Hmmm, maybe if we can find someone silly enough to try to organise it…
Apparently jugglers are fantastic at organising things…
I had a really good time despite the grim weather on Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning - it turned out my efforts at seam sealing my old tent weren’t that successful 
I got there mid-afternoon on Friday, registered, put up my tent (in the dry, which I wasn’t expecting after seeing the rather pessimistic forecast :)), drank some beers, chatted and generally relaxed. Then we all gathered in the conference room for the evening, had a unicycle concours competition, decided not to have a marathon race but a more casual road ride instead. Played with a giant wooden puzzle the Buff man had brought. Dropped a giant wooden puzzle piece on my foot. Drank more beer.
Saturday morning was still dry and a few of us set off on a road ride down to Wareham and back, with a few little detours, which ended up at a very pleasant 16 miles. Liam is still using SPDs on his coker and still has all his limbs intact. Got back, ate some food, watched some trials, played around with GK’s Schlumpf 29er, then the rain and wind really set in. I spent some time attempting to minimise the porosity of my tent before giving up and just moving all the bedding away from the worst of the drips. Then another evening in the conference room, with the video competition, UUU meeting, raffle and the like.
Sunday morning, woke up in a soggy sleeping bag in a pool of water, with water dripping onto my face… OK, well at least it wasn’t too cold. Stuffed the tent into a couple of bin liners, shoved it in the back of the car and off to the muni venue near Puddletown. By this time the rain had stopped and ten of us had a fun time playing in the bomb holes and singletrack for a couple of hours. After slipping on some “ice” (Dan thought I was mad…) I discovered my hub had finally given up the ghost after four years of abuse. I expected the axle to snap at one of the ends (it’s a square-taper hub), but what actually failed was the attachment of the flanges to the axle, so the flanges just rotate about the axle like a free-wheel. Bummer. A few of us had some entertainment trying to ride it, then I jogged my way back following the group, apart from a short stint on Kevin’s old KH24 when he fancied a rest. We eventually made it back to the car park after a few wrong guesses at where we came from (we weren’t lost, we were exploring…)
So, a very enjoyable weekend - thanks to Anna and co for organising it. I met lots of people I sort of knew but hadn’t actually met before, and a few more I didn’t know at all. Tried some things I hadn’t done before (although my muni didn’t appreciate that :o), and generally had an excellent time. Shame about all the rain on Saturday, but you can’t have everything.
Rob
Edd,
those pics are awesome, the one of our rave in Joe van sums it up for me.
Great weekend, really looking forward to the next one. Might be up for getting a ride organised down south before then.
Jason
P.S.
Paul Tasker is my Hero!
Lad 4 Life!!!
Video comp was fun. Concourse comp helped get friday evening going. Hockey was fun as ever. Freestyle happened dispite obstacles. muni- I chickened out of in teh rain and went swimming instead.
A good BUC, if rather differnt to the past few years.
I was glad I was staying in a caravan not a tent made for much warmer evenings babysitting.
WHo did win teh various catorgaries on the concourse comp? ditto all the other comps I had to go before results were given.
I had a really great weekend. The hockey was super fun and worked well despite my rubbish initial schedule. Thanks to Rocket for doing it properly. I think we surprised a few people with our performance (and ourselves a little too).
The Muni in Puddletown woods yesterday was excellent. We found some great bits to play on despite having no idea of the area or where we were most of the time. Of course we were never lost though 
Muni with other unicyclists is a bit of a novelty for me. I really enjoyed yesterdays ride and think we should all make an effort to organise more Muni rides/weekends in the future. It doesnt take much, find a good campsite, maybe have an idea of some good routes and tell people in plenty of time… Who’s first?
To those I met and half-met, i’m Dan, camped next to the white mini, and as the other Dan pointed out was mostly seen in orange.
anyway some great times, big thanks to Anna and all the rest that helped.
Dan
I won best Paint job Stephen Devereux won freestyle and Joe Hodges won Trials. Im not sure about the others as I was running the stall when all the awards were given out.
Rachael
Mmmm, lovely pics Edd! Its a shame the pictures dont do the rave justice. Its hard to capture the atmosphere of the strobe!
Will you video from the video comp be avaliable online?
All I can say is watch this space!!
I brought up BMW at the UUU AGM (thats British Muni Weekend at the Union of United Kingdom Unicyclists Annual General Meeting!!), and turns out it was never like BUC, and just organised as and when.
I plan to bring it back. It will take a lot of work, but I think there would be plenty of interest for more regular muni and trials and street weekends.
Joe,
A chilled (and at times, very chilly) BUC.
Great to meet all the people that I’ve met before again and to meet the people I haven’t met before for the first time.
