I presume it was beaten at Unicon in the marathon and probably during RTL but not officially recorded
Isn’t that fairly simple: if the route is messured at a certain length (10 km for 10 k, 42,195 km for marathon) then it counts. Then the unicon-hosts (or anybody else hosting a race) may decide if they want a hilly route with less record-setting potentiel, or a complete flat route with a lot of potential for going at high speed. - the only thing is that the start and the finish should be, if not the same place, then at least in the same height, so one don’t get a going downhill advantage.
This has to be one of the best threads ever!
I thought about running a Schlumpf on my jackshafted design, but what a handful that would be! The highest ratio I ever rode was 2:1, and that was too much for me. At a 1.89 ratio on the 36" (22t x 16t cogs), you’re only turning 88 rpm at 15mph, and 118 rpm at 20mph. So a 3:1 gear ratio would have an ungodly slow cadence at any speed under 25mph.
I have no idea if the current Hour holder Patrick Schmidt(sp?) was on a direct drive or guni. I know Ken Looi and Sam Wakeling were on direct drive. I do not even know if anyone else besides myself has attempted The Hour on a guni. I heard someone from The Netherlands was supposed to…
The point of my attempt 3 1/2 years ago at an advanced age was to introduce the guni as a race machine. I was running in the low 15mph range before my fall near the end, and would say that I was “in shape” at the time (i.e. it wasn’t all guni doing the work). Yes, the recent races involving gunis have run faster, but someone needs to get out there and make an official run.
Pete
Thanks for the support, Joe. 
The same way that the running marathon records are set on different courses with variable terrain. Some courses are fast, and thus conducive to world record times being set. Others are slower.
It would be harder to define an off-road world record…as what constitutes off-road is pretty variable. But for road records, I don’t think terrain is a factor except to say that some courses would be very hard to set record times on.
The Unicon 13 marathon was not even 42.2km, it was 43km.
Thanks for that Dustin. It looks great. I actually would like to get all the IUF records up on a website along with some proper IUF criteria for people wanting to set official IUF records. We had an IUF records committee a while ago it seemed to just fizzle out.
Thanks for separating out geared and ungeared. I think it will be important for historical reference.
Time to get it going again.
A little off topic…
What are the rules for the hour record, or any of the current records? Couldn’t I simply start my ride at the top of a mountain and have a much easier time setting the hour record? Same thing goes for the 100 mile record. Starting at the top of a mountain with a nice slight decline for 10 miles or so and then making the rest of the ride a flat valley ride would surely be the way to go instead of a circular flat track. I cant think of a geographical example right now, but I am sure there are some areas in the US to accomodate this. What are the rules regarding those records, if any?
I think there needs to be strict criteria for measuring unicycling hour records. Point to point records are too hard to measure (?maybe by GPS), but there needs to be rules about elevation gain, wind direction, drafting etc.
When I set my 24hr record, I had to use a surveyor to certify that the tract I used was 443m at it’s innermost circumference (where the measurement is taken from). Also it was flat and a circuit which therefore minimised any wind assisted advantage. It is also different to RTL and the Unicon Marathons where people ended up drafting (except for Chuck who rode off the front!).
For my 24hr record, I followed the criteria Guinness sent me, simply because the IUF didn’t have any that I could use.
However, I think that’s one of the priorities for this years IUF exec (will speak to Connie about this), but we need to set some criteria so that each record can be comparable.
Some of the Guinness criteria I had to fulfil:
Evidence of record:
-Witnesses- I needed signatures from a certain number of witnesses, and people of standing in the local community (including the local sports minister)
-Photographs of the track and during the event
-Videos during the ride
-Media coverage of the record attempt
Measurement:
-I had two witnesses tally every single lap I did and countersign each tally mark
-We used two stopwatches
-I used a surveyor to measure the inner circumference of the track
-The track was a circuit with no elevation gain or loss
-I sent in the district plan for the track and also an aerial photograph
-I did not do any drafting (not a Guinness criteria I don’t think, but I specifically did not want to ride in anyones slipstream)
Patrick rode a standard Coker with 114mm cranks, around a 400m athletics track.
