Cal Muni Weekend

General
21

It was great to meet a lot more of the faces behind the avatars this last weekend. I had a great time hanging out with everyone and sharing some fun and laughter. A special thanks to all those who flew out to make the event!

Can I say that I felt like a total ROCK STAR this weekend? Having the many videographers and photographers at every turn in the trail and hearing the camera shutter clicking off dozens of pics every time I took a big drop was something new for me. Getting LOADS of good food, drink and free schwag at the banquet was an extra treat. Kudos to the SB team! This weekend raised the bar for future events!

Even More Highlights:
Drew’s (Changinglinks) antics beside the campfire… this kid is a total ham!

Kicking the hackey-sack in near darkness after Friday’s dinner, watching it fly into the adjacent window, out into the street, or into the dinner crowd.

Saturday’s super-sweet trials course. Great obstacles and even better competition… everyone was having a blast. My first comp. ever!

“Sliding down” the Sunday trail… it could’ve been snow on some of those sections for all I knew :stuck_out_tongue:

You and me both. The trail was relentless, but for some odd reason I got more bumps and bruises from Sunday’s ride… probably because I rode a lot more of the trail, as opposed to dismount, push, mount, fall, repeat. :slight_smile:

…after saying a few times “I’m just not feeling the trials today” :smiley:

22

A great way to Start my MUni adventures!

Thank you to everyone who organized and participated in CALMUni weekend, I had a blast! I never really understood why everyone was soo hooked on MUni until I tried it this weeked for my first time. After you almost die and survive there is no going back! Not to mention Sunday’s much cooler ride where I went from riding 1 % on Friday to maybe 40% of the ride on Sunday! Special thanks to Morgan and the sweepers for all the encouragment and fun times going down the trails.

I uploaded some pictures into the gallery (I’m not sure if this is the address or not) of the trials event and a couple photos taken at the end of Sudays trail…enjoy!
http://www.unicyclist.com/gallery/?g2_view=core.ShowItem&g2_itemId=158427

-sara
the crazy girl who took a 20" inch torker down the trails

23

Ohh ya…And your torker didnt even have a trials tire…Wasnt that first half a pain in the rear on a 20…you had to pedal soo fast~!

24

Sounds like you all had an awesome time- really sucks to not have been able to come this year. Next year!!!

Kris.

25

We sure missed you Kris. I joked about you not having your priorities straight, but you certainly do. I hope to see you at the next one.

Scott

26

I gotta say, riding with such a large group was absolutely awesome. It was great to be able to meet everyone in person! (Texas group included.)

Obviously, newsgroup banter doesn’t even hold a candle to being there. It takes some real skill to navigate those trails, and the overall skill of the group was incredible. Making fun of mountain bikers for hike-a-biking the rock gardens on San Ysidro was priceless.

Big thanks to the hosts, and everyone who helped out! I hope Eyal’s neck is healing, though as of Sunday afternoon it looked like he was well taken care of:

http://www.unicyclist.com/gallery/?g2_view=core.ShowItem&g2_itemId=158474

Morgan had the best time too. By the end, her riding ability had grown visibly! She keeps saying she’ll start reading RSU, but the life of a Caltech graduate student is rather hectic.

Lest we forget, I feel obligated to remind everyone about a certain citation issued (wasn’t me) at the campground for showering naked in public. This is the stuff legends are made of.

Alright, who’s up for round 2 of Fat-Tire enhanced EXTREME Jenga? Gilby?

27

Wow two wheels, is that hard to ride?
Hey you put another wheel on your unicycle…wierd…How novelty…
YOU RODE THAT ON THE TRAIL!?

Who was saying all these to the mountain bikers…It was HILLARIUS!!! one of the funniest things Ive ever heard!

28

A few of my memorable moments:

As I was saying goodbye to Eyal on Sunday, Matt (myocardial) came flying off the end of the trail on his bike, crashed and slid into the middle of the street where we were standing. I am touched that he would make such an effort to get there before I left.:slight_smile: Thanks for the trail sweeping work you guys did.

I got to meet Andy Cotter and that hard working Pres of the U.S.A., Connie Cotter!

Jason’s (maestro8) street routine was very entertaining, especially after Drew proclaimed him to be the “Napolean Dynamite of street”.

The two local videos we watched at the banquet were excellent. John Long along with the others really provided good interview comments, and it was a chance to see the locals ride if you didn’t get to on the trail. Please let us know if either of those videos become available somehow.

