4th Annual LBI Unithon - Report

[JJuggle]

The 4th Annual LBI Unithon took place yesterday, June 22, 2002. The weather was beautiful. We had more than twice the number of riders this year than we had in past years with 26 showing up. Riders came from Pennsylvania, Connecticut, New York, and of course New Jersey. Ages ranged from 13 to 67. Almost all completed the ride.

The Asbury Park Press ran a brief article on the event:

http://www.app.com/app2001/story/0,21133,583884,00.html

Some hightlights included:

One rider who did 12 - 14 miles or so on a giraffe with a 20" wheel. This individual is the same man who recently received a ticket for riding his giraffe in the Jones Beach parking lot. Incredibly he rode the giraffe despite the fact that he is not yet able to freemount it!

David Stone arrived somewhere between 15 and 30 minutes after the start of the Unithon, but naturally finished well before many of us.

Thanks as always to the Sprouls family for organizing the event and Unicycle.com for donating a unicycle to be raffled off.

Cheers,
Raphael Lasar
Matawan, NJ

Other highlights:

A homemade Coker saddle. Materials included a piece of carpet, foam
padding, a tricycle-type seat plate, and duct tape. I am kicking myself for
not having a camera on hand to take pictures.

One injury needing medical assistance. Interestingly it was not a
unicyclist but a accompaning biker who rode a little too close to a Coker
rider. The Coker woman escaped unscathed.

One unicyclist rode bearfooted. He was on either a 24" or 26" uni. He also
mentioned to me that he likes to ride his motorcycle the same way. lol.

There were three women riders out of 26. All three finished before I did -
which depresses me slightly.

One muni rider got thrown out of the Barnegat Lighthouse Public Park for
riding in a "no biking area". I apologized. It was funny hearing him blow
his whistle at me though.

-Jeff Prosa


"JJuggle" <JJuggle.6ps6b@timelimit.unicyclist.com> wrote in message
news:JJuggle.6ps6b@timelimit.unicyclist.com...
>
> The 4th Annual LBI Unithon took place yesterday, June 22, 2002. The
> weather was beautiful. We had more than twice the number of riders this
> year than we had in past years with 26 showing up. Riders came from
> Pennsylvania, Connecticut, New York, and of course New Jersey. Ages
> ranged from 13 to 67. Almost all completed the ride.
>
> The Asbury Park Press ran a brief article on the event:
>
> http://tinyurl.com/gn3
>
> Some hightlights included:
>
> One rider who did 12 - 14 miles or so on a giraffe with a 20" wheel.
> This individual is the same man who recently received a ticket for
> riding his giraffe in the Jones Beach parking lot. Incredibly he rode
> the giraffe despite the fact that he is not yet able to freemount it!
>
> David Stone arrived somewhere between 15 and 30 minutes after the start
> of the Unithon, but naturally finished well before many of us.
>
> Thanks as always to the Sprouls family for organizing the event and
> Unicycle.com for donating a unicycle to be raffled off.
>
> Cheers,
> Raphael Lasar
> Matawan, NJ
>
>
> --
> JJuggle
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> JJuggle's Profile: http://www.unicyclist.com/profile/24
> View this thread: http://www.unicyclist.com/thread/18895
>

[U-Turn]

Yes, the ladies were awesome. Bridget would have beat me too but she was carrying an extra t-shirt on her shoulders and the wind blew it off just before the last parking lot.

Another highlight -- a sign saying "Extra points for going over 25 mph" -- were the Stones close? It sure seemed like it!

My left foot kept getting numb but a few seconds off the saddle at the rest stops fixed that easily.

The support was fantastic. I really enjoyed the orange sections, the cookies, and the people cheering us on.

Many thanks to Bridget, Rosemarie, and Kevin Sprouls and Raphael Lasar for the foresight and the work.

I really enjoyed it!

[JJuggle]

Dirk Muehlner who accompanied us on bike and who is the father of one of our riders, has posted some pictures of the Unithon riders at:

http://mywebpages.comcast.net/muehlner/Unithon2002

Raphael

[UniDak]

Ahh. As far as the injury goes, I have a couple of photos of it. Believe me, It was HORRIBLE. The gash was so jagged that they were not even able to sew it up. As far as the seats go, the odd one with the immense padding was not as comfortable as one would think. The man riding it said that it was pretty mugh like riding a 2x4. Keeping with the odd seat category, there was one person who had his own type of air seat. Get ready for this one... It was a Viscount covered with bubble wrap. I'll post my pics just as soon as I get them developed.
-David Kaplan

Jeff Prosa <jprosa@ramapo.edu> wrote:

> There were three women riders out of 26. All three finished before I did -
> which depresses me slightly.

Why?
sarah

--
Unicon 11 ~ Washington USA.~ July 25 - Aug 2 2002
The world unicycle convention and championships.
http://www.nwcue.org

[U-Turn]

Originally posted by UniDak
a Viscount covered with bubble wrap.

I also thought it interesting that, although the bubble wrap survived fine, the rider didn't find it that comfortable a seat. But then, he also said that he hadn't ridden much since the last Unithon...

[U-Turn]

There are now pics that you can see from the Unithon website; the middle one with the lighthouse in the background also shows the unusual seat.

http://jjuggle.unicyclist.com/lbiunithon/

At 09:59 PM 6/25/2002 +0000, Sarah Miller <sarah@vimes.u-net.com> wrote:
>Jeff Prosa <jprosa@ramapo.edu> wrote:
>
> > There were three women riders out of 26. All three finished before I did -
> > which depresses me slightly.
>
>Why?
>sarah
>
>--
>Unicon 11 ~ Washington USA.~ July 25 - Aug 2 2002
>The world unicycle convention and championships.
> http://www.nwcue.org
>
>_______________________________________________________________________ ____
>rec.sport.unicycling mailing list - www.unicycling.org/mailman/listinfo/rsu

Actually, there was another woman that began the ride but she dropped
dropped out early. I heard later that she was rather new to the sport and
had little experience, so it's not too surprising.


Plavnicky
plav@optonline.net
http://www.timeoff.org/plav
from my box to yours

At 09:07 AM 6/26/2002 -0500, U-Turn <U-Turn.6uyza@timelimit.unicyclist.com>
wrote:

>There are now pics that you can see from the Unithon website; the middle
>one with the lighthouse in the background also shows the unusual seat.
>
>http://jjuggle.unicyclist.com/lbiunithon/
>

I've put up some other pictures as well, here's a direct link:
http://www.timeoff.org/plav/UniThon2002/


Plavnicky
plav@optonline.net
http://www.timeoff.org/plav
from my box to yours