Good news (great news, actually) is my son Denali’s middle school Science Bowl team went from low seed in pool play to upset their way to a win! Totally excellent job by him and his teammates and they’re going to Nationals in Washington DC! Woohoo.
Bad news is that’s the same weekend as the singlespeed-a-palooza race. I’m out.
Sorry Claude, Buzz, and Robbi. You’ll have to take on the 297 SS bikers yourself. You’ll do great!
Denali is in the middle w/long hair. >I’m a proud dad<
This is off the topic, but I am going to Albany for four days in a couple of weeks for work and plan to take my uni with me. Steve, can you suggest any bike trails in the area? I don’t ride muni, just looking to put some miles on the uni if I have the time. I am staying at the Holiday Inn Express.
Steve, that’s awesome about Denali’s team. I hope they do great! Sorry we’ll miss you at the race. Have you sold(preferably to another uni)/refunded your entry yet. I think the last email I saw said you had until the 10th.
Well, I checked out a small section o f the course on Wednesday. I agree with Steve that a 29er is where it’s at. I tried a 4 mile section first with my 36er then again with my 26er. I lacked both the skill and fitness to clear the climbs on the 36er, yet the 26er crawled through the easier terrain. So, it looks like I’ll be chasing you two on my 26er. Oh, and it was wet. I expect parts will still be quite wet come race day.
I also stopped in at Dark Horse Cycles and spoke with the fellas a bit. They’re keeping the exact route a surprise but it sounds like it has a little bit of everything. George wanted me to clarify that we three won’t officially qualify for the DFL, but for any of us that finish he has a token for our efforts. And he reiterated that if we get 5 or more unis next year he’ll give us our own class with cash prizes…
lol… sorry. I’ll probably write up something in my blog tonight.
But here’s a little something…
Claude rode his 36er. Robi and I were on 29ers.
Robi self-proclaimed he was not in great shape coming out of the winter. His shoulder injury didn’t help. He ran out of steam, but pushed hard. A marshal gave him bad directions on which gravel road to take back causing him to have to GPS his own way out, and he ended up riding ~18 miles.
I have been having a knee issue and it started getting painful at about mile 12. But my real problem was that my quads were twitching at mile 16, and it was taking my 3-5 tries to free mount on flat. Maybe if my knee hadn’t been giving trouble over the past month the training I would have done would have helped. Maybe not. I road a gravel road out.
Claude did great and finished under 4 hours. He was smiling and looked ready to ride it again.
Trail conditions were great, dry but not too dry. Weather was perfect.
Overall, the 36er turned out to be a good choice for me. There were sections that a 29er would have been perfect but most of the trails were very nice on the 36er. I had to walk some of the steeper hills. The first several miles were on a gravel road and there were several sections of gravel roads connecting singletrack trails. Most of the single track was fairly smooth but there were many sections of rooty and rocky terrain. My estimate of the mix would be 80% single track and 20% gravel roads. There was very little double track.
Congrats on the race y’all! This sounds great, I’ll keep a look out for next year as well. Not often you find mtb races with dedicated unicycle classes! My unicycling calendar is getting stacked, love it!
Was on a mtb trip (unicycling of course) with our club a few weeks ago and someone had a Dirt Rag magazine. There was a write up about the race and it mentioned the unicycles several times. I can’t remember the quote exactly but there was a funny line about how the cross bikes looked down on the fat bikes and the fat bikes looked down on the unicycles. It mentioned that there was a unicycle specific class and that if next year they get 5 or more entries they will officially be recognized with prizes and such! That’s awesome that Dirt Rag had enough respect for y’all to mention you. I say we blow up the unicycle category next year and really support this event. I’m in for next year, sounded like a blast!
