How did his trials uni get transformed into a 36"???
David was also on the front page of the Durango, COL newspaper, I think. I don’t have the link though…
Wait maybe I do. http://einradfreak.twoday.net/stories/3494151/
I wonder where David is at now? It was a fun week when he was over. =p
Thanks, I thought I posted the direct link, but I guess not.
Copy/paste:
David Weichenberger of Austria performed some of his tricks Wednesday at the Durango Skate Park. The world-class unicyclist is traveling through Durango as part of a three-month-long trek across the United States.
“There are so many things that you can do,” he said. “For me, it’s a sport. I try to do it as much as I can.”
The 22-year-old competed last weekend at Unifest, a unicycling event held on the slick rock in Moab, Utah. There, he met a Durango family who invited him to stay with them through at least Friday.
Peter Schertz, a member of that family, said having Weichenberger in town has given inspiration to other unicyclists, including those of an informal unicycling group that he and his son belong to.
“It gives them self-confidence,” Schertz said about Weichenberger’s unicycling prowess.
Peter’s son, Evan Schertz, 9, who has been unicycling for two years, said the sport is more challenging and unique than riding a regular bike.
“It’s a good way to exercise,” Evan said. “It’s definitely different than a bike.”
Weichenberger has been atop unicycles for 11 years. He has won numerous competitions, including the 2006 downhill in Tokyo and the 2004 long jump in Switzerland. He stars in a DVD called “Union.” In one scene, Weichenberger rides on a railroad track, jumps to the other track and keeps riding.
He makes it a point to visit different towns and hang out with other unicyclists to learn different styles. Riders in every town seem to develop their own styles, he said.
“I decided if they don’t come to me, I’ll go to them.”
The Wheel World; There’s nowhere Victoria’s Kris Holm can’t go on his unicycle
29 May 2007
National Post
© 2007 National Post . All Rights Reserved.
On one wheel, Victoria native Kris Holm has conquered 14 countries, including the summit of the highest mountain in Central America.
One of the world’s top mountain unicyclists, Holm began to ride in 1986. Since then, he has brought the sport to audiences around the world through adventure films and TV appearances. In February, he appeared on CBS Evening News, where he proudly admitted to having “more scars than skin.”
Holm says he loves to combine unicycling with climbing and adventure travel. Last year, he climbed the summit crater of Licancabur, a 5,920-metre high inactive volcano in Bolivia. The terrain would have been straightforward at sea level, Holm explains, but the elevation and resulting exhaustion made it extremely difficult.
In 1998, Holm broke into the business of designing high-end unicycles by establishing Kris Holm Unicycles Ltd. He balances his work on one wheel with a career as a geoscientist in natural hazard and risk assessment in Vancouver.
On these pages, National Post’s Brent Foster followed Holm on the trails of Mount Fromme and the beaches at Spanish Banks in Vancouver.
Sport - The wheel thing Andrew Shields takes a well- balanced look at unicycle sports - and finds that while you don’t have to be intelligent to play them, you soon will be
Andrew Shields, andrewshields@timeout.com
521 words
7 June 2007
Time Out
English
Copyright 2007. Time Out Communications Limited.
While the British education system comes up with league tables, SATs, fines for errant parents and airport-style knife screening as ways to boost academic attainment, maybe we should just learn from Japan. When research showed that unicycling helped improve concentration, balance and co-ordination and could significantly aid physical and mental development, the Japanese Education Department went for it big-time. In 1992, unicycling became part of the curriculum for primary-age pupils. Every year, 2,000 Miyata unicycles are donated to schools for teaching so that now more than one million Japanese can ride on one wheel.
What to do, though, when you’ve mastered pedalling forwards and, er, backwards? Some gravitate towards circus skills such as juggling, others seek a more competitive angle. The first World Unicycling Championships took place in New York in 1984 while the most recent, in Switzerland in 2006, included basketball, long-distance racing and orienteering. Late last year, Oregon was the venue for the inaugural World Unicycle Cyclocross Championships.
Ingenuity knows no bounds - clearly a result of all the brain cells these single-wheelers are boosting. However, hockey is the unicycle sport played most widely. It’s a good way to improve basic skills, speed and manoeuvrability and is based on ice hockey - but with much less contact. The set-up is simple: five-a-side teams, 6’ x4’ goals, a basketball court to play on, ice hockey sticks, a low-bouncing ball and rules based largely on common sense. Putting your stick under or through someone else’s wheel is a foul.
