Last year, I started a wikipedia page in French to list the history of unicycle time trial records (one hour, 24 hours, 100 km and 100 miles).
I found it lacking, and went through some IUF discussions that mentionned it.
Rather than wait for someone to take it up at the IUF level, I did my research on the Internet, in particular on the unicyclist.com forum.
Of course, these are not official IUF records. Besides, I don’t know how long the IUF has been certifying WRs.
I thought this work might serve as a basis for an official IUF page.
Last week, I translated the page into English and put it online.
There are still plenty of grey areas, and I’m sure there are experienced unicyclists here who must have plenty of information to complete, correct and make sense of these records. I think it’s a good idea to work together to find as much information as possible.
Here’s the link to the page:
Ideally, I would have liked to create a page dedicated to road race records (10k and marathon, standard and unlimited, men’s and women’s) and another page on track records. In any case for the latter, I don’t have the knowledge.
Nice article! I am the chairperson of the IUF World Record Committee, and thus somehow involved in this matter.
I just casually read the wikipedia article. I intend to go through it more thoroughly, and will then get back to you via PM or e-mail with some suggested edits.
It’s great that you’ve done a Wiki page. I wanted to do something like this when I was IUF WR committee chair.
I will message you privately with suggestions, additions and edits. Most of that info is actually posted on unicyclist.com but need a lot of searching and reading.
The proposal to add failed attempts is debatable. I hadn’t originally planned to add them. I added Pete Perron’s attempt because he thought he’d improved the record before Ken’s record was confirmed…
The reason I suggest to add failed attempt is that on the cycling hour record wiki page, failed WR attempts are mentioned.
There are a number of arguments in favour:
You can’t improvise a TT WR attempt. It requires a dedicated organisation and advance notice to the certifying body (IUF +/- GWR).
The fact that you don’t improve on the WR isn’t always seen as a failure. It can be a national record.
When I look at the current 24-hour world record, I think there will be many unsuccessful attempts before it is improved.
The purpose of a page like this is to provide more depth than just the current IUF WR data. I find it interesting to have a history. If history can be traced back to before the IUF certified world records, I find that interesting (unless records were certified under very suspicious circumstances).
Oh, I’ve just seen this table at the end of the page on the cycling hour record :
