Also, besides the competitive unlimited/standard discussion so far, I have casual bicycling friends who ride about once a week, and do 1 to 2 hour rides at 18-21kph on flat ground. (They would be around 1.5-2W/kg; untrained/fair male/female). If they were to ride the course on a unicycle, I would not recommend them to use anything larger than 24".
I hope the 29" standard category does not create a misconception that 29" is always the best choice for standard riders, without considering the course and their fitness… I’d hate to see riders end up hating hills and the course because they have too big a gear ratio and end up walking a lot. 2 hours riding uphill is hard but doable, but too big of a gear, and it could turn into 2.5-3 hours of ride+walking… Still doable, but probably not as fun.
You are absolutely right. On the French forum, I just read that someone who registered for unlimited tested his 36" in a similar climb, it’s too hard for him, he won’t participate in the race. I thought most could do it in 29"/150mm, but it seems I was a bit optimistic. For many it is still too hard.
I know I’ve already expressed myself. But I’ll say it again because I’ll have a harder time expressing myself orally in Grenoble.
For me, it doesn’t matter how many medals I win. The most important thing is to have the best riders (standard and unlimited) in the same start. As for the other races, there must be 2 races and therefore 2 starts: one for females and one for males.
If we make two starts: a standard start and an unlimited start, we will not know who is the fastest because there will be two races and they will be different. In standard, there will be many champions: @makym, @GizmoDuck , Souryan D, the Caignan brothers, @unicycleharry, @muni_ben (?) and many others.
In unlimited, I don’t really know who will be there, maybe Martin Charrier (?). Okay, I’ll be there, but I think there will also be a lot of crazies who will ride a G36 or an old 36" just for the challenge of riding a 10kg machine.
If it’s too complicated to make all the men start at the same time (I don’t know the distribution between female and male), we could ask everyone where they are on the scale that goes from 0 = “My goal is to finish the race” to 10 = “My goal is to win the race”. Maybe that would allow for 2 starts?
I think this is a reasonable thought.
I pulled out completely cause I think it would be too hard so I’d be in group 3 - I don’t think I’d finish unless I walked it!
A standard rider goes to Unicon with a 24" and a 29". They know exactly what their competition is riding. It’s a race against them, not their equipment choices.
An unlimited rider can turn up with a number of unicycles. There is an element of luck and guesswork- predicting the best unicycle, for the rider, for the terrain.
If I was racing unlimited, I would bring my ultralight 36", as well as my 29". I would also have to ride the course on both unicycles to figure out the most efficient setup.
This free-distance race is unusual because they have made it a constant gradient and a climbing only race. The idea behind the free-distance road race is it should be like a bicycle race, with up/downs/varied terrain. Many equipment variables which affect unlimited riders that standard riders don’t care about.
I’m bringing a standard 29" and a standard 24"
Unlimited riders have to guess what to bring, and/or bring lots of unicycles.
I don’t ‘feel’ like a standard rider, I ‘am’ a standard rider. I have done no training on a 36, or a geared unicycle. The last thing I want to have to worry about is whether I need to bring a 36, or a 32.
They are not competing in both. They have to make up their mind whether they wish to compete in a category where they know their competitors have a maximal wheel size/single gear/fixed transmission; or have no idea what their competitors will be using at the start line.
By doing that, you are creating two classes of medals, with the standard medal being inferior to the unlimited/overall medal. Effectively, that is a takeover of the standard class by the unlimited. I have no interest, as standard rider, of getting medals or placing in the unlimited class.
They could ride a 26" or 24" in the unlimited class.
Then convince all the best unlimited riders to ride in standard class.
That’s what we told him, but he is a 36" rider. He doesn’t ride any other unicycle.
I don’t have the list of registrants, and I wouldn’t do it, I don’t have a road 29" unicycle.
I have nothing against the fact that there are two categories (standard and unlimited), what bothers me is that there are two races.
It’s not a 10k or a marathon on the flat. He will certainly have less than 2 minutes between the fastest standard rider and the fastest unlimited rider. And for the order it’s hard to know, I’d like it to be in favor of the unlimited, but I think the opposite…
For you, isn’t it possible to make a common start with the fastest (standard & unlimited) riders? The drafting effect is almost null at the speed at which we are going to climb.
oh I love this discussion. I have been trying to work out what to ride. I have built a 4kg 29" and my 36" is 6.5kg… I know how I ride hills and know my Cadence/foot speed/power. So my spreadsheet uses some of the big spreadsheet to work backwards to calculate what my optimum crank length for each wheel size is. I suspect that I will ride the 36" as I am more comfortable on that and when it comes to unicycling that is an important factor.
I am looking forward to meeting everyone in person next week and doing the test ride on the Monday (if I get there early enough).
Hi! I believe this will work (If you are very tall, you’ll need to use your own seatpost). 29" nimbus road with choice of 127mm or 150mm crank length. See you at unicon!! Look for Linda Gock
I rode it yesterday with somebody else and we met another rider when riding down. I’d say we’re all 3 good riders so it was ok-ish. Just don’t go too fast and you’ll arrive at the top! Remember to use long cranks if you’re not used to road climbing rides.
@Gockie 's 29" with 127mm cranks was a great setup for me. (Didn’t even need to change seatheight)
I think I had to get out of the seat for 10 seconds for a steep section after a corner, I could pedal comfortably the whole time. Cadence didn’t really limit my time (1:05:56), just the legs not giving me as much power as I would have liked (4 hours
of muni in the bikepark the day before probably didn’t help). I was chasing Roger, who was about 200m ahead for a long time, but didn’t manage to catch up to him, but still had fun overtaking some of the wave 1 and 2 riders and a few roadbikers.
