And now for some MUni! Lock 4 Mountain Bike trail on Old Hickory Lake in Gallatin Tennessee. It’s an 8.5 mile loop consisting of 16 “belts”…numbered BLT1 through BLT16. I did them in order. Yellow arrows mark the main trail. Some of the belts are easier than others, but none are very technical. The trail is relatively smooth but has some really fun downhills and drops perfect for my skill level at MUni. Since the park is on a peninsula, it’s hard to get lost.
Per GPS and MapMyRide, yesterday was “a 6.7 mi Bike Ride in Missoula, MT. The Bike Ride has a total ascent of 1,059.71 ft and has a maximum elevation of 4,770.34 ft.” Mostly hardpack single track, with a number of steep sections. Maybe not huge, but it’s my most signficant muni ride since breaking my leg. Back in the saddle, baby!
Good to see that you’re back to riding. Do try and stay healthy through October 
Muni ride in Seiser Alm - Dolomites. We got round Plattkofel, which you can see in the photos.
Gear taking a rest
Us taking a rest
Find a unicyclist
3 Ring Circus MTB race. plus 3 Unicyclists.
I’ve had the flu for the last 4 weeks (excuses done) but as I’d paid my $120 I was determined to do the race, so last weekend myself and 2 other guys did a MTB race on our Muni’s.
2 x 26 Gunis and one fixed 26er.
I’ll post a report later but quick stats were.
6deg celcius and rain.
Over 51km’s
4000 feet of climbing.
Did I mention it was wet and cold? 
My time was 4 hours 14 minutes.
Ashley did it in 4 hours flat
The guy on the fixed 26er did it in 5 and half hours beating the outriders in by seconds.
At what point do I get to call traversing the massive cracks (made by tree roots) in the tarmac on aged bike paths “riding MUni”? Does the tree root have to be showing? If the rubber of the tire touches a tree root, I’m calling it MUni dammit! There is one section up the path that is more difficult than some of the off-road trails that I’ve ridden. Then, there is another 20 footer that you must go to the left of or pay the price with a 6" ramp that sent me flying off the front of my 29er (seat too high & pedal in 6 o’clock position) this morning. That is precisely why I left my geared 36er at home!
And one for the Bon Jovi fans. Slippery when wet!
And finally, here is some “unicycle sidewalk chalk art” by my daughter. She said she had a dream about riding her 20" Club off-road last night so it won’t be long now.
puni
Call it what ever you want but a bike path is a bike path. Think now, what the “M” stands for… …“pavement”? Not here in the Pacific Northwest.
Wow! Whoever took those photos is really quite good with fill in flash.
You get closer to calling it muni when you purposely aim for the highest part of the root and when you purposely go right and pay the price to hit the 6" ramp. Anything to keep those greenway rides interesting.
I know what you mean about sections of paved paths being more difficult than actual trail. There’s a greenway nearby that has a “nice” 1/4 mile section where it’s like rolling over a washboard. Roots that have lifted up the pavement a good 3-4" with only a foot between cracks, potholes, , debris, etc. Heck, even the part with the new pavement has a slight washboard effect - you’d never know it when walking but when riding you can certainly feel that they didn’t pave properly.
One person’s rough is another person’s smooth 
But i think the only way that asphalt pavement could be considered muni is if it was all broken up into chunks, piled up, and you were riding down it 
Kinda reminds me of a ride I did while passing through West Virginia with a local bike store owner, he joined us for a leg of a cross country tour…so he says “I know a great paved backroad that is really smooth”. Turns out that a “paved road” in his neck of the woods is “paved” with gravel;) and we were all on skinny tired touring bikes…
And I should have known this guy’s idea of smooth would be odd, as he was a dentist who ran jis office out of the back of his bike shop, he’d work the bike shop in between dental procedures, oh my!!
It’s all good.
puni [pyoo-nee] verb. The act of riding a unicycle on the pavement. Paved unicycling or “puni”.
Good one Joe! This is exactly the kind of smart ass reply I was looking for.
pics of todays puni trail riding
You should try the assfault trails in my town. The city paints the root heaves yellow so you are able to pick the worse/best puni line of choice.
They look like tree root skeletons
That looks exactly like the “cow path” typically ride at work. The difference is nobody is nice enough to paint the trouble spots! Rider beware! Over time I’ve gotten fairly proficient at riding even terrain like this at speed on my 24" GUni but every now and them I’m humbled if I don’t apply 100% concentration. Last week I had a crash in an area I’ve never crashed; ridden many, many times w/o an issue. Ended up with a skinned knee and hands! Doh! So it may be “PUni” but it can still be humbling never the less!
This weekend the 5th Annual RiverWest 24 was held in Milwaukee Wisconsin. I didn’t get to enter the race, so I was along for the ride, to volunteer, and to support Dan Hansen, team #250 - “Minneapolis Unicycle Ambassadorial Team #1.” We were the only unicyclists and Dan finished 9th out of 100 solo riders, with about 185 miles ridden.
I only managed a measly 10ish laps (plus a ride down to lake Michigan) for about 55 miles ridden, but it was one hell of a fun time.
Race leader board: Scoreboard: http://www.riverwest24.com/leader-board/2012
More of a writeup to come, if I can figure out how I want to word the thing.
This past weekend my wife and I took a short vacation to Providence, Rhode Island. I had the pleasure of briefly riding around the historic district going past the Roger Williams National Park (appropriately, since it is in Rhode Island, the nation’s smallest national park) and then up to Benefit Street originally settled by Roger Williams and his crew (for the benefit of all). The picture below is The Beast in front of the Stephen Hopkins house built in 1743 (though not apparently in its original location). The Rhode Island School of Design is on Benefit St and Brown University is a bit up the hill from it.