The origins of the game are obscure. A 1925 German silent movie, ‘Variete’, includes a scene with two unicyclists. One has a hockey stick, the other a walking stick. There are two tiny goals and what looks like a crumpled towel for a ball. In mid-1970s California, a club called ‘Wheel People’ kept the flame alive, while the game came to the capital in 1988, with a tournament in Covent Garden as part of the national Telethon charity appeal. Out of that sprang London’s own club, the LUNIs - which describes the sport as: ‘Skilful. Great exercise. And not at all serious.’
Serious enough, however, for there to be a British League - which starts a new season on Saturday when the LUNIs host the first round at Westway Sports Centre. The event is for organised teams but the club runs sessions every Thursday when complete beginners can have a go. You don’t even need to be able to unicycle - learning the basics is part of the package. Children of west London: you have nothing to lose, and possibly several IQ points to gain.
- The British Unicycle Hockey League starts at Westway Sports Centre on Sat. See listings for details. For information on unicycling contact the Union of UK Unicyclists ( www.unicycle.org.uk ) or LUNIs’ Jonny Molloy (020 8548 0759).
A uni-que event on trial at diggerland
12 June 2007
Mid Devon Gazette
English
© 2007 Mid Devon Gazette
A BIZARRE-sounding new sport is due to be wheeled out at an event planned for Diggerland, near Cullompton, next month.
Unicyclists will negotiate an obstacle course as part of the South West Unicycle Trials weekend on July 16.
The one-wheel cycles will be ridden over obstructions including walls, railings, ledges and “other street furniture” found in urban environments.
The aim is to do so without any part of the cyclist touching the ground, said organiser Brendan Le Foll.
He acknowledged the sport was “rather new”, but said a British Unicycling Convention had been held in April and rankings established for the best competitors. Trials unicycling was based on bike and motorbike trials.
The day at Diggerland would feature competitions for beginners and experts from midday and a public show at 3.20pm.
He rolls through life with only one wheel
MYLA BARNHARDT
807 words
15 June 2007
Greensboro News & Record
© 2007 Greensboro News & Record. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All Rights Reserved.
EDEN – When you ride a unicycle, you get used to the question: Where’s the rest of your bike?
Joel Mosteller has heard it so often, he’s got answers ready:
“I couldn’t afford a whole one.”
“I lost the other half.”
“Me and my brother share and he’s got the other part.”
And this question: Can you do tricks on that thing?
“Just riding one is a trick,” Mosteller said.
To watch him, you’d have to agree.
He jumps steps, rides curbs and navigates rugged terrain, and he can go the distance, covering several miles if he needs to.
Mosteller, 36, has been riding a unicycle since he was a child, and he’s accustomed to the questions and stares.
The Eden resident, who grew up in Rutherfordton, was 6 years old when he learned to ride. Unicycling was a family tradition that began with his dad, David Mosteller.
“I was so little he had to put blocks on the pedals so I could reach them,” Mosteller said. With an arm around his dad on one side, and a brother on the other – remember, there are no handlebars on a unicycle – Mosteller would perch on the seat and rock back and forth, getting the feel for the balance.
He can still recall his dad’s words: “Take a deep seat and faraway look.”
Riders need to maintain balance in the core of their body, and constantly look at where they are headed. Mosteller would practice for hours, propping the unicycle against a fire hydrant to climb onto the seat.
Trying to keep up with his three older brothers, Mosteller learned quickly. The boys grew up without a mother, and all four inherited their dad’s thrill-seeking spirit.
“He was a pole vaulter and bull rider,” Mosteller said of his dad, who also lives in Eden.
The family was quite a spectacle when they mounted their unicycles and headed out for a spin. They were invited to ride in parades and at community events, sometimes dressing as clowns, other times wearing matching football jerseys.
Eventually, they put away the unicycles for other sports.
For Mosteller it was wrestling, break dancing and kayaking. But occasionally during college, he’d ride the unicycle to class.
His friends called him a freak of nature, in part because of the one-wheeled bike, but also because of his size. Then, at 5 feet 2 inches, he was a powerhouse, weighing only 118 pounds.
“When people ask me how tall I am, what they really want to know is how short I am,” said Mosteller, whose height hasn’t changed, though he has added at least 20 pounds to his brawny frame.
After graduating from college, he went into restaurant management – he’s a manager at Golden Corral in Reidsville – and he married and has two children.
Kayaking and canoeing became his free-time passions, whether it was running the more challenging whitewater or enjoying a peaceful paddle with his family.
His interest in unicycling was revived a few years ago when he came across the sport of mountain unicycling on the Internet.
