Just flicking through the 2005 Guinness Book.
Apparently the hour record is set at 10.65km by Dieter Dollig of Germany in 1998.
What wheel size/cranks was this done on? If it was a std 24" with 125mm cranks that doesn’t sound very fast- given the 10km UNICON std class was won in well under 30mins.
Is this just an outdated record and isn’t it about time someone changed it?
I think that has to be a mistake - I’m a relative novice and I reckon I could probably beat that on a flat road. I sometimes ride my 26" to work, about 10 miles offroad, and it takes me about 1 1/2 hours. That would be about 6 1/2 mph average, or something like 9 3/4 km/h. I can’t believe I could get that close to the “world record” on a casual offroad ride to work. There are people who post on this group who ride way faster than that over long distances on cokers.
So, I reckon that’s either a misprint or, as you say, it seriously needs updating!
Re: Unicycle hour record
Yes, this is a silly statement indeed. This Dieter Dollig is totally unknown to me, and Google turns up nothing either.
The highest hour distance I know of is of Ken Fuchs, who rode 15.59 miles in 1:01:46 on 5 Sep 2003, that is an average of 15.14 miles per hour, or 24.37 km per hour. He did this on a Coker with 125 mm cranks. Doing 25 km in under an hour is a standing challenge in the unicycling community - I think no-one has achieved it yet.
Klaas Bil
Re: Unicycle hour record
On Tue, 2 Nov 2004 08:24:57 -0600, “Klaas Bil”
<Klaas.Bil@NoEmail.Message.Poster.at.Unicyclist.com> wrote:
>Doing 25 km in under an hour is a standing challenge in the unicycling
>community - I think no-one has achieved it yet.
>Klaas Bil
Hi Klaas!
I have done it with my geared up unicycle (1.58*28"=44.333"). At the
2003 Guetersloh Skate Marathon (‘City Classics’) I rode the 42.195km
in 1:41:15 which is an average speed of 25.004 kmph. So there must
have been an hour of riding with more than 25km distance.
Frank
Re: Re: Unicycle hour record
Well, then “Germany” is the one word that Guinness had correct. Good job Frank!
Now that you mention it, I remember having seen a post by you about a year ago. In it, you also mentioned your intention to better your own time to below 1:40. No success yet?
Klaas Bil
Re: Unicycle hour record
On Tue, 2 Nov 2004 09:53:40 -0600, “Klaas Bil”
<Klaas.Bil@NoEmail.Message.Poster.at.Unicyclist.com> wrote:
>
>Frank Bonsch wrote:
>> I have done it
>
>Well, then “Germany” is the one word that Guinness had correct. Good job
>Frank!
>
>Now that you mention it, I remember having seen a post by you about a
>year ago. In it, you also mentioned your intention to better your own
>time to below 1:40. No success yet?
>
>Klaas Bil
No, unfortunately not. The Duesseldorf Rheinmarathon was the only race
this year where unicycles were allowed and my time was ‘only’ 1:42:33
due to an unwanted dismount after 38km at about 30kmph. No bad
injuries but i wasn´t able to speed up after that.
Frank
Re: Re: Unicycle hour record
Thats awesome, I can’t wait till I can buy a geared hub/uni.
Self timed on a stopwatch, and measuring distance with a cycle computer, my own record is 12.95 miles (20.8 km) in exactly an hour. That was on a Coker with 150mm cranks, and with a very short section of easy cross country, although mainly on flat tarmac. I regularly managed 12 - 12.5 miles in an hour: around 20 km.
If I set off to do it tomorrow, I’d expect to do 11 miles.
It’d be a good thing to “modernize” these records. However, I confess I don’t know what the official governing body records are. All I know from my 13 months of unicycling is that there ought to be various official distance records (as in most other sports), and the only record classifications for equipment should be direct-drive, and geared drive. Why impose artificial limitations of wheel & crank size when we don’t even have an unlimited class? 
The Unicycling Society of America (USA) and the International Unicycling Federation (IUF) maintain the North American and world competitive records, respectively. These records must be set in formal competitions that are held per the rules published in the competitive rule books.
