I’ve been curious as to what the top MUni riders unicycle setups were at UNICON 15 in Wellington, New Zealand. Wondering if they were all the same or similar or if some had 24"'s while others had 29"s, crank lengths, brakes, geared, etc. I’ve listed the top finishers below. If you know what their setup was please list it so we can see how the compare. Were all the top 6 riders on the same machine or totally different machines? Cheers!
I’m pretty sure all the top 5 riders in the XC used 24" Unguni MUnis.
I came in 6th with a 29er/145mm cranks. I lost a lot of time on the downhill sections, but it wasn’t the unicycle…the other riders were really slick on the technical stuff and I wasn’t
Yes there was more downhill technical bits in the Cross country than in the downhill MUni race. That is because the downhill track got changed last minute to suit everybody- to allow the freestyle riders to compete on their freestyle unicycles downhill if they wanted to. Tony Melton had come down to Wellington to plan out a course prior to Unicon that was going to test the best downhill riders- and a lot of people had practised on it. Only the top 8 or 10 riders were allowed to compete on the original, more difficult downhill track, which annoyed quite a few of the MUni fanatics who didn’t qualify.
I attended the Sugra’s juggling workshop- that was pretty fun- teaching Seisuki Kobayashi mills mess, and having a go on his geared 24".
Dude, how fast did you pedal on that thing? lol. I thought the whole top 5 would be on atleast 26". Incase people didn’t know the DH was pretty much a 4wd track, lame!
For those of us that were not able to be at unicon or the MUni events any further descriptions of the various muni events would be most welcome,course length,elevation,type of terrain,length of course,number of laps,mass start or in categories etc.Thanks.
Toni Melton did a really fantastic downhill track and we all enjoyed to ride it three days before it was canceled
so the XC was more technical than the easy downhill and all technical muniriders were really disapointed:(
otherwise all other events were really high niveau!
I think this needs it’s own thread. I will make it if noone else wants to. The downhill was total bullshit and the organisers did a terrible job with it.
That news article only makes muni look bad imo. I think it would’ve made unicycling look much more extreme if the downhill had been on Tony’s track.
For non riders every type of off-road unicycling is extreme. So I don’t think it’s that bad. But for sure it delivers a wrong impression because “I” wouldn’t even call an “offroad” track without at least a few roots, stones or bumps cross country (but I can only talk about what I have seen in this video).
You must admit the organisers were consistent about inconsistently applying the safety rules throughout unicon. There are strict kneepads, gloves and shoes for all track and muni events. Helmets for gliding, Muni, 10k and Marathon. And no safety requirements for flatland or freestyle- not even shoes. At least in the MUni most people finished safely and most of the injuries happened outside of the races where people were choosing not to wear as much safety gear. I am very grateful that an event was organised, even if it could have been done better by people who were not concerned about their own liability as event organisers.
It is not the news article’s job to make muni look extreme. They are there to report the news and they did show what was happening fairly accurately. You were the only one looking sad on the news article Alex, with your “Is for clowns, bring back the real downhill” sign. At least some people seemed to have fun- you can’t please everyone.
Mark, who got fifth XC, used his KH geared 24. I (who got 5th downhill), also used my geared 24. I wasn’t feeling great that day and dropped out of the XC race halfway through (2 of 4 laps).
there was a list undersigned from 73 muniriders witch like to have the old toni melton track.
there was a decision made against the old track and for the easy downhill and we acceped this decision, but that was not what we want.
thats all past so we cant change and we should look forewards to the next unicon to find a track witch satisfy the muniriders and slower / easyer chickenways along that enable all riders to take part.
my opinion is:
let the muniriders choose there tracks the same way as the trialers build there own obstacles.
I think toni did a good job choosing his track!
no paternalism in downhill -
or seperation in easy downhill and
downhill.
No, that wasn’t the reason. Tony had an awesome, really technical, downhill course he always planned to do. The organizers had to print up a trail map, and unfortunately the map didn’t have the right downhill trails marked. Tony marked it on the pre-ride day, which was an optional event.
I heard several reasons why it was changed:
It was published differently from what was marked, which wasn’t fair to people who couldn’t make the pre-ride day
It was dangerous according to some people
It wasn’t ridable by the majority of riders
It wasn’t changed to allow any type of unicycle – sure, good muni riders, like David, could ride the published/easy course on any type of unicycle, but many people couldn’t ride the “tough/advanced” course it at all. All of us were falling on it and giving each section multiple tries. However, IMHO, this made it a lot of fun – I loved just giving it a try on the pre-ride day.
David won the muni downhill on his ungeared 29’er.