Analysing my heartrate data tells me that I had a bit more capacity left, but both on a bike and on a unicycle the power my leg muscles can produce seems to be the limiting factor. I think I managed to extract 95% of my potential on that day, had I known the course better I could have gone a bit harder both at the start and finish.
I am really pleased my Uni was good for you @finnspin :).
Better you than me riding that course
Same as the advanced downhill muni.
I volunteered on the advanced downhill muni course, hauled my basic Club 24” uni down the course (but with a fatter tire). That was an effort, I don’t even think the course is so safe to walk! Volunteered at station 8 of the course (of about 20). One guy’s tire popped just before getting to my station and he was distraught, he said he was doing really well to that point.
Well, I offered for him to use my brakeless Club that I had with me, he jumped onto it immediately no hesitation and not bothering to adjust the seat either (the Club has an easy to use quick release) and he rode the rest of the race. (I think the course got a bit easier for a while after the section his tire blew, so I’d assume that’s good for him). Out of 121 male riders, he finished about 8th or 10th, clearly in top 15 and made the final. Well, I just found out yesterday in the expert race he finished 3rd!!! His comment though was that my uni should have a brake
Goes to show though, it’s the rider’s skill that makes a huge difference, not so much equipment.
I know in the top half of the course only 3 volunteer course marshalls brought unicycles onto the course, one guy at station 2, me at 8 and another lady at station 9. The lady at station 9 also had her uni borrowed during the race. The rider returned my uni mid race and right near the end another rider borrowed my uni (her tire was not holding air) but eventually she decided to quit the race at the halfway point - it was kinda pointless for her to complete since her time was going to be terrible.
As most expected, there wasn’t much difference between the standard and unlimited categories. I won the unlimited race with a 36" under 5.5kg and with only 14 seconds advantage over the first standard.
I was surprised that the unlimited ungeared rule was applied: if there are at least 3 unlimited competitors with gear, then the first 3 unlimited ungeared are rewarded. Felix climbed with a G36 of 11kg in 56:26, he would have deserved a special award. Especially since the 2nd and 3rd unlimited were actually in 29".
For me the most important thing was that we could compete together no matter what size wheel we had. During the race we didn’t really know who was in which category. Several 29" riders were registered in unlimited category. I think @makym swaped categories several times, finally he was in unlimited with a 29" and during the race he asked Pierre Caignan what category he was in, but they didn’t understand each other.
Fortunately we were able to race together, which allowed us to perform better than I could have imagined. I had done some threshold training in this climb around 15kph. I thought that the fastest would average 16kph. But on Saturday the top 3 speeds were 17.5 / 17.4 / 17.3 kph.
This was the race I was waiting for and I was not disappointed! I hope there will be more.
Little mistake: there should be at least 5 geared riders for the ungeared riders to be awarded. See the rulebook.
However, I do agree with you: these awards are surprising regarding the actual race. But, as this is written in the rulebook, ungeared riders had to be awarded. IMHO, the rulebook should be updated as follows “At Unicon, if there are five or more geared male riders in an Unlimited event and geared riders have an incontestable advantage over ungeared riders, the fastest three ungeared male riders will be awarded with an ungeared title for that event.”
I’m also wondering about the possibility of choosing the category we race in. Shouldn’t be the riders forced to race in standard if they use a standard unicycle? As we’ve seen, some of the best standard riders raced in Unlimited because they probably thought it would be easier to get a medal. IMHO, this is a dishonest - yet, legal - manipulation over the results. It was hard to predict the issue as we were in a corner case. It has been discussed over and over, but we couldn’t foresee the result before actually racing. So, now that we have the results, it’s time to think about the next events and how we can prevent such issues.
I didn’t check the rulebook, and anyway whether it’s 3, 5 or 10, it doesn’t change the substance. But it explains why this ranking didn’t happen for the female, there were only 3 unlimited with gear.
I think it would be more appropriate to award medals to the unlimited ungeared if the first 3 unlimited are geared, but that means we can’t know before the race…
I think that a good modification would be to add awards for the ungeared riders in the other road races.
I understand that it might mean a lot of awards, and that anyway a lot of riders would be complaining that they didn’t get their award for their very specific category.
But for example for the 10k, you can go on a race 24, which is not really fast and in my opinion quite boring or a G36, which is fast and impressive, but cost a lot (when you are able to get the hub). Going with any other wheel size is basically going to have fun, but knowing you won’t get any award. A 29 category for example would be great.
And the fact that most road riders come from far, they are not able to bring the G36 for the 10k, the 29 for the marathon, the ultralight uni for the mountain climb, the freewheel for the downhill and the light muni for the cross country/uphill. And some riders might do team sport, freestyle or urban riding, which mean more unis to bring. Maybe having a category identical for the 10k and the marathon would be better for those riders.
But as I said, I understand that it might be harder to create the categories, and to manage all those awards, and that many riders would not compete against the other of their level.
Yes I’m a bit frustated of being the unofficial world champion of the 29er 10k, because there is no official award and because the good 29 riders competed in the 24 category.
I just hope that if there is modifications to bring at the rulebook this one might be a part of it. (At least for the 10k, which has a lot of riders, which might justify additional awards).
