Definitly have a short and long list. Keep the short list to the core tricks and then branch out with all the variations on the long list. It will be difficult to figure out which tricks are “street” because many freestyle tricks can also be done in a street sense. I consider wheel walking a street trick depending on how it’s done.
Maybe we could pick out a trick a week, where people on here provide video, tips, history of tricks and we can take that and compile it into the section for that trick on the list and on and on.
I think you should also just explain at the top of the list that every trick can be done forward, backward, switchhand, one handed or two, seat in to out, in to in, out to out, out to in etc. so that we can eliminate tons of variations being added. Some are ok to distinguish, like a standard grind vs. a backslide, but we don’t need to have something like a bigspin and a fullvarial. They are fairly similar and even though one is harder than the other, I think it is just tedious to have both on there.
It’ll be good to have a little history and tips/video clip of many of the tricks too. To keep things simple for now and get it rolling, lets try and keep the history focused more on the street side of things. For example, unispins have been done for a long time, but we should focus on who was the first person who brought them into the street domain i.e. doing them up and down obstacles, over things, etc.
I’ll help out with it when I have some time and lets keep adding stuff!!!
This is probably the wrong place to post this, but I saw some discussion about street comps on here and thought I should voice some concerns. We can move this to it’s own thread if that would be better.
Since it sounds like there will be the first ever “World Street Championship” at this years Unicon, I got to thinking more about what it would take to make a street contest work and why it might be a bad idea to have a formal competition at Unicon.
Here are my suggestions/concerns:
A street course needs to be built very meticulously if the riders are going to be able to flow through it for 1-2 minutes at a time. The course should be very easy to ride. Unlike a trials course where you challenge the riders with the obstacles, a street course should have very familiar obstacles and the challenge is geared towards what the riders can pull off on those obstacles.
I think a street course (at least at a world championship scale) should be built around a 20" unicycle and built really tight and fairly small. Although 24" unicycles are great for some aspects of street riding, a competition is gonna focus much more on the technical side of riding which suits a 20" much better. What this means is that the dimensions of obstacles are built for a 20", so that trick boxes would be built for 1-2 revs on a 20" and the distances between obstacles would be marked for a 20". Markings are commonly used to set up lines in street riding right now. It might be a crack in the concrete, or a rock placed on the ground, but they allow the rider to do a trick on one obstacle and know where his pedals need to be horizontal to be set up to do a trick on another obstacle. This is vital for a street comp environment and things need to be pre-marked or allow the riders place their own markings (maybe with different color chalk?) on the course before the actual competition.
I think there should be restrictions on what unicycles can be used for a comp. Riders should probably just be allowed to use 1 unicycle. I don’t think that BC wheels or giraffes, or any other different type of unicycle should be allowed. Maybe just a 16" 20" and 24" could be allowed, with the course built mainly around a 20". I believe the current rules have no restrictions on unicycles.
Maybe i’m just extra sensitive to this towards street riding, but I think being world champion is a very special honor and that honor shouldn’t be given out casually. I’m sure this applies to many of the events at unicon, so maybe this is a silly concern, but many of the best street riders won’t be at the event, have never even gotten together for a ride and we really don’t know how to build a good street course or what rules will fit.
We haven’t really tested out a street comp before, so we really don’t have a good idea how it should be run. I’m not saying there shouldn’t be a comp, but maybe it should be run in more of a demo/test way to begin to work out the flaws and find out what works and what doesn’t. I think it’s a chance to get the riders together to give ideas and build the course together and then leave it open for people to share ideas and session on most of the time. Then run an informal comp between some of the better riders to demonstrate what it might be like. This will keep the competition short, fairly pressure free and the street course available for all level of riders to session and share ideas the rest of the time.
that was a long post. i agree with just about every word you just said. theres no chance for me to make it to unicon (this time around anyways). i think it would be silly to give a “world championship” away without some serious testing
I tend to agree with Dan too but then again, will all the top riders ever be there? With so few dedicated sponsors in the industry I guess it’s all part of it for top riders to miss big events.
It would also seem unfair to any riders out there who’ve already paid their airfares with a look to becoming the World Street Champion to make it unofficial at this point.
Which street riders are going to Unicon this year?
No label should be given of World Champion. Even if all riders are there. Just give it the name of the place where you’re at. Unicon 2006 street champion. This way that will always carry with you. If you win, you’ll always have that. I’m poor, I can’t go anywhere anytime usually, so I don’t like looking at people who haven’t had the very best challange to them that have the title World Champ.
The problem probably lies in trying to make a distinction. What’s the point? I don’t think there can ever be a “solid” separation between the two events/types of riding. You could define subsets of street tricks, such as those that require obstacles (stairs, rails etc.), or those that don’t lend themselves well to a gym floor (can’t think of any specific examples), but that would only be two areas and leave out other stuff. Plus, a Freestyle performance can still use stairs, rails, etc. To a certain degree, Freestyle encompasses the Street event. But since it’s judged differently, they are anything but interchangeable.
Good idea. Or they could be indicated in abbreviated form, such as “fwd, bwd, frh, swh, 1h, 2h, so, si” or something. The Standard Skills list is separated into “riding” skills, stationary skills, transitions and mounts. Riding skills are the ones that can be done in different directions or figure shapes. Stationary skills don’t, so they don’t have to be listed, while transitions and mounts basically consist of a start and end position. Something like that might work as a good breakdown as well.
I agree with all. I think eventually we will settle on a “standard” design and layout of obstacles for Street. Though this may change from year to year it will make it easier for riders to prepare. But we’ll need some sort of consensus to develop this.
All good ideas. The above should be used as a guideline for setting up a Street course, at least until something more specific is available. I don’t know if all Trials-type wheels are the same size, so riders might need their own markings even if standard ones are provided.