Speaking of people we missed, there were many. John Childs, Greg Harper, Tom Blackwood, Ryan Atkins, Jagur, Carl Hoyer, John Hooten … okay I am not going to be able to name them all here but their absence was noticed and I hope they make it next year. Real life dictates that we can’t all be at every event, but that gives us a chance to talk about those that aren’t there anyway.
It is great that there was still a big turnout with many great new riders and personalities. The sport is growing, and continuing to attract new people that are cool to be around.

As for the shower incident, I wasn’t even there at the time, but somehow my name got attached to the rumor. I wondered why people were looking at me funny at the dinner on Friday night until Scot Cooper ask me about it. IT WASN’T ME!

Anxiously awaiting the photos from John Foss and the other pros,
Scott

29

IT WAS ALL GOOD.
It was a fun time. The trails were technical enough for me. I loved the vans taking us to the top. This Muni weekend is a great model for other Muni fest.
BIg mahalo to the Santa Barbara club and mahalo to the people that showed up to have a good time. aloha, Dani

30

Sorry, I’m responsible for that false rumor. I got names and faces completely mixed up. :frowning:

I think what happened is pretty clear now anyway (to those who attended! :smiley: )

31

I never heard about this?

32

I had a blast! I just want to thank everyone for making it happen and having it be such a great year. --corbin

33

I was either too busy riding or too tired to take a whole lot of photos, but my gallery is now up.

It was a great weekend. The top half of the trail on Friday was really technical and really hot; I felt tired, like I was dealing with altitude the whole time. After we made it into the canyon the riding got really nice, the switchbacks near the bottom were a blast. Saturday’s “easy” hike and ride (still quite technical, but mostly rollable as opposed to natural trials) was a lot of fun, and Sunday’s ride was solid fun pretty much all the way down, with just a couple of walking sections (for me).

Of course, on Sunday I got to ride my brand new KH XC, won in the raffle at the Saturday banquet. Definitely a highlight of the weekend for me! Thanks to KH for the donation, and to Eyal for pulling my ticket. The thing weighs a whole lot less than my Yuni 26x3" with Profiles, and I just sold my only real XC uni (29x2.1 with 150s and a NanoRaptor; I replaced it with a Big Apple 29er with 125s, more of a road machine). It’ll be great on most of the trails around the Bay Area, and now I’ll have a MUni to loan out for the group rides around Berkeley and Oakland.

This is always a great group of people to ride and hang around with; I’m sure my joints will again be functioning properly by the time we get to Moab. See you all then!

34

At Saturday nights group dinner someone downloaded a stack of digital stills that were then projected on the screen as a running slide show. Those were some impressive shots, and I hope whoever took them will post them.

Thanks,
JL

35

Speaking of which, John, can you provide a link to the site where all those photographers posted their pictures? I’m wondering how those came out, it seemed like their flashes went off during some excellent falls.

The nudity thing was simple: Someone, he can name himself, took a shower outdoors at the campsite and showed his bare rear. Someone didn’t like that, namely the ranger…

36

Hey, y’all! I was trying to hold out on any comments until I could furnish some photos for you guys, but I cracked under the pressure. I believe Glenn, the slideshow guy, will supply me with the slideshow photos soon. I am also expecting the Brooks photographers to send me a link when their stuff is up. But I’m sorry I don’t have anything for you yet.

While I’m here, I’ll take the opportunity to say THANKS from the SB Uni Club for all the positive feedback! I had an absolute blast. It was so great to see old friends again and make so many new ones. I only wish you were here a few more days because there are lots more great trails we could have ridden.

It looks like no one has published a chronology of the agenda yet, so here I go:

Thursday night - early arrivals BBQd at the great Hans’ house.

Friday morning

  • registration at Amtrak lot (people were too shy to bust out their unis)
  • shuttled to upper Cold Springs Trailhead
  • John gave intro speech
  • after dropping in, people disbursed fast, with Beau & others paving the way and Matt and Chris sweeping up the back
  • Eyal & Matt try to look cool sporting their flashy cb radios.
    Friday night - muni weekend riders take over the Beachbreak Cafe. I ate 2 dinners :slight_smile:

Saturday morning - registration (people finally bold enough to bust out unis)

  • ride option: Saddle Rock or McNenamy.
    Saturday afternoon - Uni Comp at Summerland Preserve

