Unicycling 160km (100miles) around Lake $#@!&@

[aspenmike]

You guys are awesome, congratulations on such a incredible ride. I enjoy reading about such great adventures. Bravo!

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

[Rowan]

You sure are persistent Klaas.

Originally posted by Klaas Bil
What cranks were you using? And do you know how much that 'perfect
Coker grade' is?

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.

Originally posted by Joona
I suppose you still wouldn't wear a helmet, or other protection?

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.

[GizmoDuck]

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.

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

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

[GizmoDuck]

Originally posted by Klaas Bil
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

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

[nathan]

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

[unikum]

Ok , i will add some pictures on my website next week.
Now are Videos aviable.

Bye

Stefan

On Tue, 2 Dec 2003 03:45:53 -0600, GizmoDuck
<GizmoDuck@NoEmail.Message.Poster.at.Unicyclist.com> wrote:

> 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."

[treepotato]

Good Luck to everyone who is taking part! wish i could join you!

[Rowan]

Originally Posted by Rowan

maybe I will join you next year if I get rich and buy myself a Coker.

Looks like I will be joining you after all! Not rich, and not owning a coker, but I will enter on my 700c unicycle! Should be good for the uphills by the sounds of it but not so great as a coker on the flat and downhill sections. Can't wait!

[Rowan]

It was fun. Took me 13 hours to get around the lake. It was quite a spectacle with all the crazy trainer-wheel riders. I'm not sure if I want to do the 150km round the mountain cycle challenge but I suppose I have to now to get it done.

[ntappin]

That sounds like an amazing ride. I have a hard time imagining a 160 Km ride, sounds fantastic though if you are in good enough shape to do it.

Why were you riding the stock Coker though and not the Diet?

I really liked the writeup you did though, I did a 5.5 hour long coker ride yesterday so I really appreciated reading about someone elses ride.

[ntappin]

Originally Posted by ntappin

That sounds like an amazing ride. I have a hard time imagining a 160 Km ride, sounds fantastic though if you are in good enough shape to do it.

Why were you riding the stock Coker though and not the Diet?

I really liked the writeup you did though, I did a 5.5 hour long coker ride yesterday so I really appreciated reading about someone elses ride.

Hah crap I really should have read the dates on this.
Still impressive none the less.

Good job Rowan, which distance did you do?