“I’ve always had a drive to be different and push the edge,” he said. Mountain unicycling fit that mold.
Mosteller bought one of the wide-tire mountain unicycles – it’s now one of a half-dozen that he owns – and started riding trails.
Not only did he discover that it is good sport, it has some practical uses. Mosteller uses his unicycle as a shuttle, sometimes throwing it in his canoe, using it to pedal back to his Jeep after landing his boat. And, he’s accomplished enough that he can pedal the unicycle while holding his kayak over his head as he makes his way to boat landings.
He also keeps one in his car and uses it for quick jaunts around town.
“Unicycles have really evolved,” Mosteller said. They make them with 36-inch wheels for commuting that can travel 10 to 15 mph.
He also has an “ultimate unicycle.” It has no seat – just the wheel and the pedals.
“Now that’s tough to ride,” Mosteller said.
But, he likes a challenge. And whenever he’s faced with one, he recalls his dad’s instructions: “Take a deep seat and a faraway look.”
It’s advice that works for him. He says it’s smart to be steadfast but always looking ahead, whether he’s on a unicycle, in a kayak, or just navigating through life.
He’s off again
213 words
14 June 2007
Cheddar Valley Gazette
© 2007 Cheddar Valley Gazette
The daredevil unicyclist whose exploits negotiating Cheddar Gorge were first revealed in the Cheddar Valley Gazette seven months ago has broken cover.
An astrophysics student from Cheddar, Tom Adams has revealed he had only three days’ experience on a unicycle when he tackled the gorge on one wheel.
Tom found the unicycle in a bin and had never ridden one before.
After only a few sessions of wobbling around near his home, he decided to tackle the world-renowned sloping road.
He was filmed going down the gorge by a friend and managed a third-of-a-mile descent before losing his footing and jumping off the machine.
The video of the run was posted on the video sharing website YouTube and almost 2,000 people have visited the site to view it.
Passing tourists and motorists are seen watching in amazement as the 19-year-old wobbles past.
Tom has just finished his first year at Cardiff University. He has a brand new unicycle and is planning more memorable journeys to follow the Cheddar ride, which took place last summer.
His next effort, unicycling a mile from his house and down the gorge, will also be filmed and will end up on the internet for all to see.
Anyone know if Tom has joined the forum?
He’s only 50 miles from me.
A pre-race article of the Whiteface Climb
http://www.lakeplacidnews.com/news/articles.asp?articleID=3547
One wheel. One goal. to summit Whiteface: Five unicyclists to ascend in 2007 Uphill Bike Race
By LOU REUTER, News Senior Sports Writer
Racing a bicycle up New York state’s fifth-highest peak is a daunting task, and more than 200 cyclists will face that challenge Saturday in the sixth annual Whiteface Mountain Uphill Bike Race.
Five of those racers, however, will be taking things a step further, when they pedal unicycles in the eight-mile ascent up the Whiteface Mountain Veterans Memorial Highway.
During the past two years, Steve Relles has been the lone unicyclist in the Whiteface Mountain road race that attracts hard-core riders from around the northeastern United States and Canada, and for the first time, the 44-year-old from Delmar will have some company Saturday when four more unicyclists join him in the annual climb.
“I think it’s just fantastic there are more unicyclists this year,” Relles said. “I’ve done the race by myself twice on a unicycle, and finally, I’ll have some company.”
Like the hundreds of racers who have conquered the course’s steady eight-percent grade during previous Whiteface uphill bike races, Relles is a competitive sort eager to face a challenge. And like those same racers who will be pedalling on two wheels in a quest to cross the finish line first, Relles and his fellow unicyclists will also be looking to come out on top in their “race within the race.”
“My main goal is to beat my time from last year, but I still want to win,” Relles said. “I’m not messing around. I know the other unicyclists are coming.”
Relles is a relative newcomer to unicycling, a sport he became involved with after he suffered an ACL tear during an ultimate frisbee game in 2003.
“I started playing ultimate frisbee in 1983, and that sport became my whole athletic identity,” Relles said. “After I tore my ACL, I needed to find something else to do. Unicycling became my new athletic identity.”
During the 2005 uphill event, Relles was the next-to-last competitor in the field to cross the finish line, coming in 46 seconds before the two-hour maximum time limit. Last summer, as a more experienced unicyclist, Relles slashed more than a half hour off his time, crossing the finish line in 1 hour, 25 minutes and 53 seconds.
