And they were all Twin City Unicycle Club members from Minnesota at one time!! Here’s the list and order (I think) of who past it first;
Dana Schnieder
Ryan Wood
Ashley Wood
Irene Genelin
Ryan Waesner
Christian Hoverath
Amy Sheilds
Spencer Johnson
Soon to be me! I’ve been testing the last month and should get it within the next month!
I think they all still ride except for Spencer, he got out of it after he passed. I think it’s cool that there are 4 guys and 4 girls, and goes to show you it doesn’t matter if you’re male or female.
For level 9’s, Cameron Ulmer and I are the only level 9’s (except for the 10’s which technically are 9’s too).
And for level 8 the list gets quite large. So there you go.
Yes, only 8 officially tested level 10’s. Don’t know how many, if any, there would be unofficially that can do everything in 10 and below with only 3 re-do’s per level??
The official USA, Inc. levels testing database also lists Kris Donohoo as a verified Level 9 rider. Kris probably fell off your radar screen because she is not currently a member in good standing.
Your listing of Level 10 riders is correct. However, contrary to what you stated, the official Level 8 list isn’t that large. There are only 13 verified Level 8 riders in the database. The list doesn’t really start to expand until Level 7 and under.
Here are statistics for current USA, Inc. members in good standing:
I strongly suspect these numbers are not very accurate. Most people don’t update their level status or submit unverified levels claims with their applications for membership. In particular, many members have forgotten that per the rules for Level 5 and above, “an official USA or IUF level tester or a tester designated by an affiliated USA club must test the rider. When submitting the passed level, submit the tester’s name and USA number if applicable.”
Tom Daniels
Former USA, Inc. President
(. . . and the guy who keeps the database current)
Brock and others, the purpose of this thread is not for trials riders to express their abhorrence of skill levels. It is to discuss who has passed the highest levels.
Maybe I shouldn’t be picky about spelling, but I think it’s
Dana Schneider
Ryan Woessner
Amy Shields
I thought Christian Hoverath was a German. Is TCUC membership open to anyone anywhere?
Anyway in a few years, I hope to become the first non-TCUC level 10 rider. I’ve done all but four of the skills properly at least once.
Leo Vandewoestijne recently told me that Sem Abrahams was the first Level Ten rider. I don’t know if that’s official or not; maybe he’s IUF, not USA.
Your spellings for Dana, Ryan and Amy as shown are correct.
Christian is indeed from Germany, but he is also a member in good standing of the USA, Inc. Many riders from outside of North America are members. I believe Christian is also a member of TCUC. I don’t believe TCUC requires their members to be residents of the Minneapolis area.
Sem is a member of the USA, Inc. He isn’t shown as having officially passed any of the levels in the current USA, Inc. database. As I previously said, however, many members haven’t bothered to update their levels.
JSM - Christian Hoverath is indeed German, but he has trained at TCUC, which was unicycle6869’s point. Many unicyclists from other countries, myself included, have trained at TCUC over the years.
Sem may have been the first rider to get to level 10 in the older skill levels - this may the reason he’s not on the official list.
I can say with confidence that Simon Wells in Australia would pass level 10, if tested. He can easily do all of the skills in level 10, but I don’t think he’s been tested. He got second in the expert freestyle at UNICON in Japan, so there’s little doubt of his abilities.
Leo Vandewoestijne would probably also pass level 10 if tested.
Given his performance at UNICON (I’ve watched the video at least 50 times) I am sure Simon Wells could pass. Leo Vandewoestijne, according to one of his recent posts, still needs the evil backward pirouette.
What’s different between the old skill levels and the new ones? I recall hearing that at one time the transition to side ride was not required, but I don’t know of any other differences.
On Tue, 5 Apr 2005 18:39:10 -0500, “TonyMelton” wrote:
>I can say with confidence that Simon Wells in Australia would pass level
>10, if tested. He can easily do all of the skills in level 10, but I
>don’t think he’s been tested. He got second in the expert freestyle at
>UNICON in Japan, so there’s little doubt of his abilities.
>
>Leo Vandewoestijne would probably also pass level 10 if tested.
And what about Julien Monney?
Klaas Bil - Newsgroup Addict
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I can do all the tricks in level ten, but just can’t get the backwards pirouette in level 9.
Anyone can become a member of tcuc, so Christian is an official member even though he doesn’t live here.
I fail to see what relevance “currently a member in good standing” has to do with anything.
Stating that someone could easily pass a level if tested is irrelevant. A “Level X” designation is a USA/IUF-specific freestyle test result designed for individual motivation and direction of USA/IUF members and is not intended to predict or measure one’s competition skills or general riding ability. Indeed, the Level designations are not really applicable to the general unicycling population, but only to a specific subset who are seeking to advance in personal freestyle skills. The Level X designations are only meaningful within the IUF/USA system.
Using a Level X designation as a general point of comparison between unicyclists is a misuse of the system.
The USA documentation does not actually present this clearly, although I believe that it should. Unicycling has progressed way beyond the one-track mindset presented in the 2002 documentation.
I think i know what you are saying and i agree.
First off, i would say that someone is still a level ten rider even if they are not currently unicycling, they still passed it.
I do agree that levels definately do not say that much about a unicyclist. I think there are many unicyclists who are not level ten unicyclists and they are better than some of the level ten unicyclists. There are so many skills that are not in the levels and to put every skill in would be impossible. I think they should be a basis of sort of ground tricks, to build on.
It’s actually the other way around now. It’s much harder to pass level 10 now than it would have say 10 years ago. Some of the new things are that you now must do ar; get in and out of sideride, do all the mounts to a level 5 or higher skill, do seat in front 1 footed with the seat extended, you can’t practice any tricks once you have started level testing and think there’s a couple more but thats all I can think of right now.
I agree that saying someone could pass a level is irrelevent cause a lot of people forget how hard a backward pirroutte is and not that many people can do it without tons of practice. ANd you need to do that to pass level 9 so you can pass level 10. I’ve never seen Leo, Julien, Sem, or Simon do a bckwrd piroutte so I don’t know if they can. With practice I"m sure they all can but not currently.
I also agree that you can’t compare level tested people to non-level tested people. There are some people that are far better than some of the level 10’s but they have never tested nor care to test. But for the most part you can say that people that have tested are in generally better the higher you are. 10’s are better than 9’s, 9’s better than 8’s, etc. But still there are some level 8’s that are better than some 10’s because they can do all the tricks in 9 and 10 except for bckwrd pirroutte and plus they can do tons of other “unique” tricks that aren’t in the levels. I believe spencer johnson is one of they people that can only do skills in levels 10 and under and can’t do any other tricks besides those. So I know many people that I’d consider are better than him even though they aren’t level 10.
