DC Uni

I wanted to make a quick video showing my new braking technique that I am slowly getting better at.  I saw Chuck Edwall stop suddenly with his brake at Ride The Lobster, and I am trying to copy his method.  What I have figured out after testing out different methods is the following:

1.  Begin to squeeze the brake slightly
2. Move your upper body forward while shifting your hips/lower back back (shifting the hips back is very important)
3. Begin to squeeze the brake harder
4. As you are squeezing the brake harder, you will want to tilt the whole unicycle backward.  By this I mean that the seat needs to sort of fall back with you slightly.  If you don’t make the effort to tilt your body/seat back, you will be launched forward.  You want to do this backward tilt of the whole unicycle while keeping the same posture I described in step 2 (upper body forward, hips tilted back).
5. Slowly release the brake and continue riding.  Don’t rapidly release the brake unless you have come to an almost stop

Video of me using this braking method here (< 1MB): Braking with the Geared 36″ Unicycle

Also, I made a quick video of me shifting with the Geared 36.  I have been riding my geared 36 for about 5 months now, and it has been a blast.  I have “mastered” shifting with the 150mm cranks, and I am quite comfortable shifting at higher speeds now.  I wish I could take a close up video of my shifting method, but I just wanted to make a quick post showing how easy it is to shift with the Schlumpf hub.  You can hear/see me shift several times in the following video(even if it is not the best angle). (< 7MB) -  Shifting with the Geared 36″ Unicycle

jamon Unicycling

A fellow unicyclist from Ride The Lobster, Roland Kays, came down to the area last week for work.  He decided it would be fun to bring his geared 36 down and do some guni riding with me, so we had planned in advance to meet up and go for a ride.  The weather, however, did not cooperate with our schedules.  It rained a lot last week so we couldn’t really schedule a ride in, but last Tuesday (his last night in town), we decided to just brave the rain and do a night ride on the W&OD Trail.

I brought my Cygolite DualCross helmet mounted light to light up the path, but it was quite foggy out, so even with a light there was very low visibility.  We kept a pretty good pace considering we were riding geared 36ers in the dark, rain, and fog.  I have only really tried the 150mm cranks on my geared 36, so it was also cool to try out Roland’s 165mm cranks in high gear.  The 165mm cranks feel very smooth in high gear, and make the geared 36 feel even more like a bike.  I found that it was significantly harder to shift, and I was only successfully able to shift to high gear twice.

Anyway, it was cool riding with another geared 36er, and we finished the night ride around 11:30pm, soaked after doing about 28 miles.  Riding in the rain at night turned out to be quite fun.  It surely beat watching TV at home.

Oh, one other thing I noticed was that using a brake in the rain actually makes the braking a lot smoother as the pads don’t stick to the rim as much.

jamon Unicycling

Last weekend I went out to Harrisonburg to Macrock.  I stayed with my sister and her fiance Anthony after the show with my friend and fellow unicyclist Frank from Richmond.  On the morning following the show, Frank and I headed out to Skyline Drive at the Swift Run Gap entrance off 33 east.  Frank was using his ungeared 36er with 125mm cranks and clipped pedals, and I was on my geared 36er with 150mm cranks.

The ride started with a 4-6% gradient climb for about 5 miles.  It was quite tiring to say the least, but since I had my geared 36 I just kept it in low gear and climbed quite easily with the 150mm cranks.  Frank was a little slower on the climbs, but did quite well with his 125mm cranks even though he hasn’t been riding his 36er that much.

After the first 4-5 miles there was a nice downhill, so I popped my uni into high gear and took off keeping at least 20mph with ease.  Frank spinned really fast with his ungeared 36er and was going quite fast himself, but I could easily pass him on the downhill with a slower cadence.  He can definitely spin faster than I can on an ungeared uni on downhills though, and he claims part of that has to do with his toe clips.   I even had to use my brake a few times, but my wheel is not true and my brakes aren’t set up properly, so it was kind of jittery most of the time and I didn’t use it much.  The geared 36er is so much easier going long steep descents though because the cadence is slowed and you don’t feel like you are going to spin out and going 20mph is smooth and relaxing.

