Looks he’s on a trials uni in that picture. Anyone know this guy?
If you go to the end of the article, there’s a log of distance traveled, looks like he did more hiking than riding, but still quite an effort.
Wow I just missed riding with him down Mt. Elbert by a day! Damn! 
Also looks like he was posting to the wrong place:
“Even among Colorado’s small core community of mountain uni- cyclists (most of whom the Steeles know by name), the mission was a tough sell. Spoken invitations and the website set up to document the effort (www.14fourteeners.blogspot.com) failed to rally even one other rider willing to arise before 4 a.m. for the lengthy hikes carrying the 20-pound Munis to mountain summits where the Steeles required a minimum of three wheel revolutions of themselves before claiming success.”
I bet if he’d posted something on this forum he’d have had more takers… oh well…
Met both of them through the Boulder CO UNI group
I rode with both George and Andy when I was out there a couple years ago. Andy and I rode Red Rocks Trail system with Rick Redmond, and Rode Sunday with the dad George in the lakewood area. Great riders and they showed me a great ride both days! I hooked up with both of them through the Boulder Uni group and Mary Rios!
A few years ago George Barnes, Joel Rutkowski and I hiked up and rode down Grays peak, one of the 14ers you did. http://www.unicyclist.com/forums/showthread.php?t=33264
Looking at the list of peaks they bagged, I wonder why they didn’t do Sunshine as well? I’ve spent a lot of time in the Lake City, CO area and the main trail-head to do Handies and Redcloud also include Redcloud’s sister 14er Sunshine? And since his criteria was just 3 pedal revolutions off the top to count, they could have picked up Sunshine with a couple hour’s more worth of effort (It’s about an hour traverse from the top of Redcloud to Sunshine). So there is room for improvement for anybody thinking of repeating, and surpassing, this effort. Afterall they did 14 of 18 legal 14ers… Pretty cool if your goal is to do all the legal ones, but I’m just not sure if it’s worth the effort when the hike/ride ratio is a lot more towards the hike end? Still huge congratulations. Kind of funny as I was riding down Mt. Elbert last week and stopped to let a hiker (climbing) pass me he asked if I was the guy doing all the 14ers by unicycle. I didn’t know what he was talking about until this was posted! And to think I missed him by a day! Sounds like he took a different route though so it’s doubtful I’d have seen him anyways…
This has been discussed on 14ers.com as well.
I would have loved to ride with them if only they had posted this to unicyclist.com (where lots of unicyclist read) and/or 14ers.com (where lots of 14er climbers read). I had never heard of their personal blog where this was posted. —I would have had no trouble getting up at 4:00am.
I have climbed 40 14ers and I have ridden down 3 14ers. Elbert, Pikes Peak and as of Sunday, Grays. So I got da skilz.
I’m not trying to make this about me, but I’ve been wanting to ride a 14er with a fellow MUnier for some time, and to see that I missed yet another chance. Drats!
Oh well, I won’t have another weekend free until close to the end of September, and by then the snow may be flying… next year.
if anyone is curious, here’s a link to my most recent trip report from Grays Peak: http://www.14ers.com/php14ers/tripreport.php?trip=7104&cpgm=tripmain&ski=Include
Room for improvement
I agree, there are many of us who could reproduce that feat; it’s just that George was the first. However after reading his blog entries and looking at what actual routes he did I think there is room for improvement in terms of “speed” (total time to do the whole batch of legal 14ers), “quantity” (he didn’t do several legal 14ers, not sure but I think there are ~18-19 total legal 14ers that are not necessarily rideable!) and “quality” (a bit more subjective, but I’m a bit of a purist when it comes to climbing I say you need to hike/uni all the way up not take a car even part way to the top like he did on Pike’s peak; follow the established hiking routes 100%). I’ve got the Ability and Desire but not the Opportunity to pull a “MUnineering” epic like this off (at least not without risking my marriage!). So why not an all out assault next July-August? So here is George’s list:
Ooops to slow to edit! BTW I added some “Trail Beta” for anybody interested in the Mt. Elbert East Ridge Trail. 4,100’ of descent in 4 miles (or 4,900’ in 6 miles from the paved trailhead). http://www.14ers.com/php14ers/tripreport.php?trip=7042&parmpeak=Mt.+Elbert&cpgm=tripmain&ski=Include
One of the cool things about George’s effort was that it was recorded in a climbing style similar to recording how much of a new route was freed versus aided. Regardless, for me it is really, really cool to see growth & awareness of this kind of riding, because it is closest to the heart of what I like to do on/off a uni in the mountains.
Re posting here; you could probably say it is typical for a climber type to just go off and do this kind of thing without telling anyone. We’re lucky he even blogged about it =).
Kris
Ha! I can’t believe nobody responded! Not that I had the opportunity to join them, but when that was posted I had just gotten back from a whirlwind tour of attempting the Hardrock 100 (Silverton, CO) and then jetting out to Las Vegas and on to Death Valley to support my wife who ran the Badwater 135. So this I didn’t even check this forum until the following week, by which time it was off the radar…too bad.
OTOH I agree with Kris that if you’re aiming to do something nobody else has done you’re best to keep your cards close to your chest! I’ve got some tricks up my sleeves as well, he he! 
I still think there is a lot of room for improvement on George’s 14er record, namely by doing ALL the legal ones, and covering the complete standard routes for each and by doing them faster… I applaud him on his progressing the sport.
Tak actually linked to a single post in this thread. I don’t think there was a thread for the 14fourteeners.
Ah, no wonder I missed it. Something like that was more of a “thread jack” and definitely deserved a new thread of its own. It’s good that folks did respond; I must have been asleep at the switch!
Oops - I didn’t realize that the post would be linked out-of-context.