The records currently posted on the USA and IUF Web sites are not current. I’ll try to get the current North American and World records and make them available - watch this thread for details.
We use limitations at competitions because most of the racers are casual riders and are not interested in buying or building custom unicycles.
But even with that, the 24" wheel size is going out of date. It will take a while for much of the mainstream unicycling community to notice, especially in Japan perhaps, but for us who read and post here, we are no longer tied to mostly just 20" and 24".
But most of our speed records are based on 24" (max.) wheels with 125mm (min.) cranks. This is what we race on.
But we also do unlimited racing, and have other events outside our competitions. Though the Guinness 100m record was set on a regulation racing unicycle, I don’t think Guinness cares what size the wheel and cranks were.
Hour records:
Something a tad under 15 miles was done in 1885. Yes, that’s one hundred and nineteen years ago. Wheel size unknown, but probably in the 50" range or so. There is a listing somewhere, in an old issue of the USA Newsletter I believe, with the speed records that guy set way back then. I think he managed to do 14.89 miles in an hour.
In 1986 Floyd Beattie (recently deceased) did a few records at an IHPVA competition. His hour record (on a 45.5" wheel, I believe) was also just under 15 miles.
I think there are many riders out there today who are capable of breaking the 15 mile/25 km barrier.
Also there’s the consideration that no one on a Coker (or even just a larger wheel than a 20") has applied to Guinness for the record. I know there’s all sorts of criteria to be met with observers & so on (although I admit that I don’t know what they are)
Every one knows that the record for most marshmallows stuffed up one’s nose is held by Toxeth O’Grady - but how many have tried it in controlled conditions with an independent observer? (no, I’ve never tried it, and wouldn’t want to either)
Maybe at the next UNICON there could be arrangements made so then this and maybe more records could be set or broken?
Can I come and watch the marshmellow stuffing workshop at unicon, actully, no, I want to RUN the marshmellow up nose stuffing workshop at Unicon.That should be a real crowd puller on the convention side of things.
You don’t even have to be able to unicycle to take part.
SArah
Thanks
Incidentally, if anyone did want to have a go at setting a proper record, the rowing lake at the national watersports centre here has a loop round it that’s about 4.5k, all on flat tarmac. I had a bit of a ride today and I did 10k on this in 28.28, without any training, after an hour of hard riding (riding 10.something miles) on my 29er with normal length (125mm) cranks. I reckon with a coker + 100mm or even 89mm cranks, someone who distance rides seriously could beat 30k in an hour with a little training given as flat and easy a course as that.
Joe
i thoughyt i would reserect the last forum on this i can find in the pages just for fun 
I think it should be an unlimited record also- having limitations on wheel size and crank length makes it harder for people without big wheels/geared wheels, but we are talking THE world record, and it should be the best choice of gear for the rider. I know this is not bicycling, but there are no limitations on gears with the bicycle hour record, so why should there be limitations in a unicycle hour record?
15 miles in a hour is not hard. I been doing a 10 mile course with a bike friend regularly. It is not on a flat course by any means and we average over 15mph most evenings and it takes me at least 5 miles to warm-up (arthritis is not nice).
I would guess that 16.5 should be possible on a flat course without wind.
We need a proper race some time… Frank, Christian, Ken, Ryan, Ando, Daiki and Saki… that would be some race… I would like to play as well, not watch, if I could. All these could break 15 and probably 16… wow what a race that would be! 
Roger
Re: Unicycle hour record
On Tue, 7 Dec 2004 18:08:23 -0600, “rogeratunicycledotcom”
<rogeratunicycledotcom@NoEmail.Message.Poster.at.Unicyclist.com>
wrote:
>We need a proper race some time… Frank, Christian, Ken, Ryan, Ando,
>Daiki and Saki… that would be some race… I would like to play as
>well, not watch, if I could.
>
>Roger
Count me in! When? Where?
Frank
Me too! Actually, I’d rather have a 100mile race- 1hr is not long enough! I suck at short distance. How about at Unicon 13?
We could also have a race up the Alpe d’huez after Unicon. How cool would that be?
Ken