Howdy! Escape Adventures took some of my footage, along with some of theirs, and had a great promo put together for their Africa (and other) bike and unicycle tours. Check it out:
corbin
Cool. But I must ask…are you guys retired, semi-retired, or just take a lot of time off from work? You seem to go on so many of these tours all over the world. 
Oh, I wish I could be retired! Even if I was, I would probably still work my day job because I enjoy it. I work a full time job as a programmer at apple. For Africa/Madagascar, I saved up money and took one unpaid month off for my honeymoon during the summer. I made the trip a high priority.
corbin
Yeah I thought I remembered that you worked for apple. It is great for us to be lucky enough to do what we love, and make a living at it! But what about the other blokes, lol? Nathan and the others, did they also take a month off?
Seems pretty nice of your employers to let you guys take such a long leave, paid or not. As a business owner, I can take off whenever I want, but I don’t get paid or have employee benefits, and I never get a paid vacation. :(:o
I took six weeks off work. I was a contractor so I don’t get paid for holidays. I would’ve quit my job and taken the holiday anyway if they didn’t give me the leave.
That trip appeals to me. Way cool. I would like to see Africa at some point in my life. Thanks for putting this out there.
Oi!
Anybody (else) come to Africa and doesn’t stop by to say “Hi” is in big trouble.
Yeah !! I second that 
You can go say hi to Johnny and look at the mountain:
Or you can come say hi to me and have a look at the Kruger National Park:
Or Johnny and I can meet in the middle and you can have a look at one of the largest, man-made, holes in the earth.
Your call.
Wow! That looks like a wonderful adventure.
How fit do you have to be to survive one of their unicycle tours? How much milage are you doing a day? It looks like a great time.
Scott
John, from Escape, has some spare bikes. So, at anytime you get tired of uni’ing you can hop on a bike and ride along. As for bike-fitness, it isn’t that hard – there was a fairly new mountain biker on the trip with us and she did great.
Still, it helps to have a reasonable amount of fitness if you intend to ride it all on a uni. I trained for the tour, and I rode every bit of it on my geared 24.
corbin
This video is now also on facebook (HQ):
I can also give people the disk image to download and burn their own DVDs. And/or the raw movie file. Let me know if you want it!
Ah, this explains the fact that we saw your footage so quickly… 
What ever happened to your Uninam footage? Is there some black hole in the Santa Cruz mountains that sucked it all away?
There is! It surrounds my milling machine and constantly sucks me into it.
.corbin
Enjoyed the video. looks like a fun tour.
Escape Adventures does about 6 of these tours per season (June-Oct). We went on the first one last year. I think that’s the best one because the EA founder, John, goes on that trip and you get the benefit of his huge experience riding in Africa.
As for time off, I make it a priority in my life to go on as many adventures as possible. Sure, everyone at my office probably thinks I’m crazy, but they put up with it. I guess they have to. I spent 2 weeks in India, a month in Africa, and 3 weeks in New Zealand last year - definitely a good year. Combine with holidays as much as possible, take unpaid leave if necessary like Corbin did - whatever it takes. As you get older, my theory is that you will only regret missed opportunities if you don’t grab them. How many times have you thought back, “Man, I am so glad I didn’t go on that Unitour?”
—Nathan
There have been a couple of times…namely when I broke my ankle in Nepal and had it screwed back together in Kathmandu, and a while later when I broke my leg in Laos and had it screwed back together in Bangkok.
I regretted it at the time, but now I look back, I’m actually glad that those things happened to me. It was part of the adventure and also taught me a few things about what I am capable of dealing with. And coming back from injury is the greatest thing ever. I was riding at Unicon 13 not long after my injury in Laos, when at the time I almost gave up unicycling.
Injuries for athletes are the worse thing! But for the other side is just the best lesson you can take! It just makes you think in different ways, prepare yourself… or even take a different look of your life…
When I had my infection some month ago and had the surgery I was riding SO hard… Then I started planning stuff for UNICON, study and worked in my sponsorship material… Without those weeks in the bed I wouldn’t make UNICON in the way I did with the awesome sponsor I got…
I also had the opportunity to spend more time with my friends and remember how good is to be with them…
So I went back to riding way happier and also pulling tricks way faster!
back to the topic: I saw the vid at UNICON! Just crazy man! Really teased me to do some long distance again… Hopefully in 2011 (I only turn 18 in the end of 2010) I will be able to experience something like that…
The vid was awesome! Nice job!