
Edward Wedler met Max DeMilner by chance. Max was in the midst of a solo 720 mile, 6 week fundraising effort in New England. Wedler, engineer, bookstore owner, en plein air painter, was brainstorming event ideas to draw attention to Nova Scotia. Having been inspired by Destination Development guru Roger Brooks’, the stars aligned during Wedler’s brief encounter with Max.
Having taught remote sensing at the province’s College of Geographic Sciences, when he learned Kyle deMilner was posting Max’s daily progress on Google Maps, using GPS, the big idea hit Wedler, a lightning bolt out of the blue.
From the big idea in 2006 to making 2008’s RTL happen was a marathon as well.
Here’s the very beginning of one wild ride:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5n5y6H7itTo
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RTL = Ride The Lobster, a 5-day unicycle stage race around the Canadian province of Nova Scotia. Probably the most complex unicycle racing event ever accomplished. There were 33 teams of three riders each, plus one support member. Teams slept in a different place each night. Each team had a minivan during racing days, to drop off and pick up riders as they switched out. It was run like a relay race, with an electronic “baton” in the form of a Hewlett Packard mini-computer that had GPS. All of the teams’ luggage had to be transported from one lodging to the next separately from the teams because their vans were full of people and unicycles (and food).
That’s an all-too-brief summation of this event; there was so much more to it. Here are my photos from that week, and Web searching can find you tons more. Enjoy!
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Thanks for the summary, John, and thank you for the pictures.
Thanks @onetiredluver for documenting this landmark event for all those that couldn’t attend or hear about it back then.
With all the information posted, it would almost deserve an exception for a sub-category “Ride The Lobster” under Events (if admins agree
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I appreciate your note, and suggestion very much. Thank you. Much more to come!