Here we differ. For this I look to the Freestyle aspect of the event, which says “here’s the rules and here’s the riding space, do whatever you think will win.” If it weren’t open to BC wheels, we never would have seen Evan do all his cool stuff at MUni Weekend last year. And there would be no competition arena for BC wheels. No, I don’t expect to see a separate one either, as there aren’t enough people doing it (yet). I don’t worry that the event will be clouded by off-sized wheels or non-standard unicycles. We will allow them for variety and development of equipment, but I think mostly we’ll see Trials unicycles being ridden by the winners.
Unicon comes only once every two years. Setting them up is amazingly difficult, so nothing is done casually. Some convention hosts have more or better resources than others, but still the event only happens every two years so we do our best with what we can get. In Japan the Trials course was built almost exclusively by foreigners who were familiar with the event, and at the last minute. But I still much prefer this to not doing it at all. Now the folks in Japan know what Trials is all about, where they wouldn’t have otherwise.
I think the best way to work out the kinks is by doing it, as big as possible, and learning from the experience. And no, all of the best or most-qualified riders will never be at a competition as long as nobody is paying them to be there. That’s a fact of life that applies to every sport and we are no different. Like winning a unicycle (track) race. Not only do you have to ride across the finish line, you have to show up at the start. No matter how fast you are, you can’t be counted otherwise.
Zack Baldwin was able to scrounge and save to go to Unicon in 2004. Was he the best Trials rider in the world that day? Maybe, maybe not. But he was clearly the best rider in the Trials competition and that’s why he deserves to be the world champion even if we think other riders might have done better.
A world championship has to be held somewhere. And if you don’t live in or near that place it may seem unfair. But next time it may be closer to you and farther from everyone else. Best way to control this is to help host the competition.
I think we’ll find all of this out either way, and this way we get to start having world champions. I expect the event to develop, and probably change fairly rapidly. But you gotta start somewhere. I would like to see this event developed by Street experts, which I do not count myself amongst. I got the ball rolling by setting up the rules we have now to the best of my ability. Then we try them out and hopefully get lots of good input for improving, as well as standardizing the event.
Thanks Dan, as the guy in who’s head this type of riding may have begun, your input and ideas are some of the most valuable out there.
It sounds like you’re saying you can’t get to the world championships (this year), therefore nobody should be able to be called world champion. Sorry about that, but some of us like having world champions. I have found it’s a great way to promote a sport and get people thinking about it, as a sport, if you can point to someone and say “That’s the world champion of Street.” It does a sport a lot of good, even if the event is still developing.
Part of the rationale for adding the word Freestyle to the name of the event was to “sell” it to the traditional crowd; the people who’ve been doing Freestyle and/or Standard Skill for years, but don’t know anything about Street because they don’t see it. Also to communicate that it has similarities to the well-known and understood Freestyle event.
John, did you read the whole thing I posted, even if all the riders are there you shouldn’t give out the title world champion. It’s a ego boost to an extent we don’t need. I still say just label the spot and year, and then say champion. I know you’ve been around, but street is picking up in the younger enviroment, keeping the rules of older competitions to a young style might not work well. Street is street as long as it flows, and nothing is static, when you go to static it becomes freestyle or flatland. (or trials). FLOW that’s it.
For the proformance, I say let BC wheels rip as a show, but as the competition, if it’s different, you can judge them the same.
p.s. Zack is good, no doubt, but when we won ‘world’ champion, kinda looked at my riding peers from here, and just laughed. We knew he wasn’t challenged enough in “trials” in a “freestyle” country. He was probably one of three riders there for trials. That’s redic.
Shaun whats the deal with you bein so against static tricks? I reckon they’re like anything, you make them street.
To illustrate my point:
rider1: A girl dressed in a black ballet type outfit starts her gym routine to spice girls music by striking a big elegent pose before jumping straight into a standup coast, she then drops down into a tight spin followed by a piroette, next she races across the gym floor and chucks out a tidy trey-flip followed by some backwards wheel walking…
rider2: Gets up with a smile from a nasty bail down an 11-set and smoothly sets himself up for a metre high rolling hop onto a funbox, as soon as he hits the top he busts out a noprehops smooth as butter static-seat wrap (blood still pouring from his eyebrow) and jumps off with a backwards 360 into a fakie full-varial and then a flip onto a grind.
So what’s more street? The treyflip or the seatwrap?
It frickin does flow, side to side! It’s like when the bass breaks down in music, it doesn’t pull away from the flow, it brings in contrast so when the layers come back in it sounds even better.
A seat wrap has never been street. You could make it street by dong it on an obstacle somehow. Seat wraps do definatly flow and look cool, i’d rather see a seat wrap than a crankflip. Yeah lots of stuff if done static is still street like:
static 360 unispin off a ledge (or any other unispin)
donkey kick off a ledge
static fakie flip off a ledge
uni-can on the back of a park bench
unispin gap
static hop into a rail
any hoptwists of a ledge
Static stuff can “flow” just as long as you use minimal prehops. And even if it dosn’t “flow” you cany just say its not street. Any trick down, on, up, or off an obstacle is street no matter what.
There is so much flow to static tricks, it is just a different more mechanical flow. Of course the goal of doing the static tricks is also to not take any correctional hops just as with a more linear style of riding. Just a different style of riding.
Static tricks work exceptionally well on a unicycle and are very vital to street riding! Some are a lot easier than there more moving counterparts, but still street!
Edit: Doesn’t have to be done on an obstacle to be street either, though it is probably a lot neater if it is. Street riding is how you interpret the environment you are riding in to fit with your tricks and style of riding. Mainly done in a urban area, but it is more a mentality than anything.
