Warwick Unicycle Races, 16th September

Today rocked. The race was great and I was very pleased to manage to avoid being lapped by Roger! It did take every shred of energy I had though, at the end I had to make a quick exit because I thought I was going to be sick, it was about an hour before I felt normal again!

Nice one everyone for making it a good race and raising the profile of unicycling a bit! Cheers again to Roger for swapping my cranks over for me, that would have taken me all afternoon :roll_eyes:

Iā€™ve got a few photos too, Iā€™ll try to get them up on Flickr tomorrow. Oh and if there was any important Lobster news I missed out on while I was stuffing my face in Lloyds can someone please let me know!

My photos are up here.

It was excellent fun, the extra distance really let you get going properly. Good job as well, it took me a while to lose Liam - we had a fantastic battle for the first four or five laps.

Just need to see if I can keep up with Sam and Roger next year. :astonished:

Another good fun day! I didnā€™t make it to the ā€˜fun raceā€™ earlier, but the big wheel race was cool. I kept up with Roger for the first lap or two, but he kept slipping away from me after that. My excuses being longer cranks - my 114s vs Rogerā€™s 102s (though I think they would be harder as it was so tight and bumpy), and my heavy 36" (29er tube ā€˜in the washā€™ so to speak) - lots of re-accelleration needed on the wiggly course.

Still, Rogerā€™s a fast man.

It was just under 10KM - around 8km for the 10 laps. My average speed was 25.1km/h, 15.6mph. Thatā€™s a real 10km in about 23:54.

Thanks to all who came, and organised. Same again next year? :slight_smile:

Sam

Well done to all. Perhaps Iā€™ll have to give it a go next time - I went to the SWUM meeting yesterday and Paul & Sarah seemed surprised I hadnā€™t gone to Warwick. I had thought about it, but decided I wasnā€™t really much of a speedster on the coker (15mph is about my top controllable speed, rather than average and I usually donā€™t do more than 13 for any length of time). But, as Paul said, ā€œsomebody has to come last to make it a raceā€ :o Thanks Paul (although actually he did then try to dig himself out of the hole and suggest I might be somewhere in the middleā€¦)

Anyway, I might have to try some more tarmac riding rather than the gravelly xc, and some cranks shorter than 150, then maybe Iā€™ll see you all there next year.

BTW Spencerā€¦ your post confused me. You say you finished near the back, then listed the results clearly showing you were in the middle :thinking:

Rob

EDIT: Sorry, just re-read Spencerā€™s post and realised he was talking about the fun race. Not enough sleep last weekend :confused:

Hi folks

As a newbie to this racing game, Iā€™d like to say a big ā€œTHANKYOUā€ to the organisersā€¦ and cheers to all the one-wheelers taking part. Team Banana took part in the fun race and had a great time. I was both impressed and humbled by the standardā€¦ and vow to return next year (as do my Banana chums) armed with shorter cranks and bigger wheels!

PSā€¦ does anyone know the finishing positions of the fun race?
PPSā€¦ would love to see some of these pics

We had a great time and here are some photos plus a couple of videos of the obstacle course to prove it.

Nice pics Keith and John:) My photos are here. Iā€™ve just discovered that Flickr only lets you have three ā€˜setsā€™, so Iā€™ve linked to the first photo from yesterday. Maybe Iā€™ll set up a Picasa account instead, I like the way you can put video clips in with your photos.

LastBanana, check out Johnā€™s photos, there are quite a few of your banana-equipped team!

Iā€™ve discovered Picasaweb recently; Iā€™ve used Picasa for ages, but had always used Fotopic for pictures until finding the wonderful ā€œUpload to webā€ buttonā€¦ 'tis very quick and easy.

It was fun. :slight_smile:

I was a little bit surprised to beat Sam. He had a charge at me on the small hill into the wind on the back straight but I just kept ahead. He then steadily dropped behind. Connie reckoned I took about 5m out of him every lap.

I wore my Garmin during the race. So you can see what state I was in when I was racing. I had an average heart rate of 172 and a Max of 183. I also had an average speed of about 26kph when moving and a max of 35.6kph

Here is the link if you want to play:
http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/3976418

Roger

Looks like you guys had a good time, I had intended to go for the big wheel race but couldnā€™tā€¦next year.

Oh and well done Roger for showing the young ones how itā€™s done :stuck_out_tongue:

Great Pics

Thanks for all those links to pics. Iā€™m totally in awe of you coker boys n girl.

Must do better next yearā€¦ cranks?