“The first year going up Whiteface was probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done physically,” Relles said. “Unicycling has a very steep learning curve, and that first year, I spent about half the race just trying to keep my balance. Last year, I finished ahead of 38 or 39 other racers.
“I thought I rode pretty fast last year, and if any of those guys are going to beat me, more power to them,” Relles added. “They will have to be going very fast. It’s going to be fun seeing what happens.”
Vermonters Mark Premo and Bill Merrylees, Rhode Island resident Eric Scheer and Maine’s Maxwell DeMilner are the four unicyclists joining Relles in Saturday’s event. Relles said that although he is the only member of the group who knows what it’s like racing up Whiteface, all four of the other unicyclists should prove to be worthy foes on the course.
“I’m sure all the guys will be well prepared for the race,” Relles said. “I’m the only one who has experienced this race, but I know these guys are all serious athletes. I’ve been training intensely, and I’m sure they have too.”
“It should be an interesting challenge,” said Scheer, whose training has included riding up and down a half-mile hill near his home in Peace Dale, R.I. “I’ve never done anything quite like this, and I’m excited to give it a try. I think the key will be pedalling at a steady, consistent pace.”
The five riders all have some knowledge of each other, either through the Internet or face-to-face meetings at unicycle events around New England, but Saturday will mark the first time they will square off together to see who can pedal up Whiteface the fastest. Scheer and Relles will meet in Albany prior to the race and drive up the Northway together on the trip to Wilmington.
“The ride will be fun,” Scheer said. “We will be joking and trash talking, I’m sure. At least for the first mile during the race, I think we will all be pretty close. But when it gets to the two-and-a half or three-mile mark, then we should see who has it in them. I’m excited about this race. It’s something I’ve really been looking forward to.”
At age 50, Merrylees is the oldest member of the unicycling quintet, and is followed by Relles. Scheer, who also races road bikes, is 43, Premo is 40, and DeMilner is the youngster in the group at age 20.
Premo and Merrylees have spent time training together, including pedaling their unicycles up a 4.5-mile road on Bolton Mountain in their home state of Vermont. DeMilner, meanwhile, recently completed a 1,000-mile fundraising trip around New England on his unicycle, and Relles has been riding regularly in the hilly regions south of Albany to prepare for the uphill race.
Despite getting hooked on unicycling just a year ago, Premo, who also rides a mountain bike and lives in Winooski, Vt., said he is confident he will complete Saturday’s race, and joked with Relles about the competition.
“I e-mailed Steve and said ‘Hey buddy, I’m coming after you,’” Premo said, adding, “I’m not worried about finishing. I haven’t done a race as long as the one up Whiteface, but Vermont is hilly wherever you go, so I’m no stranger to climbing.
“I know Steve and Eric have been training like madmen, and I’ve rode with Bill, and he is good,” Premo continued. “It’s anybody’s race, and I think we will all end up within 10 minutes of each other.”
And not to be forgotten, is the rest of the field of athletes who will be racing on two wheels up the highway, including many who will finish well ahead of the unicyclists. Last year’s fastest time turned in on two wheels was just over 45 minutes.
As of noon Wednesday, Diane Buckley, director of the Whiteface Mountain Regional Visitors Bureau, said 217 competitors were already registered for the race and many more were expected. Previous Whiteface Mountain Uphill Bike Races have seen fields of more than 300 competitors make the trek up the Veterans Memorial Highway.
In addition to enjoying the joking and friendly trash talking between the unicyclists as a prelude to Saturday’s race, Relles said he’s also heard plenty of words from the competitors who prefer to make the ascent pedalling on two wheels.
“I’ve heard it all,” Relles said. “They say ‘Hey, where’s your other wheel,’ or ‘You only have half a bike.’ My response to them: ‘At least I don’t need a training wheel anymore.’”
The sixth annual Whiteface Mountain Uphill Bike Race begins at the four corners in Wilmington Saturday at 5:30 p.m., and will feature waves of riders leaving the starting line in five-minute intervals.
I’ll be posting a full race writeup in a separate thread, but here’s an article about the Whiteface Uphill Race in which 5 unis participated. The stuff about us is near the bottom of the article.
Text:
Cassidy sets new Whiteface Uphill Bike Race mark
By LOU REUTER, Enterprise Senior Sports Writer
Posted on: Monday, June 18, 2007
WILMINGTON — A bolt of lightning that split the black sky above the starting line had racers a little nervous just minutes prior to Saturday’s sixth annual Whiteface Mountain Uphill Bike Race.
A storm, however, never developed, and Daniel Cassidy ended up providing the lightning in the race by setting a new record in the eight-mile ride up the Whiteface Mountain Veterans Memorial Highway.