The close proximity of my Sam to the arcades wasn’t the funnest part of the weekend, nor was being told that my team (of whom I was the only member in throughout and Liam for most of it) didn’t count in the hockey 
Still, it was great to be able to play.
Fun, fun, fun.
Yep I remember you mentioning (heckling) something about BMW and it got me thinking about it all. I’m watching 
Yeah, I was a bit dissapointed, I shot a few videos of the rave but you can’t really see alot.
Our video is here: BUC Video - Friends
Edd
My weekend was pretty similar to Rob’s report above, including a leaky tent I spent Saturday afternoon attempting to play hockey and learn to wheelwalk though rather than watching trials in the rain! I had a great time despite the cold and rain, met loads of new people, and did tons of riding. I’m looking forward to the next one already!
The other competition results were Spencer’s titanium Schlumpf 29er winning ‘Most desirable uni’ in the concours comp, and the rusty 4-wheeler (don’t know whose it was) winning ‘Most used and abused’ and also ‘Best home-made modification’, Marcus Collings won the video comp(I think), Danny won junior freestyle, Tom won junior trials, and Lunis won the hockey.
On the subject of muni weekends, some of us on Sunday were discussing having one in the Surrey Hills sometime next year, probably based around the Dorking/Holmbury area. Anyone else think that would be a good idea?
Sounds good to me.
I’m up for doing another one on Dartmoor if people want it. Trouble is if it’s wet the rideable routes get a bit limited (river crossings, stepping stones and bogs get too dangerous) - which at the moment seems like all the time
But there’s the Okehampton bike trails (including some north shore apparently), near where we’re hoping to have BUC next year and possibly more stuff to the north of the moor that I could investigate. And anyway the gravelly/rocky stuff around Princetown is always good whatever the weather if people don’t mind riding similar routes to the last time - I ride them all the time and haven’t got bored of them yet.
Rob
EDIT: I vote for somebody coughSamcough to do a Welsh muni weekend on some of the big bike trails - I’ve only ridden one of them (Penmachno I think) and it was superb.
Yeah is good idea. I had a bunch of weekends round there years back, but they were pretty low key - people kipping on my floor. Is there a campsite that doesn’t require organisation in advance? Or does anyone live near enough to there to have a floor / garden that people could sleep on / put tents up in?
I’ve not ridden round there for almost 2 years now, so my trail knowledge might be a bit out of date, but I do know a lot of the stuff that is there.
Also, Joe - in terms of organising a BMW - it’s quite easy, all you need to do is run it outside the main school holidays, and find a campsite that is not going to be full, near some riding and a pub. The key thing when I organised it, was finding a campsite that didn’t require advance booking. Once you’ve checked with the campsite, you announce that a BMW is going to happen, and a date, and that is all the organising you have to do until the weekend. On the actual weekend, you need to plan a few rides. You need to have something for the regular muni riders who will happily do 20-30 miles of technical riding, and something for the people who only ride muni at BMW, who will probably do 5 miles or so in a day and be knackered after. On ones I’ve organised, I like to make this a bit technical still, so the trials people can go along and session stuff or whatever it is they do, and so people are pushed a bit by the riding.
I haven’t organised a BMW for ages, because I’ve been quite limited in terms of riding time in the UK. I’ve also been doing most of my riding in the Peak District, which would suck as a venue for BMW, as there are pretty much no sensible short rides, and it’s mainly too technical for beginners.
The great thing about announcing a muni weekend as being a BMW is that you get tons of people turning up, which is fun. The downside is that you get tons of people turning up. This means you have to split into multiple groups - and you need someone to organise a slow group. This is fine if you have trials riders around, as they can still have fun whilst going as slow as the slow people, or parents / sensible adults in the slow group but isn’t fine if you have some poor fast person having to lead a slow ride*. Whatever you do, don’t organise a big 30 person muni ride for everyone who comes, as that will just be sooooo slow for the fast people and stress out the slow people.
Joe
*like, don’t let Roger organise your slow ride!
The family with the 4-wheeler ‘thing’ was the Goodfellows - or something similar. Also, the best paint job award in the concourse was Rachel from UDC.
I had a fantastic time, but have to admit that my tent is currently taking up large amounts of airing space in the living room, the spare bedroom and the lobby. With hindsight, maybe I took it down at the height of the rain, and should have left it up until after the Monkey World trip. But, hey, that’s hindsight for ya!
STM
I was lazy and couldn’t be bothered to clear up the camp before I went on the muni ride. By the time I got back from muni the rain had stoppped and the wind had dried the tent out. Flukey eh!
You know what they say; Hard work pays off in the long run. But lazyness pays off now!
I wish I’d been more lazy
STM
Count us in for that. My parents are in the area so Paul and I might both be able to ride. There is Youth hostel in area.
NO I’m NOT organizing it. I did the 1st 2 BMWs, its someone elses turn.