Comp Winners: 22 points possible
Trials Experts

Ben Plotkin-Swing 22
Bevan Gerber-Siff 20
Brian Cameron 19
Jess Reigel 18
Erik Doane 18
Jeff (sorry, which one?) 17
Justin Abbott 17
Cody Williams 16
Jason Heimann 12
Jake Sprague 12
Corbin Dunn 12
Brian Lundgren 9

Trials - non Expert
Brian Maw 11
Beau Hoover 10
Colin Daw 9
Scott Bond 8
Evan Byrne 7
Trey Miller 7
Rod Wylie 5
Matt Aaron 3
Kyle Johnson 3

Street Freestyle
1 - Justin Abbott
2 - Brian Lundgren
3 - Evan Byrne
4 - Bevan Gerber-Siff
5 - Jess Riegel
6 - Cody Williams
7 - Jason Heimamm
8 - Eric Doane
9 - Corbin Dunn

Saturday eve - banquet at Chase Palm Park Center.
Premiere of Dorothy Littlejohn’s One on One.
Premiere of Brooks students’ Uni documentary
Premiere of Dan Heaton’s Defect

Mass giveaway, sponsored by:
Simple
Horny Toad
Santa Barbara Outfitters


Kris Holm
Bedford
Velo Pro
Don’t forget, Fat Tire Ale courtesy of New Belgium

Tom Holub wins the new KH Cross Country muni.

Sunday morn - shuttle to San Ysidro trail

  • people swim in swimming hole
  • Jess uni’s off a rock into the water
  • Trey (aka Stitches) attempts death-defying acrobatics off the side of a 25 ft cliff
  • ride ends when Matt skids out of a turn onto the asphault
  • Andy does Shiatzu on my strained neck at a burger joint in Summerland
  • the end

So much I left out.

Now fess up, naked shower man - who are you??? :slight_smile:

-Eyal

37

Well, I have no intention of outing anyone, however I can give some hints: He doesn’t post on here, and this was his first muni weekend for a while, I beliee since 1998.

You sure there were 22 possible lines? Maybe I didn’t see one… Meh, whatever, it was still a blast.

38

gerblefranklin - I looked up your Trials card (somehow I ended up taking the silly things home) and you missed number 5 and 15 of the trials lines.

#5 was next to #4 - both started with a skinny log, but #4 was easy as you just had to ride to the end. For #5, you had to gap from the end of #4 to the second log and ride to the end of that log. These were on the far right of the whole course.

#15 was next to #14 and used much of the same equipment. My notes don’t explain it very well, but it had something to do with black boxes & ramps. Josh was judging these two sections and could possibly explain them better. Or possibly Ben PS may remember the two lines.

One of my favorite lines to watch was the log with the notches cut into it … once people figured out that a 24" or larger wheel was the unicycle of choice for that obstacle, it became a possible line, rather than (almost) impossible. My other favorite used the concrete wall.

Connie

39

My photos are up!

Yup, they’re actually online less than a week after the event! In fact, I actually uploaded them on Tuesday. I only just got them linked in my web site today though. Go straight there:
http://unicycling.smugmug.com/gallery/894030

Remember, if you see something you like you can order prints from Smugmug. Help me pay for my photography addiction.

I’m working on adding my camera’s video clips as well. Still trying to work out a conversion solution. The guys at Smugmug are helping, but something is going wrong with their recommended software. Remember I’m using a Mac. Any suggestions? Smugmug only uses MPEG-1 for maximum compatibility. My camera shoots .avi.

Hey, back to the photography addiction. I think it may have just paid off! A few months back I entered a photo competition at the Kodak EasyShare Gallery (formerly Ofoto) for pictures with a Summer theme. I chose summer unicycling of course, a shot from NAUCC last summer:
http://unicycling.smugmug.com/gallery/214466/5/8808448
Looks like I won the grand prize, a trip to Cozumel, Mexico for up to 4 people and 5K spending money (less a hefty tax penalty). Wow! Now I’m waiting for the paperwork to get handled to make sure it’s really true…

Yes, I probably said that at least once during the weekend…

40

Hey, Connie, I guess I did miss a line… I knew I didn’t do the log gap line. By the time I got to it there were only a few minutes left to the comp and there were some other lines I felt like doing more… As for #15, I don’t know what that one was, but whatever. It was still a fun course.

As for the notched log one, by the time I noticed a 24" wheel was better I couldn’t get my muni to act right. I was too accustomed tot he trials wheel. In the end I pedalgrabbed the third notch and then went directly to pedal on the box. It was easier than dealing with precision on my tire…