Cassidy, a Burlington, Vt. rider, slashed nearly three minutes off the previous uphill record when he crossed the finish line in 42 minutes, 40 seconds. Cassidy also came in almost three minutes ahead of the race’s overall runner-up, Yann Deville of Montreal, who took second place in 45:25.
Saturday’s event, which featured a field of more than 250 riders from across the northeastern United States and Canada, marked the first time Cassidy had attempted the bike ascent up Whiteface’s toll road, and the 25-year-old rider said he entered the race with one objective in mind.
“I was hoping to come out and break the record, that’s for sure,” Cassidy said. “(This race is) something I haven’t done before, so I didn’t know exactly what to expect, but I knew it was a steady climb, and that suits my kind of riding.
“The race was hard, but I’m a climber, and the ride was a nice, steady-percent grade all the way up,” Cassidy added. “It was a lot of fun.”
Cassidy said his friend, Jason Harpp, the uphill bike race’s defending champion, convinced him to give the event a try this year. Cassidy added that riding up Whiteface Mountain was part of the training schedule he is following for next month’s national competition in Seven Springs, Pa., which is an 85-mile race that includes nearly 10,000 feet of vertical climbing.
“Jason missed breaking the record by about 10 seconds last year, and that inspired me to see if I could set a new record,” Cassidy said. “This race was a tuneup for nationals. I wanted to do a fitness test to see where I stood, and I think things are looking up. It was nice to go out and have a good ride.”
One of the youngest riders in the race, 18-year-old Cheyne Hoag of Dansville, placed third overall with a 47:44 finish time. Jeremy Walker of Millersville, Pa. placed fourth in 48:58 and Montreal’s Mathieu Boudier-Reve rounded out the top five, finishing in 49:11.
In addition to seeing who would be the fastest bike riders, Saturday’s race was also a contest to see who would be crowned King and Queen of the Mountain, which was open to competitors who also participated on the same course two weeks ago in the 30th annual Whiteface Mountain Uphill Foot Race. And the honors went to Robert Duncan Douglas and Carole Hakistan.
The 41-year-old Douglas, of Honeoye Falls, won this year’s footrace and finished sixth overall Saturday in 49:13, while Hakistan, a 40-year-old from Burlington, Vt., added a first-place overall women’s finish in the bike race to her runner-up performance in the foot race. Hakistan was the first woman to cross the bike race finish line. Her 56:38 finish time was also good enough for a 35th-place overall showing.
Chestertown’s Bob Olden was the first Adirondack racer to reach the finish line Saturday, placing 29th overall in 55:25. Fastest riders from the Tri-Lakes area included Lake Placid’s Richard Erenstone, who placed 110th in 1:05:15 and Saranac Lake’s Ryan Holt, who finished in 1:06:32 to place 118th overall.
The race also saw five unicyclists attempt to ascend the course. Four of those riders finished the race, led by Steve Relles of Delmar.
Relles, who was the only unicyclist who had been in the race before, riding in the past two uphill events, topped the one-wheeled field by finishing in 1:20:56, which was five minutes faster than the personal best time he set a year ago.
Mark Premo of Winooski took second among the unicyclists, finishing in 1:30:48, Eric Sheer of Peace Dale, R.I., was third in 1:33:18 and East Montpelier, Vt. rider Bill Merrylees was fourth in 1:46:21. Max DeMilner, a 20-year-old from Maine, was the lone unicyclist in the group who didn’t complete the race. DeMilner, who was less than half the age of the rest of his fellow riders, gave up his quest about one mile from the finish line. Approximately 270 riders registered for this year’s uphill bike race and 245 finished.
The seventh annual White-face Mountain Uphill Bike Race is scheduled for June 14, 2008, and the 31st annual Uphill Foot Race is slated for June 1, 2008.
Anyone know if that Bill Merrylees is on the forums? I’m right next door to E. Montpelier for the summer…
Yes, his forum name is bmerry.
THE PRIVATE PASSIONS OF YOUR DOCTOR
Nikki MACDONALD
1917 words
16 June 2007
Dominion Post
3
English
© 2007 Fairfax New Zealand Limited. All Rights Reserved.
Many doctors counter the intensity of the job with unusual hobbies, writes Nikki Macdonald.
WHEN Alastair Macdonald’s wife Jan decided to surprise him by buying the Martin guitar that had been quietly seducing him for months, she left it tucked under the covers on her side of the bed.