Didn’t the two previous record holders just do it nonstop on the road somewhere (noncircular track)?
Why would a rule be introduced late in the game to add more constraints?
I know that Lars Clausen did it point to point for his 24hr record. That is why it should be up to the IUF to set these criteria. For Guinness it depends who you speak to, when you spoke to them, and then they set the rules. I think I had stricter rules than Lars had to follow, however it was the best available at the time. I don’t think the IUF even had any! To me, it makes sense to do it on a circuit for accurate measurement, and also the evidence that Guinness required (witnesses etc) also seem sensible in order to verify a record.
It does not invalidate any previous record, but it certainly means that future records have a more accurate reference point, once the criteria has been set. Otherwise, as you say, anyone could find a mountain with a gradual downhill and go for the hour record.
Yeah, I’m in favor of requiring circuits for these kinds of records. Point to point, even if level, can make wind into an advantage. Also, regarding the hour record on a slight downhill, that wouldn’t be so cool if it were possible; haha, I sure hope it’s not. I know the perfect spot for such a fast hour, too: Southbound Highway 9 in California starting from the top of the hill where it intersects Highway 35. It’s a 2,000 foot 8-mile descent followed by 12 miles of light rollers, still averaging downhill in a maybe 1% amortized grade. I did that a few weeks ago and put away 19.9 miles in the first hour after reaching the top of Highway 9… I know that’s faster than I would’ve gone had it been flat. (obviously!)
As far as rules for the hour record (and longer records) are concerned, I’m in favor of requiring a circuit, but not necessarily a circuit where the entire route is visible from a single point. I’m a fan of, say, maybe a 2- to 10-mile circuit with checkpoints throughout the route to measure fractions of a lap. Obviously, if it’s a timed record, like an hour or 24-hour, then you’d round the distance down to the last “whole fraction” you completed. This gives a good bit of open road to just drop the hammer and go without having to worry about a turn coming up in 100 meters. I’m eyeballing some circuits of totally flat open country roads in California’s central valley to see if I could use them to try to tackle some of these records.
I do want to do an hour record and a mile record soon, as well as a hundred-mile attempt. I think the mile and the hour are slam dunks for anyone with a geared uni, while the hundred mile should be “totally doable” but will be quite tiring. I think it’d be pretty possible to shave an hour or so off the hundred mile record with a good run, but it’s so easy to bonk toward the end of a long ride like that…
(note - in my head I’m defining “circuit” as any route that brings you back to where you started, even if it’s an out-'n-back kind of thing.)
Oh, yeah, I think that a circuit should be required for everything but the mile record; for the mile record, I think straight road should be allowed, but if you choose to use a straight road, then you should have to do it twice within an hour or something, once in each direction, and average the results. This removes wind, but allows you to just GO GO GO GO GO AHHHHHHH GOOOO!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! … stop. 
(I’m also in favor of a flying start for the mile record, as long as it was from flat ground… but I understand if that wouldn’t fly.)
Also… whoever mentioned that ungeared records should apply in the geared category was totally right, I think. If an ungeared rider pwns everyone on a GUni, the ride belongs in the GUni category. Methinks that the categories should be “limited” and “ungeared” and “unlimited” instead of specifically “geared”. This way, if someone beats all the records on a 24"/125mm setup, they’ll have owned all three categories… muhuahauahaaa.
Oh and Dustin, those records look good to me. I love that you’re preserving the history of who had what, when. Hopefully this can never die! Every time a record is broken, we should preserve its history! It’s cool to see that, because I wasn’t really aware of the histories at all. BTW, from where are you obtaining your information?
