It is a relay race, but it’s 5 days long and each day covers an average of 160km. Each team decides how often they exchange riders. The “baton” is a GPS device (stats from which is the discussion topic here). The terrain gets harder as the days go on - by the 5th day you will be wishing you had more than just two riding teammates.
While there are a number of riders who could accomplish any single day of the race solo, I assert that doing the whole thing would be almost inhumanly difficult. Impossible for me, for sure. Perhaps training Lars Clausen style might enable someone to do it though. So I would listen to any serious proposal by someone who wanted to attempt it as I think there could be extra media interest if someone like that existed.
I think it’s doable, 12hrs is not a difficult cut-off. But I probably wouldn’t do it unless there were lot’s of others going solo. It’s no fun otherwise, and you wouldn’t be competitive against the teams.
I think the top teams should be averaging around about 25km/hr. An individual should be able to to perhaps 20km/hr average. That’s only about 8hrs riding a day. Not a huge amount of riding- our two wheeled cousins do lot’s of multiday tours that are much longer than that. And they have bigger gears to push.
I wasn’t kidding- if we had at least 3 other solo riders (say, Roger, Dustin, Patrick, Sam?), I’d go solo too.
How much vertical would likely be involved per day? No restful tuck and steer on the down-vert either! It’s relatively flat where I live and so 100 mi./day for 5 days sounds tough but do-able. But over undulating terrain? Whew!
When I first read about this, I imagined a euro-cycling Grand Tour model (teams/team tactics & individual pursuits - both individual & team glory within the same race) and that there were enough superstar Cokerheads who could avg. 160k a day. What is the rationale or precedent for a relay-style stage race?
Trying to pound out those kinds of SERIOUS miles individually over unfamiliar terrain, against the clock, could be inviting dangerous fatigue-related crashes. A relay race sounds more FUN and more SAFE - but is definitely less SERIOUS.
It’s much harder to ride that sort of distance on the flat than it is on hilly terrain. On the flat, you have nowhere to rest, you are pedalling the whole time. And it’s much more painful because it’s harder to change positions/muscle use/get off the saddle for the climbs/rest on the downhills.
On the SINZ tour- I felt pretty good after our 100mile day, which had a mixture of hills http://www.sinzuni.org/d9.html
On my first Unitour- through Cambodia- I was a wreck after riding about 70km on flat terrain.
“Distance per team member: It is up to each team to decide how to divide the daily distance.
Timing: All teams will start out every day at the same time. The times for each day and the time trial(s) will added together to determine the total time and therefore the winner.
Seriousness of Competition: While this will be a competitive event, all levels of ability for long distance riding are encouraged.”
Clearly I didn’t read carefully enough. Shame on me. Inclusiveness is a laudable goal in these early days of unicycle distance competitions! Still though, I can’t shake the feeling that relay teams, hand-picked by ‘somebody’ for balanced racing, are unreal and make a floppy precedent for a race which could provide the impetus to establish an annual or semi-annual series.
I see your point. I think I’ll have to try it myself to believe it though! This summer I’ll try to plan a long weekend in the hills of western Wisconsin.
So you must ride your downhills with brake engaged (?) - I’ve never used brakes and have a heavy steel wheel - I assume it is downhill where you get your ‘rest’ while still pedalling.
I don’t use a brake either. You get rest by letting the wheel ‘roll’ underneath you and just let your legs spin with it. If you put backpressure on the pedals to slow you all the way down the hill, that can be pretty tiring.
Wow! The steeper the better, huh! Clearly you are a very skilled unicyclist. I’ve been for five years an urban night-riding cokeur with little fear or shame but steep downhills still weird me out, so I take them slowly! On rides longer than a few hours I feel less unity with the unicycle especially when pacing downhill.
I like hilly terrain because it’s interesting, but I’m not sure it’s easier to ride than flat, at least for me, a rider of much less skill and prowess than Ken (GizmoDuck).
Just remember, that what works perfectly for Ken will not necessarily work for you. Listen to what he says, but you have to temper that with his unusual viewpoint (also meant in the best possible way). I’ve seen him blow by me up a pass in the Swiss Alps on 110mm cranks and I’ve seen him crank out over 100 miles of crazy single track in 24 hours. His crank length and brake choices don’t work for me - everyone has to discover what works best for themselves.
I am wildly impressed!! An incredible distance! Congratulations.
There is a contradiction involved, though, regarding terrain difficulty - Gizmoduck’s record, after all, was set on a dead-flat course, right? That record must have been brutally difficult considering his (your) complaint about repetative posture, pedal strokes, etc. I would venture to guess that a few meters of elevational change on the track where you set the record would have resulted in less distance over 24 hrs even if it felt better for part of the 24. Further, it probably would result in more falls if for no other reason than stupourous inattention.
Lars’ work was done on the road, wasn’t it? I assume that he had a tailwind that day too! Next, try a road distance record - pick the perfect road on the perfect day and knock off 500 k or more in 24!
But back to the Lobster. Is there any kind of consensus regarding the value of gears (Schlumpf, Outta Faze, etc) for this ride? I sort of want an excuse to buy some.
Ken holds the 24 hour distance record at over 230 miles on a track. I think it was over 800 laps - talk about mental power. I also raced with him when he completed over 100 miles of offroad singletrack in 24 hours (actually about 22 hours I think), with SIGNIFICANT elevation gain, as in many thousands of meters.
RTL is all road riding, but at least the last couple of days are very far from flat. As Ken points out, that is probably a blessing rather than a problem. Flat riding kills. He even broke his own leg in Laos just to avoid riding that last 200km of flat into Vientiene. That was the sorest I’ve ever been on my backside. Hills rule. Oops, have to go to bed now as we have a 104km ride starting in 6 hours. Luckily it climbs 1800m so I won’t get sore.
We’ll try and get an official decision on whether teams of fewer than 3 riders will be allowed in RTL soon.
I’m increasingly feeling that this solo thing could be the most fun thing ever… if not just to have an excuse to get to ride more. I’ve done a fair few century days, and 232 miles in two days… the more miles the better. I agree the 12 hour limit shouldn’t be a problem - if you’re still in the saddle by then and haven’t finished then you probably won’t ever want to!
It’s early days yet, but in theory I’d be up for doing it. Chasing Ken for 800km sounds like a good challenge
Sweet! Someone to keep me company. Just need one or two others and we can have a whole solo class for RTL.
My crank choices aren’t that weird
I have short legs so need short cranks. The theory with crank selection over longer distances is to use the shortest cranks you are comfortable riding for the terrain. Obviously this will vary with the rider, but as a rule, the shorter you go, the less sore you’ll get from muscles aches/saddle sores/chaffing, because the amplitude of leg movement is less.
The 24hr record was difficult because it was flat. And I would go on the record as saying that it could be faster/longer if there was say 1-2m climbing over each lap. It will possibly slow down your fastest lap, but over 24hrs should make up for it with less saddle/muscle pain. From memory, the first 100miles took me about 9-10hrs and I was pretty broken after that. On the other hand, the Lake Taupo Cycle Challenge (www.cyclechallenge.com) is a 100mile ride which has 1600m of climbing took me 7hrs43min. So yes, hills (I’m not talking mountains here) do help a bit. You can keep alternating between standing and sitting and changing positions frequently.
Genbirch:
In terms of gear- I think we are allowed to change unicycles during the race, so as long as the support vehicle was close, this could be done easily if you have several unicycles between you. The thing with, say, 29" Schlumpfs, is that during a race, people spend most of the time on one gear anyway.
As for downhill spinning- it works best with mild/moderate gradients on wide open roads where you can look far ahead. On steep stuff a brake would be useful.
I’m not very excited about solo riders attempting to do RTL. I know many people who could do 100-mile days, and maybe even two days in a row. But not 5 days in a row! This will be a drain on the support and actually bad press if a few attempts are made and all fail.
Ken Looi said:
Ken - I remember you easily did the 100 mile day without problems. But please remember that there was a planned day off before this ride, and you took off two days after that day (one was a riding day, the second was a rest day). Have you ever done two (or three?) 100-mile days in a row?