“The underlying message was that she was not quite sure which I liked better,” says Dr Macdonald.
Ensconced on the couch in his Kelburn townhouse, the bow-tie-sporting kidney doctor splits his attention: one hand fingers the guitar cradled on his lap, the other pacifies his other mistress, Cocoa, the caramel, velvet-cloaked Abyssinian.
It is from this spot that he watches dawn break over the harbour every Saturday morning, feet tapping and head lolling to the rhythm for three or four hours.
“You look out at the sun rising. It’s just a magic part of the day. I almost feel selfish about the morning. It’s all mine.”
Dr Macdonald is one of what seems a disproportionately high number of Wellington doctors with unusual or obsessively-followed passions.
There are several racing car drivers, a medal collector, a multiple record-breaking unicyclist, an acrobatic pilot, an opera singer and an orchid breeder. And that’s just the ones I’ve heard about.
Perhaps it’s not surprising, given the intensity of the job. A Turkish study of emergency department doctors last year found those with hobbies were less likely to suffer depression and anxiety.
Born in England and the son of a piper, Dr Macdonald played the fiddle from the age of seven, but gave up when he left school. He always retained a love of music, going to see soon-to-be greats in London clubs – The Animals, the Stones, Eric Clapton, Rod Stewart and American blues legends John Lee Hooker, Chuck Berry and Sonny Boy Williamson.
“I was just mad on dancing. You would pour yourself out of the place around six o’clock in the morning. That sometimes interrupted medical studies. I worked on the basis that any mark over 50 was a waste.”
Forced to do a forfeit at a drunken party at the age of about 30, and unable to perform the feats of strength and agility of his compatriots, he instead borrowed his sister’s old school violin (she never got round to giving it back) and played a drunken sailor’s hornpipe.
It was the beginning of a music-making renaissance.
After moving to New Zealand he began playing the fiddle in pubs, and taking it with him on overseas trips. He remembers once playing Irish music with a bunch of Finns at his hotel while at a medical conference in Finland. His memory of the conference is a little sketchy.
But it was picking up the guitar six years ago that really inspired him.
“I can just ogle beautiful guitars. It’s just a beautiful thing.”
Now there’s a stethoscope on the table, two guitar cases and a fiddle case by the wall. Crammed into the cupboard are a narrow, angular travel guitar, a banjo and a mandola. But it wasn’t enough just to play.
He decided he wanted to craft an instrument.
He took a month off work to attend a course – three weeks to come to grips with the balance of mathematical theory, art and intuition needed to make the guitar, and a week to get up to work speed.
The instrument was a gift for his left- handed son, now 29, so he couldn’t test out the sound before handing it over. But just seeing it take shape was incredibly satisfying, he says.
“I was so proud to give it to him. It’s the best present I have ever given him. We are both absolutely mad about music.”
YOU get the feeling Charles Hornabrook is the kind of guy always gunning for the underdog. Despite endless trays of glorious luminescent green beetles in the family collection, it’s the drab tawny pinpricks that capture his imagination.
Perhaps that’s not surprising from a psychiatrist – a man who makes his living delving behind the visible exterior.
And it’s the same with collecting – it’s all about seeing what others don’t see.
“The thing that draws me to insects, you can go into the bush and you look up the hill and see the green trees and you think, ‘That’s just bush.’ But I can go in and pick up fungus on the trees and logs on the ground and know it’s possible there might be an anthill stag beetle living in symbiosis with the ants living in that log. It gives me a sense of depth.”
Dr Hornabrook reels off unintelligible scientific names as if everyone is an amateur coleopterist and will know what he’s talking about. But you can’t help be carried along by his galloping enthusiasm.
One room in his father’s house is wall- to-wall specimen cabinets. The smell of moth balls is nauseating – camphor is one chemical used to preserve the beetles.
These ones, with the long sinuous necks, are giraffe weevils, he explains. Those are carabids – predators.
That’s a Charles Darwin stag beetle – “like this weird helicopter thing that’s all legs and jaws”. There are longhorns and ferocious clerids (they eat two to three times their body weight every day) and the rhinoceros beetle, named for its arcing horn whose underside is feathered with orange hairs.
And so on through literally thousands of winged wonders, each meticulously mounted on a pin, with a tiny label stating the collector’s name, place and date of collection. Red tags for the ultimate honour – a previously unidentified species.
They may be indistinguishable to the unpractised eye, but for Dr Hornabrook the hundreds of specimen drawers are a record of his childhood.
“It’s like looking at photograph albums. I don’t just see the specimen, I see the whole experience of the place.”