Maybe until you have the details, you should remove the female marathon record that you list now because it’s obsolete. In the 2008 unicon marathon, all three female medal winners were faster than me, and I did 1:55:55. I don’t know if the unicon 2008 female winner (Signe) set a new world record though.
It isn’t that doing 13mph on a geared unicycle isn’t impressive - it just isn’t world class - as is shown by the fact it is so much lower than the ungeared record Ken set by accident at pretty much exactly the same date. With the increased speeds everyone has been riding since then, it is way way behind what people are riding now. In the RTL time trial, that speed would have got you about 20th, except that RTL was on a course with hills, on crowded roads (loads of overtaking for fast riders), with wind, with traffic, in the middle of a massive thunderstorm. Realistically, anyone in the top 40 or 50 riders in the time trial would have a good chance at the listed geared hour record.
It was an impressive demonstration that geared unicycles could be ridden fast though - probably the first time anyone had an inkling that gears could get us going this fast.
Personally I think Chuck is right - there shouldn’t be a situation where a rider finishes a race behind people with worse equipment than him, yet still has a chance at a ‘geared record’, it should just be non-geared and unlimited records. I guess that also applies to Tony Melton’s records listed in the geared category - he’s jolly fast, but if I remember it right he was 4th or 5th or something in that race, behind a bunch of ungeared riders, which makes it a bit of a silly record.
Joe
But the same applies in reverse. There were some very impressive ungeared times at this years Unicon marathon, only slightly outside of the ungeared record. Does the fact that they were beaten by a bunch of Schlumpfs make their rides any less impressive? I don’t think so.
Separating ungeared and geared does not mean that they can’t be compared with each other. You can quite easily see that the ungeared times were faster than the geared times at the Unicon 13 marathon.
I’m still in favour of separating the categories: limited; then unlimited ungeared and geared. But perhaps with the ungeared and geared as subsets of the unlimited record.
No it doesn’t - gears give people an advantage (that much is clear from Ride the Lobster). If that wasn’t the case, then we wouldn’t be having this discussion at all.
This means that an ungeared person riding any particular speed is more impressive than a geared rider riding the same speed. So, coming 4th in a race ungeared behind 3 Schlumpfs is very impressive.
But it also means that a geared rider riding a particular speed is way less impressive than an ungeared rider riding the same speed. So, coming 4th in a race geared behind 3 ungeared riders is less impressive.
Like Chuck says, now we’ve shown geared to be > ungeared, using the ‘anything goes’, the ‘anything except gearing goes’ categories make much more sense than ‘geared’ and ‘ungeared’. It’s also consistent with the existing ‘unlimited’, ‘limited’ categories - at some point not too long back the hour record was held by a small wheel, who presumably had both the limited and unlimited record.
In practice I guess in a few years probably this won’t matter anyway, as the records will sort themselves out, in the same way the bike/HPV ones have.
Joe
What you’re saying is that we keep the two way split…between Limited and Unlimited.
I think categories should have a three way split when they are recorded. Limited (125mm/24"), then Unlimited Unguni and Unlimited GUni. That does not mean you can’t compare them with each other, just that they are put into their own subcategories of ‘unicycle’.
Then you can merge all three categories for fastest ‘unicycle’ times (all three combined). It’s been a while since the limited was fastest, but I’m sure if you go back long enough it was the case.
If it’s a three way split, then theres no reason why you can’t have an GUni record that’s slower than the Unguni record. It gives you a historical starting point.
That is really a great thread and it takes me a lot of time read it all
To make it short, I agree to Ken that 3 categories should be build to keep it fair and clear.
Independent from the advantage of geared Unicycles there is also a money problem for many riders so if there will be only one unlimited category, a lot of riders cant compete serious depending on their financial situation.
I also went into unicycling cause it is that simple, clear and cheap vehicle.
I’m sure that it was good to allow Gunis in the actual unlimited races to test and develop them but now that is done and so time for their own races!