I’ve already signed up for the All-You-Can-Eat Century Ride which is September 20, 2008 out of Huntsville, Alabama (my home town). I chose to ride the metric option (really 64 miles) on my 36er. As misery loves company I’m throwing the invitation out there to any other would be masochists in the region who would like to join me. For more information please go to: http://www.springcity.org/century/index.shtml
The course is fairly low traffic and no major hill climbs. The time limit is 8 1/2 hours and the course is fully sagged with a few aid stops and a pasta feed after the ride.
Hope to ride with some other unicyclists out there in September,
i read the link you had and it sounds interesting . do riders have to ride the entire length? or can they just ride till they are tired? i know of 2 more people in the area that might do it if they can ride for fun .
Cool. I think you have to ride the entire length where by length I mean:
23, 52, 64, 86 or 102 miles. Of course there will be a “sag” wagon following behind everybody and making frequent passes up and down the road so I imagine you could ride until you were tired and get a ride back to the start? Not sure about that, but I suppose that is how these things work I’m not a very experienced road rider? sorry. Anyhow my goal is the 64 mile so come on out if you want, perhaps if you can have someone with a car you could switch out frequently and do one of the ride distances like a relay, Ride The Lobster style?
Incidently I’m going to be riding my 36er during the ride portion of the Huntsville Sprint Triathlon on August 16th: http://www.hsvsprinttri.hiwaay.net/
I’ve done this triathlon in the past on a much slower unicycle. You guys should register and come ride? It’s only a 6 mile flat road ride. However you will have to run 3 miles cross-country first and finish with a 400m swim!!
Go to that website, and there is a link at the left for “Route Map”. If you’ll look at the map, everyone goes on the same route, only the shorter routes cut off at different points. This means you can start off on a longer route and if you get pooped, you can switch to a shorter route. This is fairly typical of the route layouts used. In a lot of cases, they ask you which route you’re doing, but nobody checks it or cares if you switch. (They’d much rather you switch routes than to have to haul you back in a van!)
I’ve done a number of these charity rides on a bicycle, and they are fun. It lets you ride places you woudln’t normally ride, get out with other people, have convenient rest stops, etc.
I went on one ride here in the Dallas area, and took my reverse-trike cargo trike on the 16 mile route. I took about 2 hours to ride 16 miles, but I still passed a number of people. On the other hand, you’ll have people trying to do a 100 miles in 4 hours. So no matter how fast or slow you go, you’ll have other people doing sort of the same thing.
Here in north Texas, there is a web site, www.bicycle-stuff.com, that has calendars and photos and even reviews of a lot of these types of rides. If you look around, you may can find similar sites for other areas. Also, local biking clubs often have these rides listed on their website.
No problem. If anybody is ever in the Huntsville, Alabama area and would like to muni some trails just drop me a line. I ride the trails around Monte Sano quite a bit (not so much at the moment because it’s so hot and the trails are over-grown and covered with spider webs, yuck!), especially in the Fall and Spring…
hey again this is somewhat off subject. Have you done any critical mass rides here in Huntsville? i am thinking about doing one but after searching the forums i have heard less then pleasant things about peoples experiences with critical mass rides.
I’ve never been in a CM ride, but after reading about them, don’t have a lot of desire to get involved. I think the idea is good, but the execution is off, and teh end result is not always very positive for cycling.
Less than 3 weeks to go now before my first attempt at a road 100km unicycle ride. This past Sunday I did a fairly comfortable 50km ride on my 36er (125mm cranks) in around 2hours 44minutes. I’d go further in training but I just don’t have the time! Anyhow I’m feeling pretty confident about covering 100km within the time limit of 8 1/2 hours. Anybody around northern Alabama it’s not too late to come on out…
Well I did it! I accomplished my goal of completing a metric century on my 36" unicycle!! I covered the 100km distance (~62 miles) in five hours and forty five minutes. I’ll write some more later after I get some more rest and have a bit more time…
All You Can Eat Metric Century!!! 62 miles in 5h 47m!!!
The route takes you through the country side and farm lands of northern Alabama and into southern Tennessee and back. Essentially a long, skinny North-South loop. The hills were almost non-existent and the traffic fairly thin except for a couple of busier sections. With all the turns and road crossings I expected to have to dismount fairly frequently to wait on traffic; to my surprise I made it all the way around the course without having to dismount at a turn or intersection. Typically your line of site was pretty good so I could either speed up or slow down so I’d hit the turn or intersection with a free pass.
Anyhow, I started out in the very back with a bunch of slow riders on mountain bikes. I soon realized this was a bit too slow and passed them all on the first slight incline! The road was a bit damp from an early morning rain so I was cautious in this first section. It was also in this first section that I saw the most traffic with the least courteous drivers. Typical for this pedestrian unfriendly part of the world!! So after around an hour and a half I arrived a bit tired at the first aid station ~19 miles. I was suprised to see my wife and one of my running buddies at the aid station. They had driven out to find me!
So a bit psyched up I started on the next 17 mile leg to the next aid station. This was a long section but it was made much easier when my co-worker Jody rode the whole next section with me on his mountain bike! This next section was all in southern Tennessee and amazingly the traffic thinned out nicely and what motorists there were were much more friendly! Still it was a long section and I was happy to get to the next checkpoint at 36 miles! By then I knew I was going to finish I really just needed the psychological boost of getting over the half-way point.
