101 years of riding experience? Wow – that’s crazy. Our team is not planning to win this thing but we are hoping to get the ‘most life experience’ medal, with a total age of 144. Our riding experience is much less, with one rider only having about four years of experience – but he’s a very fast learner.
RTL is going to be awesome. It is going to be so cool to see all these old friends, and people that I’ve heard of but never met.
Thanks Isaac. I don’t think our team is as competitive as a lot of the others, but with all the experience the Atlas guys have, I think they stand a chance of placing for sure.
Well, after spraining my ankle a few days ago I think that hurts us a little bit as I can’t train everyday for the next month as I had planned. But I still do hope and think we can place in the top 10! 
And I realised I haven’t commented on your team, except to say I expect you in the top 10.
Something the faster teams should take note of…Team Goonies need to be on everyones watchlist, particularly the faster teams.
They have James Amon and Joe Marshall on the team. I don’t think I’ve ridded with Spencer Owen (maybe at Unicon?), but both Joe and James have done lot’s of long distance events and touring.
In particular, James is probably one of the strongest riders in RTL. There are faster riders out there, but that doesn’t mean squat if you are going into a 100km/hr headwind. James rode away from Tony Melton and myself on the SINZ Unitour (www.sinzuni.org), during one of the really windy days along the central Otago rail trail. If we end up heading into a strong headwind, put on long cranks and strongest rider and don’t let James out of your sight. Sit behind him but don’t let him get away. He could quite easily take 1/2hr to 1hr from the fastest teams before you know it. I don’t know if this team has a 36" Sclumpf, but if they do, the fast spinning teams will need to watch out for him on the flats also.
Joe is a familiar on the forums and we know he’s done lot’s of long distance 24hr events (even held the 24hr solo off-road record for a while). He’s also got a Schlumpf, and should be able to maintain somewhere between 22-25km/hr speed on that.
We already had him down as a marked man. He’s not going to be able to get away from Team NZUNI without one of us chasing him down 
We have his photo, your photo, and various other contenders up on our wall so we know what you look like. Mwahaha!
No, you’ve not ridden with me, but don’t worry… I’m not one of those dark horse types. Honest.
STM
Anyone know why Roger Davis isn’t racing? He’s an animal…
Roger will be severely missed at RTL - especially by the UK teams. 
I should think most people taking part in RTL have met Roger and have also ridden with him. I’m sure you’ll all agree that Roger is one of the top all-round unicyclist in the World and would have been a favorite to win this race, especially as he was teamed up with Sam Wakeling.
As far as the UK teams are concerned - we’re particularly sad he won’t be taking part. Roger is the one that usually pulls everyone together, sorts us out when we have problems (especially mechanical ones) and gives tons of support and encouragement. Sorry you can’t make it Roger - we’ll miss you. At least us ‘Lost Wheelers’ will have a better chance of winning 
- ha ha!
I’m sure he’ll be monitoring the race as it unfolds via the Internet though.
Steve
$50000 on the time that wins 
sorry. 
As I said, that is because I trained for SINZ in a wind tunnel
Riding in the rain wasn’t part of my training though, so those days destroyed me.
We don’t have a 36" schlumpf, but we do all have 29er Schlumpfs. Part of the reason we went with the name “Goonies”, although I haven’t been able to get much riding in on mine(due to injuries) so I will probably use my new 36er most of the time.
Team yellow line just got bumped up a few notches.
Beau Hoover now has a geared 36er, and he knows how to use it!
Team German Speeders
3 people, 3 geared 36" and they know how to use it.
You have one too many zeros there!
I’ll second Mike’s comment about Beau; after having ridden with him this weekend (both coker muni and a 100k road ride), he’s quite a monster indeed, and these were apparently his first biggish rides ever on a geared 36.
Yes we just got the geared 36 cycle working Saturday morning, so he had ridden about 100’ on it before that ride (plus about a mile on Corbin’s a few weeks ago).
Geared unicycles. Incredible. I can’t believe what Chuck, Corbin and Beau were doing this weekend offroad. And Tom and Mike were Blazing too. But to see those guys blasting at well over 20mph on the dirt roads we used to Muni on…it was incredible. I thought the Coker Muni revolution we started in 2002 was a big deal, but this is more, way more.
As for RTL, I think you guys should notice well the post a few up from Smilymarco. I trust him when he says “Know how to use it”. That means they could be VERY hard to beat. But I know the man to try (Chuck!)
—Nathan
@Smilymarco, regarding the German Speeders: these are the guys featured on Schlumpf’s site for doing the Dusseldorf Marathon on their geared 36ers averaging 26.6km/h?
If so, then yeah, these guys will be tough to beat. If this was a hilly marathon and they were able to keep the average up at 26.6km/h, then they’re definitely faster than I am (and faster than any of the riding any of us did at Strawberry Fields yesterday)… if it was a flat marathon and they only averaged 26.6km/h, then I think Beau and Corbin and I (as well as quite a few other geared up 36 riders) could effectively compete with them.
btw, 26.6 is about 16.5mph, methinks, right?
I dont know the track in Düsseldorf, but were talking about the same people.
After the race, I will let other unicyclists try out my KH/Schlumpf 29er.
I think part of the fun of this race is going to be seeing the many different unicycle set ups, and I am going to want to try riding a geared 36 to see if I will want to eventually swap out my hub and put it in a 36er. It seems that there will be a lot of geared 36ers at the race now (maybe even more than geared 29ers).
Jan Logemann wrote the Marathon in Düsseldorf with a normal cooker because his schlumpf wasnt finished before the race. He is probably the strongest rider of the german team, the course in Düsseldorf didnt had many hills i think.
I think its time for me to place my bets down.
Right now I’m looking at NZuni, Smile and Yellow Line Fever. I know Yellow line Fever and NZuni are both really strong but everyone else seems to think Smile will be up there.
Close behind I’m thinking Texacali, again I just don’t know enough about the team. I know Corbin pretty much kills a lot of people, but I have no idea about the other riders.
Korean Dream team and Totally Doable I think will be top ten as well.
There are a lot of teams there that I just don’t know enough about.