Most of the ride to the halfway point at Big Meadows was uphill, so we stopped there for a while and refueled on snacks and water before heading back.  The ride back was very fast and I had my geared 36er in high gear for a lot of the ride back.  We still had to stop every now and then due to saddle soreness and to enjoy the views.  The last 3 miles were kind of scary since it was very steep and I didn’t want to trust my sketchy brake set up so I just pedaled really fast and was probably averaging 20-23mph for a good long time, but I can’t be quite sure as my gps watch is never accurate at speed estimates.

This was my fourth time unicycling on Skyline Drive, and I will have to say that of all my unicycle set ups, the geared 36er with 150mm cranks handled it the best.  Having the low gear and long cranks for climbing and the high gear for descending was a GREAT combination.  Now if I can only get my wheel true and my brake set right, I will have the perfect uni for Skyline Drive.  All and all this was a great day for a ride and it was great unicycling with Frank again.  He is making me wonder if I should try out some toe clips on my geared 36er.

You can view the route on MapMyRide here, click on “Show Elevation” to see the elevation profile.  The final stats are also on that route link, but I will repost:

Total Ascent: 2546ft

Distance: 29.15 miles

jamon Unicycling frank brown, geared 36, geared unicycle, skyline drive, unicycle, Unicycling

Last week on March 29th I headed out to DC to do a short ride on the Mt. Vernon trail on my geared 36er and to ride around the Mall to see the Cherry Blossoms.  I rode out to Reagan National Airport on the trail and sat and watched a few planes come in.  It was extremely windy on that section of the trail, but it was quite warm out so it felt nice. I took a short vid of a plane coming in, check it out here.

I then crossed on the Memorial Bridge and went by the Lincoln Memorial out to Potomac Park to do the 3 mile Ohio Drive loop.  There was not as much pedestrian traffic here, so it was a fast and enjoyable ride.  I then headed out to the Jefferson Memorial and sat on the stairs for a while watching some of the Cherry Blossom Performances that were on the stage in front of the memorial.

Finally, I headed out near the Washington Monument and lay down in the sun for a while.  It was a really nice and relaxing day in DC.

jamon Unicycling

Yesterday I took off work to attend the inauguration and witness the historic event.  I heard that the metro would be a disaster and I figured the only possible way for me to get into the city was to cycle in.  I could either use my road bike or my new geared 36er, and I figured it would be more fun with the geared 36″ uni.

I slept about 2 hours because my sleep schedule was messed up from the weekend and I was up late watching the original Dawn of the Dead.  I threw a bunch of layers and supplies into my car and drove out to the W&OD trail in Reston.  I started riding about 7:30 AM and the wind chill was supposed to be 7 degrees F, but while riding it felt even colder than that.  I bought some cheap ski goggles to use for this occasion because my eyes usually get irratated in the cold, and riding in the extreme weather without them would have been very uncomfortable.  I am sure I looked quite weird riding my 36er with a bala clava and ski goggles in the early hours of the morning down the W&OD trail.

 I passed a few bicyclists who were headed to the inauguration as well and they either said “rock on” or “you are crazy”.  I didn’t stop for a break for the entire 20 miles into the city because I was so cold and stopping would be a very bad idea.  I crossed the Key Bridge and rode down M street.  There were absolutely no cars on M street due to the barricades and it was great to be able to spin down M street with no traffic.  Once I hit Pennsylvania Ave I had to get off my uni and walk it since swarms of people were getting off busses and metro stops.

I checked my uni with the free bike valet provided by WABA, and I walked down to the WWII memorial where I stood in front of a large screen to watch the inaugural events.  The rest you know about from the news, but it was a great feeling to be in DC for the  event, and I have never seen the streets so packed.  I packed a change of clothes in my bag and I was very glad that I did because having dry layers and a down jacket allowed me to stand around for 2-3 hours before changing again and riding back home.