The next section to the final aid station at ~51 miles I was all alone again. However I was occasionally overtaken by some of the full century riders as I was now on the common inbound leg for all the riders. Man what beautiful country this was, rolling farm land and some deep woods. Not to the standard of Aspen Mike’s rides but not bad for the south flat lands! I rode this section fairly strong and arrived at the next aid stop a little bit spent. My legs seemed to be holding up, but I still don’t think I had the seat adjusted quite right as I was having quite a bit of crotch pain. But I quickly learned numbness is a good thing!
Anyways I called home real quick to give a status update to my wife i.e. I wasn’t dead, then I was back in the saddle, sore crotch and all, and on my way on the last section to the finish. I rode the whole way with my Garmin GPS which seemed to be tracking with the queue sheet fairly nicely so I knew how far I had left to go. Still the course designers started putting out mileage to go markers at every turn which was kind of nice! Did I say this course was not very hilly? Well for the first 60 miles that was true! All of a sudden the course turned to the right and up and up! With fresh legs I might have been able to ride my 36er up this hill with my 125mm cranks but this hill was just a bit too steep and my tired legs a bit too trashed. I made it perhaps half way up and then lost it and went over the front!! I scraped my knee but really this wasn’t too bad a UPD. I really tried to get up that final hill! So then I just got up and jogged up the incline pushing my 36er ahead of me. I had my next UPD (really a PD) shortly thereafter because I now had to go down a simularly steep hill! Well even with a brake it was too much for my tired legs and I started to feel like I was getting out of control so I just popped off the back and ran part way down the steeper part of the hill and then remounted. Such drama in the final miles! After that it was an easy sprint to the finish to little fanfare; just the clock and a couple course monitors! Most people were in the cafeteria of the high school eating there large meal (hence the All You Can Eat race name) or had gone home by this point! Still the radio operators said there were still over 60 cyclists still out there so I wasn’t the absolute last person out there! In fact I finished up right behind that early group of Boy Scouts I’d passed, and they had done the 50 mile option! So I’d made up 12 miles on them!
Overall I’d highly recommend this route as it really is fairly tame in terms of hills and traffic. Just a few places were the traffic was a little sketchy and that last incline/decline in the final miles weren’t very fun. Still I now feel a lot more confident about taking on a 100 miler sometime in the near future!
It’s that time of year again. September 19, 2009. For any long distance unicyclists in the South East the All-You-Can-Eat Century Ride is a well organized event with many different ride options of 35, 50, 65, 74 and 103 miles. I’m planning on riding the 65 mile (metric century+) option this year. Come and join me if you like.
Bump.
Ok so we’re just a week away from this years ride and the route maps have finally been posted: http://www.springcity.org/century/index.shtml
I’m going to be doing the “52” mile option as the “60” mile option is really 58 (not a true metric century and I already did a real one at last year’s event) and involves an even larger loop w/o aid than the 52 mile option (which actually is 52 miles!) … Anyhow if anybody is interested in joining me, drop me a line here or PM me. I’ll post a report and picts after the fact.
What kind of seat-post/saddle combination do you have? I used to have saddle numbness issues until I purchased a seat-post that allows you to tilt the saddle forward or backward (up or down), something along the lines of: http://www.unicycle.com/shopping/shopexd.asp?id=602
Bottom line is, for me at least (and many others on this forum would agree), you need to adjust your saddle such that you’re sitting more on your butt and less on your “stuff.” The amount of adjustment varies, but when you find that sweet spot you’ll find you can ride for miles and miles. True, before I was able to make adjustments I could not ride very long w/o discomfort.
This give you a place to put your hands as you ride, allows you to adjust your self to relieve discomfort and helps when climbing/descending hills…
I hope this helps.
BTW I’m not so sure about riding 50+ miles this weekend as I’m pretty exhausted from running high mileage in preparation for a 100 mile foot race a few weeks away… Still I’ve got a plan to “finally” ride the Silver Comet / Chief Ladiga Trail (100 miles) later this Fall. http://www.pathfoundation.org/index.cfm?event=showSilverComet
Letting things go numb is bad. Sports doctors tell pro cyclist to stand at least 10% of the time to maintain circulation. Learn to ride standing in the saddle. Then you stand before getting numb and only stop for potty breaks. If you can control water intake you could ride all day without stopping except when traffic dictates. I’ve done 60 miles with out stopping.
Since running and MUni is out of the question for me for the next several months (stress fracture in my heel) I’ve been doing a lot of road riding so I figured why not train for something?
So I’m going to attempt the 50 mile option on my KH24 GUni (137mm cranks, though I may get some 125mm before ride day).
So anybody around that wants to join me come on, there are options for 35, 50, 59, 67 and 106 miles with plenty of sag support and a great meal after the ride.
Just registered for the 50 Mile options, about all I care to eat I think… Though if I’m feeling froggy I may upgrade to the metric century, but I’m thinking 50 miles will be more than enough!
i hope so but i will have to see thanks for the info
Though if I’m feeling froggy I may upgrade to the metric century, but I’m thinking 50 miles will be more than enough!