My brother, John, received an interesting e-mail from a fellow at
Guinness. Basically, the record for longest uni ride no longer depends on
daily average. The record they list, currently, weighs in at around 3700
miles. Lars Clausen has apparently broken that, and I believe he’s now at
about mile 4k.
The letter stated that previous correspondence John had received was
either wrong or was putting forth views no longer held by the Guinness
folks. And yes, this does in fact mean that one could, with proper
authentication, score the longest uni ride even if one only went 10 miles
a day (as stated in the letter to John), as long as you kept at it for
long enough to break the previous record. As noted, while it would not
involve much daily riding, it would not necessarily be easy to accomplish
such a ride – a huge organizational headache.
In view of this, I’d suggest to Guinness that they add a separate category
for endurance riding. But honestly, do too many people care? Probably only
a handful. I can see why they’d change the old requirements – it might
seem to them that Lars is generating a lot of publicity (which does not
seem to be the case where I live, but I rarely watch TV) – and Lars
certainly mentions Guinness almost as often as Jesus in his posts – and
it could be that Guinness doesn’t want to appear as spoil sports for
disallowing his attempt to make it into their ‘good book.’
I have also learned not to care about Guinness records – many of them are
now ridiculous and/or irrelevant – and prefer to check our own records at
a reliable website (not sure what that is, but I have seen it).
David “One Mile a Day Till 2021 A.D.” Stone
Co-founder, Unatics of NY
1st Sunday / 3rd Saturday
@ Central Park Bandshell
1:30 start time after 11/1/01
Fairly close to my sentiment. But to be more starkly opinionated:
Guinness makes beer.
Guinness makes entertaining trivia books for people who drink beer.
Unicyclists achieve goals. Unicyclists should* set their own standars for those goals, individualy, or as a community (*should in this context meens “the way it aught to be, because I’m right”).
The alternative is to put ourselves on par with the Worlds Largest Corn Cob, the Worlds Fastest Eater of Corn (I have it on some authority that this was CREAMED corn), the First Guy to Change his Name to Corn, the Only Woman to Leagaly Marry a Corn Cob by Mistake, etc, etc, add nosieum.
Not that we should follow the herd, but do other sports keep track of their achievements by checking with a brewery? (I’v already made up my mind on this, of coarse, so am not interested in “well, actualy US forien policey is largly dictated by the Ham’s Bear”, or, “President Pooten consults with a 6 pack of Shlits Malt Liquer before deciding missle placement” type remarks. 'Tis rehtorical).
OK, class, now, everybody get out your online dictionaries and look up the word rhetorical… Oh, all right! Here ya go:
1 a : of, relating to, or concerned with rhetoric b : employed for rhetorical effect; especially : asked merely for effect with no answer expected (a rhetorical question)
Temper, temper! You’re allowed to take yourself so seriously, of course. I didn’t feel a thing, by the way. You can’t hurt my avatar, but please don’t take it out on your monitor. Sheesh!
And, that wasn’t a spelling-correction post, either. It was a definition post. I’ve retired from the spelling police force. Rejoice, oh you outlaws!
David,
That is interesting that Guinness is taking this position. It is also a shame that I have also lost a lot of respect for Guinness. They are still “the book”, but I think they should take more responsibility for their record categories.
I am, however, in no way trying to downplay what Lars is doing. I would be interested if they are going to have a new category for the 24 hr. ride. I am more impressed with that,than I am with the 5000 mile thing.
-Mark
10,000 Coker miles(total)
Cokerhead.8tpyy@timelimit.unicyclist.com writes:
>I am, however, in no way trying to downplay what Lars is doing. I would
>be interested if they are going to have a new category for the 24 hr.
>ride. I am more impressed with that,than I am with the 5000 mile
>thing.
>-Mark
>10,000 Coker miles(total)
Hey, Mark. Sorry we didn’t have you at Unicon.
Lars’s record will be impressive, and John tells me that a recent post of
his suggests he’ll ride even further than he’d planned.
As for his 24-hour ride, I was not too impressed with the actual number
(202+ miles), but I have already acknowledged that he did NOT set out that
day to break (or set) a record, his riding conditions weren’t ideal (level
ground or better the whole time), and he had already been riding thousands
of miles up to that point (which may have helped him prepare but which may
have also made him more fatigued in some ways). Anyway, I know of at least
one person (not named Stone, by the by) interested in decimating that
record, and I know he will be able to ride at least 240 miles.
David
Co-founder, Unatics of NY
1st Sunday / 3rd Saturday
@ Central Park Bandshell
1:30 start time after 11/1/01