Riding back was very slow.  There was a headwind, and all the bicycle traffic was going very slow up the hills of the Custis Trail.  I had to keep it in low gear for about the first 5 miles of my return trip and there were some occasions where I just kept it in low gear to deal with the wind and my sore legs.

The full ride was about 40 miles and I was glad to get home and take a hot shower.  I have never ridden in such freezing weather before, but it was worth it to see history in the making up close.

jamon Unicycling inauguration, obama, unicycle, Unicycling

Well, it’s over! I got back last week from Nova Scotia with a huge smile on my face. The race was everything I thought it would be and more. In this blog post I am going to give a short overview of my experience from the event.

Frank, Steph, Spencer, and I began our road trip from my house on the Thursday before the race. We picked up the rental van from Avis, and drove up to Augusta, Maine. The next day we drove up to Halifax to pick up Joe from the airport. We somehow managed to fit 5 unicycles and 5 people into the van and drove the rest of the way to Annapolis Royal where we went to our accomodation at Winchester Cottages.

When we woke up, we spent the entire day in Annapolis Royal. There were signs up everywhere pertaining to RTL, some that read “Save a unicyclist, ride a lobster”. We unicycled to the fire hall where Kris Holm and a unicycle show team from Germany and Austria were giving a demonstration to the town. After the demo, we spent most of the day just lying out in the sun talking to Kris Holm, the demo team (Janina, David, and Lutz), and various other riders. This was the first time I had ever met Kris, and he is a really down to earth person, so I was able to talk with him about some of his products and adventures. We all (team goonies) didn’t realize how long we were out in the sun, and when we got back to our cottage we realized how sunburned we got. Check out the sweet sunburn picture!

Later that night, Tue and Richard from the Lost Wheelers stopped by and we had a bonfire out in front of our cottage. As you would expect, Nova Scotia was pretty chilly at night, so the fire was great. During the bonfire, Tue was nice enough to true Frank’s 36″ wheel that he recently laced together (very last minute). We made jokes that Frank’s wheel was Tue (too) True now.

The next day we drove to Yarmouth and had a free Lobster lunch and we were able to meet Florian Schlumpf - the maker of the geared unicycle hub that all riders of my team were using for the race. His hub really has transformed distance unicycling and brought it up to the next level, and it was great meeting him. He actually brought a cut out version of the hub and we were able to see the detailed bits that made up the hub.

Fast forward to the Monday of the race. I volunteered to start the day off for the Goonies and kept up in the front of the pack for a while before several other riders passed me. I rode the first 24km to the second checkpoint where I believe we were in 8th place, I handed the GPS batton off to Joe and took a rest in the van. The first 24km was really fun and in some places school children lined the roads and cheered the riders on. Almost everyone came out of their houses to watch the riders go by and by the time I had finished my run I had a huge smile on my face. We were doing quite strong throughout the first day, and actually got back up to 7th or 8th place after the Sissiboo road section. We dropped our position more and more throughout the rest of the day, and we were pacing Yellow Line Fever at the Bear Mountain Road section of the first day. I did the climb coming out of Bear Mtn and the descent, after descending my right knee started to hurt. This really worried me because this was the same knee that I had get injured a month and a half before the event and halted my training. Either way, we continued on throughout the day and I didn’t really ride much more that day except attempting to ride the ridge of Parker Mountain for a bit. I was in a lot of pain though, and had to sit out the rest of the day, which caused Spencer and Joe to do longer stretches. We ended up finishing the day in 14th place (after getting passed by two more teams on the last 20km that Joe had to do all himself). I iced my knee the rest of the night and hoped it would feel better the next morning.

Sadly, my knee did not do any better the next day. I told Joe and Spencer that we should just concentrate on finishing since I would probably be useless today and maybe the rest of the race! I popped some Ibuprofin and sat in the van for the first 2-3 hours. Then it started to rain, a very cold rain actually. I don’t know if it was the rian or the Ibuprofin, or a combination of both, but my knee started to feel better so I gave riding a shot. I told Steph to check in on me every 1-2 miles in case my knee gave out, but I kept on giving her thumbs up as I rode by. Before I knew it I had done 16 miles at a very fast pace! We got to a checkpoint at a pretty low position (27 or something) since our original strategy was just to complete the day with two riders. However, with my knee feeling better due to the Ibuprofin and cold rain, we changed our strategy and tried to concentrate on finishing strong. This made Tuesday the most fun day of the entire race because we saw teams that we didn’t see on the first day and ended up passing a lot more teams than Monday. Passing a team always gives you a boost of energy, and seeing your team mate pass a team does the same thing. We cheered each other on as we passed 2Y2D, Unicycle dot com, and Team Flirt. There was one memorable stretch of road where we saw North American Youth and Unicycle Max ahead of Spencer, and then right at the transfer point we saw Spencer turn the corner before both of the teams. We yelled “WE GOT THIS!” and I took off and grabbed the GPS batton from him and continued on. Towards the end of the day, there were two teams ahead of us. I forget the first team, but the second was West Coast Cokers. We had about 18km to go and I stepped up to do the last stretch of the day to make up for not riding as much earlier, and because I was the fastest on flats and downhills on the Goonies. After 5km I passed the first team ahead of us, and after 10km I started seeing West Coast Cokers ahead of us. I kept on riding and eventually got really close to John Bain from the WCC during the last 2km. The Goonies support van knew I was a little ways behind West Coast Cokers, but they drove to the finish line to wait for me before the last 4km. I ended up passing John on the last hill before the turn off for the finish line, and when I turned the corner I saw Steph, Joe, and Spencer jump with joy as they were expecting West Coast Cokers to arrive first. Steph said she has never been that excited at any sporting event ever, and that “that was the coolest thing you have ever done James”. She said that she was worried she was being too competitive, and then another rider reminded her that it was afterall a race. Tuesday was by far the best day of the race just because we were being competitive in a fun kind of way and were in great spirits at the end of the day. I went from being kind of depressed about not being able to ride, to being excited that we finished as strong as we did after falling behind really far. We celebrated by having a feast with all the other riders.

The next morning I iced my knee and took some more Ibuprofin (which soon became my daily regimen). Wednesday was the easy day because we only had a 21km Time Trial and a 5km Criterium. My knee was still kind of sore at the beginning of the time trial, but I rode through it and didn’t think about it too much. Riders were started in 30 second time intervals, and they started it by having riders from the slower teams ride first. I think that I started as the 18th rider. The beginning was very hectic because I hadn’t warmed up and my knee was still in some pain, combine that with the fact that whoever was directing traffic at the first intersection was doing a horrible job. They flagged a car to proceed and the car cut me off! It was in between me and a rider who took off before me, I had to slow down on a downhill to avoid slamming into the car. At one point I had to ride on the gravel to pass the car and the rider in front of me. Soon after that, that same car who cut me off passed me and went in between me and the next rider in front of me and soon slammed on their breaks when the rider reached an uphill. The first 5km were very hard for me because I had to deal with this kind of traffic. It makes sense to have the slower riders ahead, but combine that with faster riders trying to pass and cars trying to pass everyone dangerously and it was very scary. Whoever was directing traffic really should not have let the two cars ahead of me when I was 50 feet away. Anyway, I ended up being the second person to cross the finish line that day (after starting 18th), and was pretty happy with how I did (minus slowing down for one steep hill, and getting driven off the road a few times). It started to pour during my ride and when I finished I huddled under the officials tent and tried to stay warm.

It turned out that I finished 20th in the Time Trial out of the 105 riders, and I was alright with that. I think that I could have done a little better if I wasn’t driven off the road and my knee wasn’t hurting, but still no where near as well as the top finishers placed. Chuck destroyed everyone with his KH/Schlumpf 36 and Corbin came in a minute or so after him on his geared 36. Chuck and Corbin are very strong riders, and it started becoming clear that geared 36ers really were the best machines for Ride The Lobster. The German Team who was in the lead for the first two stages (and ended up winning) were all using geared 36ers. Ken Looi placed very high and did exceptionally well on his ungeared 36. I believe he got 3rd place on the Time Trial and Tony Melton from the same NZ team placed 2 seconds after him at 4th.

Anyway, since I had finished in the top third of riders, I was able to compete in the final heat of the Criterium later that night. The Criterium was staged on a 800m block that had 4 sharp turns. 35 riders would ride in each heat and combine unicyclist and sharp turns in a pack and you are sure to get some falls. A few riders went down in the first heats, but nothing too bad, I was still kind of nervous about riding before going into the event. During my heat, I had a slow start due to Tony having a UPD in the beginning, but soon took off. I started going faster and faster on each lap when I became more confident in my riding and eventually on the last 3 laps I did what I thought was impossible and passed Ken. I know having a geared 29 helped contribute to my speed in this event, but passing Ken was like dividing by zero to me. On the last 2-3 laps I was pacing Corbin on his geared 36. There was one stretch that he always passed me on, and then a few where I would pass him. On the final stretch I was ahead by about a second and finished in 4th place right behind Tony, Vincent, and Chuck (who once again killed everyone in the event). The criterium ended up not being as scary as I thought it would be, and was one of the highlights of the race for me. I really didn’t know I could go that fast, and it was quite a boost to finish as well as I did coming in at 4th place out of 105 riders! If you look at the results, you see that geared unicycles dominated the event. The top 5 finishers were…1) geared 36 (chuck), 2) geared 29 (vincent) 3) geared 29 (tony) 4) geared 29 (me) 5) geared 36 (corbin). It seems that the geared 29 was an excellent choice for the Criterium.

The next day I did the daily routine of icing my knee and popping some Ibuprofin. I believe after the Time trial and Criterium we moved up a position from our 18th spot that we were in on Tuesday. We knew that we could finish higher and wanted to make up for our poor time on Tuesday, so we all were concentrating on finishing well. Team Venture and Team Venus were both ahead of us by 22 minutes before Thursday since we dropped so much on Tues. We had a fun rivalry with Team Venture since we were friends with Claude and Frank. Frank came up to us and said to Steph “I’ll see you later” and then looked at me and said “but I won’t see you because I don’t have eyes in the back of my head!” Haha. We got him back at one of the checkpoints where we were a good 5-10 minutes ahead of their team and I saw Joe take off from the checkpoint and so I said to Frank “did your rider just leave?” and Frank responded with “no he hasn’t come yet.” and I said “oh wait…that was us!” and kind of rubbed it in his face in a friendly way as we both laughed. We were pacing Yellow Line Fever most of the day and saw a lot of Beau, Nathan, and Kris Holm who was riding with them for fun. We took a video of Joe pacing Kris Holm on a downhill with us saying “GOONIES ARE THE BEST”. Obviously Kris is not a road unicyclist, and Joe had the advantage with the geared hub, but it is still kind of cool passing the world famous unicyclist. We really were neck and neck with Yellow Line for most of the day so we all chatted in between at the checkpoints. Once again, as with Tuesday, I did the last long stretch of the ride (13-15 miles or so I think) with the hopes of passing Yellow Line who had taken a short lead. Beau and I were neck and neck for a while and he would pass me briefly on uphills and I would get him on the downhills and flats. I ended up passing him and I eventually started to see the Centurions far far off in the distance. I figured that I had no chance of catching up to them, but I rode as fast as I could anyway. Then, the highlight of any athletic event I have ever competed in happened. I saw someone from the Centurions up ahead as I was going down a hill before crossing a bridge and the finish line right after. I went as fast as I could down the hill at 20mph or so and passed the rider on the bridge 100 feet away from the finish line. I almost fell twice on the bridge because I was spinning as fast as I could trying to pass the Centurions, but in the end I passed the finish line and finished a few seconds before the Centurions. Needless to say I was exhausted after riding almost 15 miles as fast as I could and as soon as I crossed the finish line I threw my unicycle down and lay down on the street to catch my breath. It was an amazing feeling being completely exhausted and passing a team at the last possible second. We ended up finishing in 12th place that day a few minutes behind Manly Legs and Atlas. One last highlight of Thursday that I forgot to mention was the descent of the steepest hill right before the checkpoint. I reached my max speed on this downhill, I am not sure what that speed was since I do not have a cycle computer anymore, but I was spinning out of control on my guni and I remember having to put all my force into the cycle to slow down before the sharp U-turn I had to make at the bottom to turn into the checkpoint. I really need to get a brake set up on my guni!

After doing so well on Thursday, we moved up 2 positions and were at 15th. On Friday, we were once again in good spirits and were in the competitive mode to try to finish the race as strong as we could. We were hoping to at least finish one day in the top 10. We knew that we wouldn’t be able to beat Yellow Line today because Beau was armed with a newly built up geared 36, but we still thought we could finish strong. Spencer rode extremely fast on Friday because I think like most of the riders he was itching to finish really strong. Joe also did exceptionally well and was Team Goonies hill climber. He climbed the two steep long sections of road on Friday, and we usually switched to me at the top so I could speed on down the downhills. There was one point where I rode from the top of the first steep hill, all the way to the shuttle checkpoint. Most of it was downhill at an extremely fast pace and I didn’t even realize that I had done a long 18 mile stretch. I did another long downhill stretch after Joe climbed Kelly’s Mountain. This downhill was very long, fast, and scary. Cars went zooming by since it was a busy highway and we had to ride on the shoulder. I was spinning as fast as I could keeping a very fast pace. Then out of the blue, David Stone from the Centurions passed me near the bottom of the long descent, so I had to pick up my pace a little bit. We realized that if someone was in front of you, you usually ride faster, so I started pacing the Centurions and passed them after a mile. I ended up riding from the top of Kelly’s mountain for a very long time (12-15 miles?) and passed the GPS baton off to Spencer who did the last stretch. Spencer kept up the pace and zoomed down the hill to the finish line where we all celebrated. We found out that we finished in 10th place, and were all excited at how well we did. I think we started realizing each others skill areas more and more. I was a beast on the flats and downhills, Spencer was fast on gravel, really steep downhills, and rolling terrain, and Joe was our hill climber. I think I did about half the distance on Friday because I was feeling great and there were a lot of long downhill stretches.

We finished at 15th place overall (out of 35 teams), which is great considering there were times that we were concerned about just finishing each day when my knee blew out.  The heroes of the race were Steph for putting up with the dirty van and driving us around and keeping everyone’s spirits up and Ibuprofin for getting the inflammation down in my knee and allowing me to race.

Friday night we celebrated with Tony, Ken, and Will from Team New Zealand and Sam Wakeling from Team Smile.  We went downtown to a nice restaraunt and had a great time laughing at each other’s accents (American, British, NZ).  Saturday we drove out to a beach, or I guess I should say “beach” with Frank, Chuck, and Sam and Joe, Sam, and Chuck were crazy enough to jump into the ocean.  I was cold standing outside in my sweatshirt, so I didn’t jump in, and Frank was busy using his shiny helmet to shave on the beach.  We had a blast hitting the rocks from the beach with driftwood and hanging out relaxing knowing that we didn’t have to ride 200km days anymore!

Ride the Lobster was one of the best trips I have been a part of, and it really has inspired me to work more on my speed and endurance.  After trying out Chuck’s geared 36, I now know that I am going to switch my geared hub into a 36er.  It was a great learning experience and I met a lot of great people who I will hopefully still maintain contact with.  We seemed to mostly hang out with Team Smile , Team NZ, Lost Wheelers, and Team Venture, but there were also tons (or HEAPS as kiwis would say) of other unicyclists that I made friends with throughout the race.  Thanks to all the organizers for making this event possible, and I hope there will be a second Ride The Lobster a few years down the line!

For more photos visit these links:
Spencer’s Photos
Joe’s Photos
Steph’s Photos

jamon Unicycling

I leave in two days for Nova Scotia for Ride The Lobster! I am on Team Goonies (Listed as team #1 on the team listing - Race > Teams). I will be joined by Spencer Owen and Joe Marshall from Nottingham, England. My friend Stephanie Thornton will be joining the team as the support driver. Steph, Spencer, and I will drive up to Annapolis Royal where the festivities will begin on Saturday.

I am really excited about this race, as it is the first unicycle race of its kind. 800km in 5 days, with one of the days having a Criterium and a Time Trial. I was hoping to get a lot more training in with my geared 29, but I had a bad knee injury when I attempted to ride from Pittsburgh to DC. I believe the injury was caused from having too much weight attached to my unicycle combined with having too much weight on my back. The awkwardness of it must have wrecked my knee. I was out of training for 4 weeks, and I have only just begun training on the geared 29 again. I will be bringing both my Nimbus Nightrider 36er AND my 29″ guni to the race. This relates once again to the lack of training I was able to do because of my knee. The geared 29er is a lot harder on my knees than the 36er with short cranks, so I will be switching between the two of them throughout the race.

I am looking forward to meeting up with the 34 other unicycle teams from all over the world. Even if the Goonies don’t finish in the top 10, it will be quite an adventure.

The website will have frequent updates during the race, so be sure to check the stats each day and wish Team Goonies and me luck!

jamon Unicycling

Last week I received a message from a unicyclist from Romania, Flaviu, who was visiting the DC area for a few days. He was eager to meet another unicyclist in the area and to go for a ride. I was already planning on taking my new Nimbus Nightrider 36 out on the C&O Canal to train for the Pittsburgh to DC ride I will be doing with Zach in two weeks, so I invited him along and let him use my old 36er. The original goal of the ride was to test the terrain of the C&O canal and to test out our camping gear, but since Flaviu was with us now we decided to also do a brief 4 mile stroll of the National Mall. After unicycling around the Smithsonian and Mall we headed over to Georgetown and grabbed some food to take with us on the trip. I showed Flaviu the stairs from the movie “The Exorcist” and then we were off on our way on the C&O Canal.

Flaviu has only had experience with 29″ and smaller wheels, but he was doing great at keeping up with Zach and me on the trail as if he had been riding a 36″ wheel for years. During our breaks he practiced riding one foot and wheel walking the 36er, which he was able to do succesfully! I was also able to wheel walk quite well on the 36er with the seat adjusted a little higher, but then Flaviu showed me up and was able to do one foot wheel walking for a little while. The best part of the day was riding on the canal near Great Falls. The views were amazing and the path was nice and smooth. The only downside to the riding on the canal was that there were heaps of bugs all over the place that all seemed to aim for my eyes. We rode for about 16-17 miles on the canal before stopping at the hiker/biker campground. There was a site open and we set our stuff down and relaxed for a bit before building up a fire and setting up our tarps. I called my friend Lindsay up who was eager to join the camping and she drove to the campground and brought hotdogs and a tent. We relaxed by the fire for a while and then went off to bed at around 11:30PM.  

Problems at night:

Flaviu did not have a ground pad so he insisted on sleeping on the table for insulation. The only problem with this was that it was raining and the tarp was not set up properly over himself (it was too close to his body). Needless to say, he did not sleep well at all and his sleeping bag(my extra sleeping bag) got soaked. Luckily though it was a synthetic bag and he was able to stay warm at least. We all awoke early in the morning and it was still drizzling outside. We geared up and got back on our way home and headed back on the canal trail. The rain picked up shortly after and then we hit the middle of a thunderstorm. We kept on riding and stopped every now and then to clear the mess of mud and dirt that flicked up onto our saddles and shorts. We got back into Georgetown, crossed the Key Bridge and got on the metro at Rosslyn. The ride back was dry and fast and when we got back to Vienna we cleaned up and said goodbye to Flaviu who was quite tired from the not sleeping too well. Even with the bad luck at night, he said he still had a great time and was glad he met up for the ride.

Things learned from this trip:

1) I need to bring sunglasses with me (even if they are clear lenses) because the bugs can be awful.

2) 6′ x 8′ tarp is not big enough to keep all the rain off of you, I will be using a 8′ x 10′ for the actual ride.

3) Riding C&O Canal in the rain is a great way to dirty up your brand new unicycle. When I got home I had to hose off the unicycle and then wipe it down. I also took off the frame and had to get some gunk out of the bearing holders.

4) The Nightrider Tire definitely picks up a lot of pebbles that get stuck in the tread (especially when riding on the C&O canal trail!)

admin Unicycling

Last Saturday (Mar. 29th) my friend Zach and I decided to get some training in before we take off and do our ride from Pittsburgh to DC in a month (more details to come about that ride in a future post), so we headed out to DC to do the popular Mt. Vernon trail. We took the metro to the Rosslyn stop and then walked a few blocks to the trail head. The Mt. Vernon trail is a favorite cycle path amongst local cyclists and goes for 18 miles from DC to Mt Vernon along the Potomac. It was a great ride and I kept a really fast pace (15-16mph I guess) on my new geared 29er. I have never passed so many bikes before or said “on your left” so much while riding a unicycle! The only annoying part of the ride was in Alexandria where we had to ride on the street and there was a detour that was poorly signed. Other than that we made great time to Mt. Vernon and took a short break before turning around.

I had spoken to Silvia, a unicyclist from the forums, about meeting up on my way back from Mt. Vernon because she had recently got a Nimbus 36 and wanted to ride with someone. We met up near Reagan National Airport and she did the last 6-7 miles with Zach and me. She is new to distance unicycling so we didn’t go too fast, and I popped my guni into low gear for the last 7 miles of the trip. It was actually a decent pace and she was doing quite well for just getting the 36. It was actually a nice break from riding super fast in high gear and just cruising on the trail taking in the sights.

After finishing the trail (36 mi round trip), we crossed the Key bridge and met up with my friends Jason and Stephanie who had biked to Georgetown from Silver Spring MD. We had planned to meet up and ride near the Monument to check out the Kite festival and the Cherry Blossoms. It was quite crowded, but we managed to cycle past the crowds and get to the monuments. The cherry blossoms looked great, and seeing tons of kites in the sky near the monument was quite awesome. All in all…it was a great day of riding in the DC area!

admin Unicycling

A few weeks ago I met up with Gracie Sorbello. Gracie rode across America on a unicycle (36er) two years ago and posted to a blog. We were exchanging emails after I asked her a few questions about what she brought with her on her unicycle tour across the States. I found out that she would be driving through the DC area and so we decided to get together and do a XC/muni ride since she just got a KH 29er. I set up my old Yuni 29er with 150mm cranks and a new Kenda Navegal tire. My friend Mike also joined up for the ride on his mountain bike.

Fountainhead is perfect for a XC ride on a 29er and I was able to do a lot more of the technical bits than I was able to do on the coker a few months ago. Gracie was still getting used to her KH 29 and had a little trouble with a bit more of the technical parts of the ride, but did amazingly well for someone who doesn’t ride Muni much.

Some memorable parts of the ride were:
1) The Teeter Totters in the middle of the loop. They are really fun to ride on, and I did them quite consistently. Gracie tried and got really close to getting it, but had to give up when she got a really bad pedal bite (see the pictures below).  I also posted a video of me going up/down one of the ramps.
    
2) Towards the end of the ride, I tried going up a steep ramp over a fallen tree, but faceplanted and fell on my left hand really hard. My middle finger was in some pain and was swelling up pretty bad. I actually had to go to the doctors office the next day to see if it was broken, but luckily it was just a sprain.  There is nothing like seeing the reaction on a doctor’s face after he asks “How did you injure yourself?” and gets the response of “Well…I was mountain unicycling and….”.  I didn’t get past that before he said “Say no more”.
3) There is one really technical bit towards the end that you have to go over a log and then down a steep set of logs that are sort of like stairs and continue down some rocky/rooty technical descent. It wasn’t as scary as it looked, and I ran up back the trail to do it multiple times.

admin Unicycling