As if to prove a point, he opens a drawer and selects a run-of-the-mill beetle.
“This I collected when I was about 10, in Papua New Guinea. It was on a rotten piece of timber in really wet conditions.”
Collecting beetles has been a lifetime passion. It began when Dr Hornabrook’s father – also a doctor – got a job as a research director in Papua New Guinea, when Charles was five or six.
"In the weekend, rather than doing normal things other people would do, we would be collecting insects. It was just really exciting. If you went into the bush it was like an expedition, an excuse for exploration.
“Even if you did not find any insects you would get in a Land Rover and drive on a dirt road.”
He has collected in Africa, New Caledonia and South America. He once sparked a police alert while working in Australia, when he left a hospital car by a remote roadside while he went in search of insects.
There are various ways of catching beetles, but the most effective is simply batting a flowering tree and letting the insects fall into a white sheet.
“It’s very exciting. The fast flying things are taking off. You have to move fast to catch them.”
Once caught, the beetles have to be killed before being stored, otherwise the carnivores will eat the others on the way home.
The easiest method is to squeeze ethyl acetate on to a cotton wool bud and let the liquid evaporate. The gas works like fly spray.
Asked why he chose beetles over beautiful butterflies or monster moths, Dr Hornabrook says it was the diversity more than anything that captivated him.
“Near Mt Kenya I can remember finding elephant dung and just the amazing life within that dung. You can see where the Egyptians get the idea of beetles as a symbol of rebirth. You have a waste product – in one pile of dung there would be 15 to 20 species of dung beetle. It just boggles the mind.”
THE PRIVATE PASSIONS OF YOUR DOCTOR - continued…
KEN LOOI used to be a bit of an oddity on the streets of Johnsonville. Now the locals have grown accustomed to the sight of a geeky-looking guy on a unicycle. But he remains a tourist attraction overseas.
“Most of the places we’ve gone it’s a good conversation starter. That’s kind of the attraction. You can go anywhere, people will come up and talk to you. We stopped outside this village (in Laos), there was no power. Within five minutes we were surrounded by 100 villagers. One person said: ‘You want Coca-Cola?’ It must have been the only words they knew. We were dragged into a hut where they were sipping on rice wine.”
As well as having done several unicycling tours, including to Cambodia, Laos, Nepal, Iceland and the Swiss Alps, he has built up a profile at home through charity rides.
In 2003 he completed the 160-kilometre Lake Taupo Cycle Challenge on a unicycle, raising money for Oxfam.
In February 2005 he endured 24 hours in the seat, circling the Basin Reserve cricket ground 814 times, a total of 378km. That beat the previous 24-hour record by more than 50km and raised more than $2000 for the tsunami relief effort.
He has also won world championship medals and, as president of the New Zealand Unicycle Federation, has been heavily involved in promoting the sport.
Already a keen mountain biker, Dr Looi decided in 2000 that it was time for a new challenge. Now the bike shed down the side of his Johnsonville house is a shrine to pedal power. Of the seven sets of wheels, one is a road bike, two are mountain bikes, and four are unicycles.
Despite looking tricky, unicycling is not that difficult to learn, Dr Looi says.
"It’s like riding a bike. Once you get the hang of it you don’t think about balancing.
“Most people forget how hard it was to ride a bike. I found a fence and worked my way down it. It took a couple of weeks of cursing to get it going.”
You can cruise at 25kmh and push 35kmh or 40kmh downhill. And because it’s like riding a bike permanently locked in low gear, you can cover pretty much any terrain accessible to a mountain bike.
Dr Looi this year completed the Speights Coast to Coast adventure race and the Karapoti Classic on one wheel.
But it looks horribly uncomfortable. Even after seven years’ experience, riding up the street and hopping up the grassy bank, he barely looks in control.
When Dr Looi started there were only a handful of unicyclers in New Zealand. Now up to 50 turn up to the national championships.
Dr Looi, 28, has the ultimate work-life balance, fitting in locum emergency department work around his biking passion.
And that, Dr Macdonald believes, is the key to retaining your sanity and avoiding the horrific burnout rates in the medical profession.
“I think it’s all about keeping your head. I think it keeps me in a very good frame of mind, helps me maintain my optimism. I get lost in all of this (playing guitar). I would never worry about anything. I never would have a medical thought that would intrude on that. It’s not conscious, it’s just because you are in another world.”
They called me Geeky :o
Actually, the interview happened a few months ago…was wondering when they would publish it.
Ken
Cycling through county fair circuit
By Michelle Machado, The Record, Stockton, Calif.
