experienced rider. I was completely ill-equipped for riding in the dark. Equally, the ubiquitous flow of traffic worried me because close-encounters of the daylight kind were now becoming close-encounters of the dark-side. I hadn’t minded impending-doom bearing down on me when I could see it coming but, joking apart, I had learnt during the day not to trust motorists.
I decided to abandon the ride approximately 200yds from the 45 mile marker because of the perceived traffic danger. By this time to see the road surface I was relying on the reflected light of passing and oncoming cars. Time was 4.15pm and driving back later I reflected on how in the longer summer days I had been out riding until 9.00 pm. Bit of a bummer in view of my 50 miler couple of months back. But, as an eternal optimist I look forward to a new year of longer and longer distance riding. At present I am not interested in getting equipped for night riding and I have a new 26” MUni to get acquainted with during daylight hours over the winter months. So my Ride-Your-Age attempt this time around stands at 72 Km or 360 Furlongs
Geoff, this is an amazing effort and an interesting tale. But it is too scary and dangerous. I think you should treat yourself to a trip to the Netherlands, where there are real bike paths and the wonderful flatness that we crave. Why not contact Klaas Bil for advice.
I rode a few km in near Geneva on similar roads, but only once AND they had a bike lane.