The time trial winning speed was 26.9 km/h, and that was on a rolling course with some hills. On a decent sized flat out and back / oval course there should be no problems beating that record for any of the top 10 or so riders.
Joe
Yes…Chuck and I had discussed making attempts on the record after RTL. Now is the perfect time; we are both really strong. Chuck could easily beat me. We were talking about doing it together to encourage each other.
corbin
Corbin,
I think you or Chuck could probably beat the record by simply getting on and riding full speed.
I guess what I’m curious about is what’s the limiting factors. On a bicycle (sorry) it’s primarily wind resistance and through streamlining the record speed on the flat is over 81 mph.
Could similar ideas be applied to unicycling? How about reducing rolling resistance (thin light wheels/tires) or does that bring in too much instability? Is it a problem of just not pedaling fast enough, so maybe build a geared hub into a bigger uni (semcycle?)?
I think by bringing all the right pieces together certain records could be blown out of the water!
If the Criterium was 3 miles, and if my math was correct I was averaging about 19.11mph for a little under 9.5 minutes.
I know I couldn’t keep that up for an hour, but I think with a little training and a little nicer course, I could keep a very fast pace for an hour and beat 17.45 mph on the geared 29er.
I am not sure what my top speed was for the race, but I know where I reached it and that was on the descent of the second steep hill on Thursday (I think) right before the sharp turn and the U-turn that needed to be made for the checkpoint. I had no brake and was spinning almost out of control, I had to put a lot of muscle into the pedals to make the sharp turn to the checkpoint.
What was Chuck clocked at on that steep downhill section? I heard he passed a bicyclist at 27mph or something. That is pretty ridiculous.
After trying out 125s and 150s on your 36, I definitely think the 150s are better as well, however, I think that when I finally set up a geared 36 I would like to try out 137-140s. The 150s seemed rather long to me on the flats and downhill, but then again I am a lot shorter than you.
I also heard that you passed a bicycle on a downhill section during that one descent I spoke about in my previous post, going 26+ mph. Ridiculous!
P.S. Thanks again for letting me try out your uni.
Just to avoid any confusion: The 17.45 mph was mentioned by Kiwi in Vermont as the ONE-MILE record speed. I don’t know where he got that but I don’t dispute it. However, while it might be the official record, there are probably a hundred riders in the world who could break that. The speed of 27.18 km/h that I mentioned, OTOH, and that equates to about 16.89 mph, is the HOUR record. I’m sure there are riders who can beat that too now. One should realise however, that for setting/breaking an official world record, it is as much riding hard as it is arranging the paperwork, organising witnesses, a suitable track or course etc.
I’m sure I’ve broken the record for one mile, at probably at least 15 other people at RTL have too.
Chuck’s speed in the time-trial was over 17mph. I’m sure he shifted at least twice for hill-climbs. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see him maintain 18mph for an hour on flat terrain.
sigh
I was hoping to see the Hour Record broken on a fixed wheel unicycle. Or at least two separate records…fixed and geared.
Looks like the next few attempts will be on geared unis, which should quite easily beat that record. My 29" Schlumpf get’s around the course I used for the 24hr/hour record about 5% faster than the Coker/102’s when I timed it a couple of years ago.
Time for me to dust the cobwebs off my Schlumpf I guess 
Hey Mike, gotta correct you on the time trial there, sorry 
- my average speed was 16.7mph, and I definitely downshifted more than twice… maybe three or four times.
I could see doing 18mph for an hour on flat terrain. I’d need to have a very light headwind at worst, but preferably no wind at all. I think I’ve beaten the hour record of 16.89 in the past sometime or another, but I’m not sure because I never really “did it right” and pedaled for a straight hour. The mile record, though, is easy to try out… just go blast for a few minutes and see what your average is. I’ve done over 20 for a mile on flat ground without wind, but I don’t think I could go any faster.
Also, to whoever said they were averaging 19.1 miles per hour for 3 minutes… I don’t think that’s right. The fastest I ever hit in the crit was maybe 19 or 20mph, but slowing for the turns eats the average alive. I remember my time being somewhere in the 8-high minutes range, though, and a 4.8k ride in 9 minutes is like a 20mph average, so it couldn’t have possibly been 4.8k total. I’ll try to do some figuring out on that to see what really happened with the numbers. I know nobody could’ve averaged anywhere close to 19mph in the crit… the turns were too slow.
I am sure I did the math wrong then (it really didn’t feel like I was going that fast, so I wouldn’t be surprised).
My time was 9:25 I think. I’ll recalculate, it has been a long day =]
Edit: I am guessing the course wasn’t 4.8km.
I, for one, do not now, nor do I ever intend to, threaten the one hour record on a unicycle.
Phew! That must be a relief to quite a few people.
I was scared.
GPS top speed
I’ve been talking to BriTech and there is sooo much date it’ll take a while to compile. each unit was taking more data than transmitted, and was accurate to within 4 metres.
Hopefully the top speed data from the GPS will be ready in time for issue 5 of Uni Magazine, which will be out before Unicon and have a big series of articles and detailed race analysis.
If the speed data isn’t ready in time, it’ll be part of a follow-up article focussing on the GPS in the following issue.
Can the top speed from a GPS really be trusted? According to mine, I’ve hit 95mph.
That indicates that, yes, it can be trusted. You’re really fast, Mike. Just face it.
I have an old model Garmin Vista that also gives spurious readings sometimes, particularly when reception is poor such as under leaf cover. I made a little spreadsheet that extracts a reasonably accurate max speed out of the data. It just sorts all the datapoints according to max speed, and then picks the highest value that is still consistent with the rest. The spurious points will be kind of random outlyers, and so they drop out.
But since Mike quoted an accuracy of 4 m, I think the GPS units used in RTL were better than mine, so max speeds should be more reliable too.
I agree. Incidentally, according to my cycle computer I’ve ridden faster than Chuck (quit laughing at the back!). Of anybody’s GPS top speeds, I’d trust Britech’s the most. 35 identical, well calibrated units…
It’ll be interesting to see what they come up with, and how it compares to those speeds claimed here.
While I’m sure I could go that fast while on my unicycle, the abrupt stop as I reached the bottom the of cliff would be somewhat uncomfortable.