N Calif Rides Summer/Fall 2009

The local calendar here is pretty full of fun rides so I thought I’d post here in case anyone from nearby, or who is traveling, is interested.

July 31 (this Friday): Critical Mass San Francisco. 6pm Justin Herman plaza. some info my photos from 2 years ago

Sept 13: 7th Annual San Francisco Unicycle Tour. 41 miles, awesome fun. Meet at CalTrain station 7:45am. Website coming soon. Photos from last year

Sept 18-20: 5th Annual Berkeley Juggling and Unicycling Festival photos from last year

Sept 25-27: 14th Annual California Muni Weekend - the Original Muni Weekend

Oct 4: 39th Annual Mount Diablo Challenge 10.8 miles, 3300’ climb. Register soon.

Oct 10: 2009 Muni Long Course “World Championship” - I’m not sure about this one. Haven’t heard much about it lately. But it is supposed to be up at Cool (kind of near Sacramento). Anyone with more details, please post.

Hope to see many of you at some or all of these events!

—Nathan

Thanks for posting that list! I’ve marked them on my Google Calendar. Still don’t know anything much about the “MUni Long Course World Championship” but this link seems to be the closest to what information’s available. The location is indeed the Olmstead Loop trail in Cool, just across the river and up the hill from the original MUni Weekend main venue. It’s a Coker ride for the strong-of-leg, otherwise maybe a 29". Technical is low.

It sounds like the event was spawned by a promise/threat/boast by the Unicycle Bastards of Oregon to come down and race. I hope that’s still the plan!

I saw a few of these items on my Google calendar, attributed to the “Unicycle - NorCal” group. Didn’t see all of them, though. Who runs the group? This is quite handy…

Jimbo created the calendar and various people like myself add events into it. Great stuff, eh?

Thanks for posting this, Nathan! I’m a relatively new 36er rider, and am interested in the SF tour, but wonder how much climbing there is and how fast folks ride–I wouldn’t want to hold up the group too much if I was the slowest (which I would expect to be).

I don’t know if you would really consider Mammoth NorCal but there is also a Mammoth trials competition coming up in september.

Peter, there is about 3000’ of climbing on the SF Tour. That may sound like a lot, but it’s spread out over 10 hours or so. Think of it as 300’ per hour - no big deal. The pace is quite slow overall if you do the math - you could almost walk it in the time we take to ride it. With 20+ riders, we are constantly regrouping, hanging out, enjoying the beautiful scenery etc. It is a Tour, not a Race, that’s for sure.

If you are not sure about doing an all day ride like this, then I urge you to come out and start riding with us. See how the first few hours feels, and bail if you’re not having fun (unlikely!)

—Nathan

SF Tour Upgrade!

Woo hoo - the Unicycle Tour of San Francisco is now so cool that it has it’s own website. Check it out here: http://www.UniTourSF.com/

It’s great to hear that many people are coming this year - should be a fantastic event. Mark your calendar for Sunday, Sept 13, 2009!

—Nathan