Is there, perchance, in this magnificent forum, a nerdy thread about crank length. IE if I purchased some 140mm cranks for my KH 24 muni (82.4% the length of my current 170s) will my speed increase by 21.4% (assuming same revs!)? Thatā€™s where my pitiful maths leads me. :thinking:
(The 140s seem to be the only alternate for my vintage of KH)

There have been various crank length discussions, but generally itā€™s just a matter of what suits each rider. Shorter cranks are easier to spin fast but give you less control and less torque for climbing or descending. The actual size youā€™ll prefer really depends on lots of things like length of legs, riding skill and how good you are at spinning.

If you keep the revs the same youā€™ll be doing the same speed whatever length cranks you use. Itā€™s a fixed drive (unless youā€™re riding a guni) so the wheel always turns once per crank revolution. The reason people go faster on shorter cranks is because the pedals (and therefore your feet) travel less distance per revolution because itā€™s a smaller circle, so itā€™s easier to spin faster. It ā€œfeelsā€ like a higher gear because of less foot movement per forward movement, but itā€™s not quite the same thing as ā€œproperā€ gearing - the only way you can go faster with the same cadence (rpm) is by using a bigger wheel or using a geared hub.

But yes, youā€™ll probably find youā€™ll go slightly faster on slightly shorter cranks (because youā€™ll find it easier to spin a bit faster) - trying to predict exactly how much faster isnā€™t really possible. If you could always keep the same foot speed it would be possible to work out the increase in speed with a given crank length, but itā€™s not that simple because of factors like reduced control.

I went from 165s to 152s on my 26" muni and it increased my average xc journey speeds a small amount - a small change in crank length changes the feel of the unicycle a surprising amount, but you get used to it pretty quickly.

There are a couple of threads [THREAD=57874]here[/THREAD] and here that may help, but if you search for ā€œtrying shorter cranksā€ or something similar youā€™ll find loads of opinions.

Rob

There have been many discussions on this subject in the past on RSU, try the search facility. To summarise there is not a single formula for all parameters as bone length etc need to be considered, but shorter cranks are generally faster.

At Warwick my kids were on 24" and 26" wheels both with 125ā€™s. The 24" should have been quicker with shorter cranks but he didnā€™t feel comfortable so I changed back. Your Muni 24" probably had a similar circumference as the 26".

In the big wheel race I believe the frontrunners were using 110ā€™s on 36" wheels.

Thatā€™s wher youā€™re wrong, Qu-Ax do a set of 125s designed for the KH 8 spline, available from UDC for Ā£30. I swapped down to the 140s on my KH muni and it does make a noticeable difference, adds a couple of mph to cruise speed.

I think Roger was on 102s, Sam was on his ā€œinsanely long muni cranksā€ - 114s. Roger seemed to think that that might have made, or at least helped to make, the difference between him and Sam. I was on 110s, and I donā€™t really think 102s would have made me as fast as Roger. To do that, I would also have needed a narrower hub.:slight_smile:

Oh, and the main RTL news was that we should set up an e-group. Iā€™m leaving that to someone who knows what an e-group is, although Iā€™m guessing itā€™s a bit like google groups, but maybe less evil.

Or maybe more evil, depending on what the ā€œeā€ stands for.

Derrā€¦

I realise ā€œassuming same revsā€ was indeed a stupid thing to add, now I think about it! Not only am I LastBanana, but also Stupid Banana! My fellow Team Banana members will be appalled!
Thanks for all the pointers, tho. I def feel that I could go faster with shorter cranks. WIth the 170s it was like being in 1st gear, pushing on an open door!

I did have a notion to drill and thread some new pedal positions on to my 170s (with the help of a clever person), but we wondered if that would weaken them when using the long position for muni-ing. Anyone daft enough to have tried that?

PS Kegā€¦ you kids were great!

If you drill those cranks you will need to weld a threaded cr-mo insert in to them, as they are hollow along their length. I understand welding cr-mo isnā€™t terribly easy. Iā€™ve not seen anyone do this with the 04 KH cranks but the current Khs sell with two seperate pedal holes in each crank. These are a solid aluminium alloy design so itā€™s a bit easier. People also did this themselves from normal cranks before the double holes were available. KH says that the double drilled cranks are weaker but still strong enough for most muni, if you do the conversion carefully I would imagine youā€™d retain enough strength for it withstand any muni youā€™d care to try. Those old KH cranks are very strong to start with.

oh my wordā€¦

Maybe not then! It all sounds very scary! :astonished: :smiley: