Ken, very impressive indeed!
I may have missed it, but what length of cranks were you using? And do you happen to know the grade of those climbs that were perfect for the Coker (and you, of course!).
Klaas Bil
I’ll answer that one for Ken, since he is probably tucked up in bed right about now.
Ken’s Coker had 125mm cranks. 
(Check the first post)
I know this because he just put them on before the NZUni weekend, and I had a go with them. It was an unreal experience, and I loved it. I sussed out how to freemount on my third attempt, holding the wheel with my hand and pulling myself up. I’ve heard people say it’s hard to freemount a coker but I found it relatively easy, once figuring out a technique. It worked pretty consistently after that, but probably didn’t look as impressive as Ken’s rolling mounts. Cokers are wicked, and I want one now. I can see how there would be potential for injuries though, since you can cruise at such high speeds. I’ll leave Ken to answer the bit about gradient, since I didn’t attend the race.
I suppose you still wouldn’t wear a helmet, or other protection? 
And I’m not telling you should use protection, just asking. It’s just that I don’t like to be scraped and bleeding when riding.
The person is Stefan Gauler
Here is his personal homepage: http://homepage.sunrise.ch/mysunrise/einrad/index.htm and here is the link to his records: http://homepage.sunrise.ch/mysunrise/rekorde/Weltrekord/meine%20Rekorde.htm
Ferko
24- record
Hello, its me, stefan gauler.
I rode in 1991 280km with a 26" uni , 130mm crank lenght.
You have questions about this record ?
Sorry my englis is very very bad
Stefan;)
You can visit my website here:
unfortunally its in german
Nice record:D.
I want to break that record;)
have you got more information, pictures, movies about the record so I can put in on a my homepage about unicycling. It is the biggest unicycle page in the Netherlands en Beglium, but it is only in Dutch.
Ferko
Re: Unicycling 160km (100miles) around Lake $#@!&@
Sounds very Unizaba-esque! But I do know what you mean. I was very thankful for my brake and 140mm cranks on the first 20 hilly kilometers. I started at Karangahape Rd, Kuratau, the 80km mark. Peter had started his 80km leg at 6am and the plan was for me to wait until 12noon for him to show up. If he didn’t show I was going to start anyway to ensure we finished before the prize giving started. I was getting nervous as 12:00 approached - Peter still hadn’t showed up. I heard reports from freshly finished cyclists that he was “just on the last hill”. I decided to wait til 12:15, then go. At 12:10 Peter stumbled across the line - 6 hours after he started. I was off!
I passed heaps of two wheelers on the hills which has great. Several cyclists were heard to say “how embarassing - I’m being passed by a guy on one wheel!” Heh, heh!
At the bottom of the fearsome Kuratau Hill Malcolm was waiting for me with a fresh pair of 125mm cranks. I quickly whipped off the too long 140s and slapped on the shorties. I also disconnected my brake as the rest of the 80km was all flat (apart from the dreaded Hatepe Hill) and it was rubbing on the rim.
I zipped along the flat thru Turangi and on to Motatapu, doing 42km in 2 hours, average speed 19.2km/h. Very soon after Motatapu my knees began to get really sore. I stopped and put my seat up a bit. My knees got worse. I stopped 2km later and put the seat down a bit. Soon I passed Steve Taylor on his 28" uni. I made a phone call to Steve and Peter (it’s great having two free hands on a uni!) just as I was approaching the Hatepe Hill. This was the most physically challenging part of the ride - my heart rate got pretty high on this hill. Plenty of cyclists were walking up. I had to hold my seat handle with both hands, in order to put enough force into the pedals just to stay on. This was the first time I had to use both hands on the handle. Now I know why the GB4 Coker handle was shaped the way it is!
The downhill off the other side of Hatepe was a killer for my knees. They felt like they were going to explod and I jumped off to rest them as soon as I slowed down enough to get off (which was right at the bottom!).
The final 20km was just plodding along - with both handle on the handle all the time now. The town of Taupo was finally sighted off in the distance - about 10km away.
Steve and Peter were standing at a strategic point 100m before the finish line. They handed me our www.unicycle.co.nz banner which I held aloft in one hand with the other on the handle - it was quite hard to ride like that! I crossed the line to great applause and cheering - that was very cool! The crowd’s response really made the event for me.
My cycle computer said: Riding time: 4hr12min (Total time about 4hr 20min), Distance: 79.43km, average speed: 18.8km/h. Total time for our team - about 10hr 20min.
Tony
No sig’
Wow, changing crank lengths in the middle of a ride! That’s great. I guess it’s like when we did the big White Mountain Peak climb and descent, switching from Munis to Cokers for the last 25 miles (and 10,000’ of descent).
You guys are awesome and I truly wish I could be there riding with you. Congratulations to all of you.
—Nathan
It was definately one of the harder rides I’ve done in my life 
I have too pieces of advice to aspiring distance riders
- Train if you are going to do a distance ride
- Sleep if you are going to do a distance ride
I got something like 6 hours sleep in the 4 days leading up to the event due to a certain Master’s thesis requiring finishing. Said Master’s thesis had also meant I have done a sum total of one distance ride since February.
With this fantastic preparation under my belt I managed to crash on my cycle home the day before and bruised my knees badly plus lost some skin. Roll on Saturday 5am and I was altogether not in a fit state.
I decided to do the first 80km because of a fool hardy plan to carry on for another 20km to do a metric century. Unfortunately for me the first 80km is also the most hilly section with lots of nasty climbs.
Steve and I started a little after 6am when the time keepers said go. Very quickly I realised that my coker wasn’t going to keep up with Steve’s 29er. I was surprised just how good the 29er was at leaving me in the dust on the hills. I was running 152mm cranks on my coker because I knew my fitness wouldn’t handle anything shorter. I watched Steve disappear into the distance and realised a few minutes later that my skin was extremely cold despite the sunshine. A quick stop to add an extra layer solved that problem and was followed by the first of my slimey leppin squeezies. Unlike Ken I was intending on using these all through the ride because I figured there was no way I was going to survive without them.
The first 35km flew by without too much trouble, despite some not so nice hills. My legs turned to lead for the last 5km of the first leg and another squeezy made its way down my throat. A brief break at the 40km mark and I was back on my way having taken exactly 2hrs 40min for the first leg.
I managed to keep up the 15km/h average for the next 20km which was also the point where waves of cyclists started to pass me. There were lots of nice comments from people who couldn’t believe I was doing it on a unicycle. The hills in the second leg were even tougher and I was starting to inhale squeezies in an effort to keep going. Fortunately my new camel bak bladder was keeping me well hydrated.
The 60km mark had a drink stop and I was quite surprised to find I was still on track for my five hours 20 min target time. With 20km to go I set off thinking I might cope with the ride after all.
Unfortunately it seemed like it was all uphill from there on. Some cruel person had put a sign up which said we were nearly half way round the lake (ie nearly finished my legs) but they probably meant “nearly half way if you cycle at 45 km/h”. Waihaha hill nearly killed all my energy and I was glad to see most cyclists were struggling as well.
After what seemed an interminable time I finally rolled into the 80km changeover area, very saddle sore and very sick of squeezies (I had 7 I think).
I ended up only averaging 10km/h for the last 20km due to the endless supply of hills and the severe lack of energy to go fast on the few down bits. I still have no idea how Ken rocketed up them at 20km/h! He seems to have steel springs for legs!
The coker with 152mm cranks was probably not a bad option considering my circumstances but a 29er may have proved even better. Here’s hoping some of my old fitness will return before the next race!
Peter
Peter - you’d better change your avatar slogan now that the feesis is finito! 
“peter.bier
No time to ride :-(”
You guys are awesome, congratulations on such a incredible ride. I enjoy reading about such great adventures. Bravo!
Re: Unicycling 160km (100miles) around Lake $#@!&@
On Sun, 30 Nov 2003 05:13:42 -0600, GizmoDuck
<GizmoDuck@NoEmail.Message.Poster.at.Unicyclist.com> wrote:
>‘Lake Taupo Cycle Challenge’
Wow, super performance, 160 km in such a short time! Nice read.
What cranks were you using? And do you know how much that ‘perfect
Coker grade’ is?
Klaas Bil - Newsgroup Addict
I like things that are either curved or tapered. - Steve Howard
You sure are persistent Klaas.
I’m sorry if you don’t want to hear the answer from me since I wasn’t there. Ken can answer the ‘perfect Coker grade’ question but surely you can gather the crank length information from what is already posted on this thread.
Ken -> Coker with 125mm cranks
Peter -> Coker with 152mm cranks
Tony -> Coker with 140mm cranks and 125mm cranks
According to Ken, the others used 29ers with 125mm cranks. Who had the fourth Coker? Was it Steve Parvarno? I want to be the fifth Coker owner in NZ.
Actually I probably would. I am not anti-helmets, I just don’t like being told I have to wear one (like you do on bicycles in NZ) so I like being able to decide. On a 24" unicycle I feel safe most of the time without a helmet. If I was racing on a 36" I would probably feel less safe, and wear head and wrist protection in case of a high speed crash.
Thanks Klaas!
As Rowan has so diligently pointed out, I was using 125mm cranks on my Coker. Tony had 140mm on for the first 5km or so before swapping over to 125mm. Peter used 150mm’s. The fourth Coker was Malcolm Todds but I don’t know what crank length he was using.
