For future planning, don’t miss this great event in Auburn (foothills above Sacramento) next May 1, 2011. This put on by the Global Biorhythm guys who did the recent Muni race in Cool.
This race is bigger (it’s a pre-Amgen race) so we will need at least 10 racers to have our own division with medals on the podium as in Cool. Come out and race - criterium racing is the best on uni!
The course is 0.97 miles long, basically two triangles. There is only 23 feet (7m) of climbing and descent on each half of the course. Here is the KML you can view in GoogleEarth.
We haven’t decided how many laps, but it will be at least two and possibly 3 or even 4. Bring your fastest uni!
Oooh, looks like fun. Looks like my kind of course. I’m definitely interested. It’s hard to make a commitment for something 6 months away, but I won’t have any other races conflicting with this one, so chances are good that I could make it.
Personally, I vote for the 3 or 4 lap version. The longer the better.
This looks like SO MUCH FUN. I couldn’t make the SF crit this summer, and this one is only a couple hours from where I live… Barring any unforeseen life changes that make me not live here by then (highly unlikely), I’m totally in! Just need to make sure to have a working uni…
Chuck, aside from the pre-race blow out, what happened to your uni? (That was very dramatic, by the way.)
Nathan, will the course really be set up so that it crosses in the middle? Or could we just go clockwise all the way around with out crossing in the middle? I’m assuming that the unicyclists would have the course all to themselves and there would be no bikes sharing the course. Is that true?
I am seriously going through some uni-withdrawals here. Aside from the tire blowout, I got a useless/cracked T7 bar, missing spoke hole ripped out of the flange, and some pedals I can’t get out of my moment inserts… nothing too crazy, just a PITA to get the parts, and my scheduling algorithms haven’t evolved themselves to include maintenance around a full-time job…
It’d be super, super fun to have a uni race at a bike race! I would very, very much hope, though, that we unicyclists don’t race with the bikes. Even the beginner bike crits are way faster and more twitchy than anything I think anybody could pull off on a uni, and we’d just be a huge liability to them at best. Most likely, we’d all get lapped with a few laps, and then get plucked out of the race by the officials to keep the course clear for the pack. I’m totally sure we could get 10 racers… how many were at the SF crit in August?
And hey Scott! How’s Irvine treating you still? And Nathan, I was cursing myself for having no motorcycle when you guys did your fullmoonlight ride… working on that. Geoff, yeah, I agree that longer is better. I mean, the bike races are probably going to be 40 minutes to more than an hour! But cruising around at speed is much easier for them…
Reed, this would be a great race to cut your teeth in. Unicyclists don’t eat their young (usually). If you can ride a few miles at a good pace then you’re golden. Everyone is a winner. Get the experience taking part in a race. You’ll be glad you did. You’ll also get to meet some of your fellow riders that you’ve seen online.
Chuck, at the SF crit I think we had four heats with 10 to 15 people per heat. Here’s a pic of the starting line up of the expert unlimited heat. I count 11 wheels in the picture including the edge of one on the left. There may have been a couple more to the left of the frame. If we keep bumping this thread for the next six months I’m sure we could get 10 people to show up.
Time to bump this thread. Just wanted to remind all you west coast speedsters of this great opportunity to ride around in triangles.
Got your guni fixed yet, Chuck?
How many people are in?