McClatchy-Tribune Regional News
25 June 2007
Distributed by McClatchy - Tribune Information Services.
Jun. 25–STOCKTON – An hour before the San Joaquin Fair opened, unicyclist Chaz Marquette was in a quiet exhibit building attempting to break his record for the longest ride on the smallest unicycle.
Zippy the Clown filmed the effort with his camcorder.
A member of Madame Zelda’s Puppet Circus serve as one of several witnesses.
But Marquette’s attempts to roll 25 feet on a 15-inch unicycle with a 14-millimeter wheel fell short until Tuesday, when he said he traveled 27 feet, 8 inches.
“Twenty-five feet on this is like doing five miles,” Marquette said, sweating with the effort.
By the time fair gates swung open and fairgoers started trickling in, Marquette was in front of the building spinning balls, juggling clubs and knives, and doing tricks atop 3- and 6-foot unicycles.
Some people stopped, others walked by, but everybody smiled.
Seven-year-old Gabby Hattori stayed for the whole show.
“I like this magic act,” she said, jumping up and down and clapping her hands.
The rest of the audience forgot to acknowledge Marquette’s antics, prompting him to inject one of his frequent jokes and jabs.
“There are two ways to do this trick: one is like that – without the applause,” he said.
The show was one of three he did daily during the fair’s 11-day run. This is his fourth year at the fair.
Forrest White, fair CEO, said grounds acts such as Marquette’s create a festive atmosphere at the fair.
Marquette, 45, has been in the entertainment business since 1980, when, as a three-pack-per-day smoker, he decided to become tobacco-free.
“I became a juggler as a way to quit smoking. I’ve turned my job into a healthy lifestyle,” the Chaz Marquette Comedy Unicycle Show owner said.
Marquette’s health-building program consists of eating nutritious food; abstaining from tobacco, alcohol and drugs; and exercising daily.
His workout is built into workdays, when he appears at fairs and festivals, half-time shows, trade shows, private parties, law enforcement programs such as DARE and other events.
Marquette said that on days off, he unicycles for two hours, juggles for two and lifts weights for one.
“I practice unicycling on a black-belt-degree level,” he said.
The practice has paid off: Marquette holds the Guinness World Record for tallest unicycle skipping – rope skipping while on a 9-foot, 2-inch unicycle.
He is also known for riding a dizzyingly tall 22-foot unicycle without the benefit of safety gear.
Marquette said he worked in several industries before his conversion to clean living.
He reeled off a list that included landscaping, stripping and security, and then retracted the adult entertainment entry. With Marquette, it’s often difficult to separate the silly from the serious.
For 27 years, though, unicycling, juggling and joking have been his way of making a living and giving back.
“It makes me happy to see that little kid happy, which made her mother happy. I’ve done my due to society,” he said.
Contact reporter Michelle Machado at (209) 943-8547 or mmachado@recordnet.com.
…And may the slowest rider win
By Samantha Clarke
25 June 2007
Coventry Evening Telegraph
© 2007 Coventry Newspapers Ltd
BIKE DAY: Cyclists and jugglers take part in race challenge with a difference
KEEN cyclists from across Coventry and Warwickshire kept crowds in the city centre entertained yesterday with a “go-slow” bike ride.
Bike riders and unicyclists joined forces for the fun, outside Coventry Transport Museum in Millennium Place.
The event raised funds for the Leukaemia Research Fund and also celebrated 25 years of the Coventry Cycling Campaign.
Among those taking part were more than half a dozen members of the Nuneaton Juggling Club who turned up on unicycles of all sizes.
John Parnell, of the club, said: "The thing with bikes is that the faster you go the easier it is to keep your balance.
“It is not easy to ride bikes, or unicycles, when you are going slowly, so the trick will be to bunny hop on the spot for as long as possible.”
First up in the 25-metre challenge was Daniel Hodges, aged 10, on a unicycle, who laughed as he fell off By Samantha Clarke near the beginning of the course.
Dad Dave got off to a flying start - which went against the whole point of the challenge - so he decided to add time on by bunny hopping the second half of the course.
“It was exhausting with all the jumping up and down but it was really good fun,” he said afterwards.
Lesley Robertson is cycle curator at the transport museum, which stands on the site of James Starley’s factory established in 1891.
She “stormed” into first place with the slowest time of just over one minute 31 seconds.
She said: "We should do more events like this in Coventry, as it is the birthplace of the cycle.
“It is done in excellent humour, it promotes cycles and everyone can be involved.”