The interesting thing is that the three out of four riders in the four man team used 29’ers. They were plenty fast too!
As for the perfect Coker grade- I’m afraid it’s just a guesstimate at about 10% give or take a few %. I didn’t have your inclinometer to measure them with 
They weren’t as steep or long as I expected, but they just kept coming. I really enjoyed them despite the fact I blew up after 40km. I don’t think I could like to ride 160km on the flat- it would make for a very long ride.
I suppose my definition of perfect grade is one that you can still spin up and maintain your previous speed on the flat. The road cyclists dramatically slowed down once they hit the hills, but unicycle speeds remain in a fairly tight range of 16-24km/h. I have passed people on my unicycle that I know are fitter and faster than me when I had raced them previously with my bike.
I estimate that I passed about 2-300 cyclists up each of the first hills, (like a yo-yo they would pass me again on the downhill). Maybe one or two roadies passed me on the first set of hills. Quite a few passed me on the mid-course hillclimbs when my legs turned to jelly.
Re: Unicycling 160km (100miles) around Lake $#@!&@
On Mon, 1 Dec 2003 23:14:55 -0600, Rowan
<Rowan@NoEmail.Message.Poster.at.Unicyclist.com> wrote:
>You sure are persistent Klaas. 
I reposted directly on the forum because my post to the newsgroup
hadn’t made it through, not because I didn’t trust you on the answer.
And then when the electronic link started working again, the original
post was as yet relayed to the forum as well.
And in the other response you said “check the first post”, but I
really can’t seem to find crank length info there (assuming you mean
the thread-starting post).
Klaas Bil - Newsgroup Addict
I like things that are either curved or tapered. - Steve Howard
Re: Unicycling 160km (100miles) around Lake $#@!&@
On Mon, 1 Dec 2003 23:49:30 -0600, GizmoDuck
<GizmoDuck@NoEmail.Message.Poster.at.Unicyclist.com> wrote:
>As for the perfect Coker grade- I’m afraid it’s just a guesstimate at
>about 10% give or take a few %.
I think it’s super if you can keep the cadence unchanged on a 10%
grade (+/- a few), on a Coker with 125’s. Just to ask one more
question (the answer to which I may have missed too), you said the
uphills weren’t as long as you had expected. What sort of length are
we talking then?
Klaas Bil - Newsgroup Addict
I like things that are either curved or tapered. - Steve Howard
Re: Re: Unicycling 160km (100miles) around Lake $#@!&@
Do you really want to know? Sounds like you want join us next year!
Most of the hills lasted about 10-15mins (again I wasn’t keeping tab but that’s how long I think they took). There were quite a few short 5 min hills. The hill just before Tony’s start probably was the biggest and took about 20min to climb I don’t know the distances as I didn’t have my cyclecomputer. One of the other cyclists with computers said that we were still doing 17-18 kph on one of the regular climbs.
I spoke to another cyclist who reckons the climbs are probably closer to 7% gradient. I have no concept of scale so I think he’s probably right.
The winning time was 4:07 on a bike by Matthew Yates (his little brother is a former junior roadie world champ). The average time was somewhere around 6-7hrs. I think it would be really cool to have some international riders next year. Especially really fast guys like Christian Hoverath and Ken Fuchs (are you guys reading this?) etc who might actually come in mid-field. With 9000+ riders it’s also one of the bigger Southern Hemisphere cycling events 
Ken, that sounds great, but besides the distance and cost involved, it’s harder for some of the people up in the north to arrive in NZ in late November all trained and ready for an endurance fest like that. Once the time changes in Oct, it’s much harder to do any real amount of daily training.
That being said, I love NZ and especially Lake Taupo so would really like to come!
Ride on,
Nathan
@eenwhieler
Ok , i will add some pictures on my website next week.
Now are Videos aviable.
Bye
Stefan
Re: Unicycling 160km (100miles) around Lake $#@!&@
On Tue, 2 Dec 2003 03:45:53 -0600, GizmoDuck
<GizmoDuck@NoEmail.Message.Poster.at.Unicyclist.com> wrote:
>:p Do you really want to know? Sounds like you want join us next year!
Ooowww, I’m not up to that sort of long rides, and the cost and time
involved are also prohibitive. Otherwise I would really love to! I was
asking that question to compare to my own experience that with a 24 x
3 with 170 mm cranks I can sustainably ride up long grades of up to
about 10-12%. Sustainably meaning 10-15 mins at a time. Much much
slower than you on the Coker though.
Klaas Bil - Newsgroup Addict
“Friends don’t let friends drop to flat - Kris Holm, discussing large drops to flat ground.”