Anyone been turned away at a charity bike ride?

[Skippii]

Anyone ever registered for some charity ride or other event, and then been told they can't ride when you arrived because they only had one wheel?
I don't think it would happen, epecially if you've got a handful of donations you're waiting to give them, but it makes me nervous about registering online.
But, it seems like they'd be a lot more likely to let you ride if you showed up with a uni, rather than ask them in advance if they allow it. If you just show up, it's more like they'd just assume everything is normal.

[phil]

Most charity rides here attract loads of people on really weird contraptions... back-to-back tandems, bikes with millions of people on or bikes decorated like the Batmobile. As long as you're not doing something obviously daft, like entering a really long ride on a 20" or suchlike, I would have thought they'd welcome anything that's a bit different and grabs some more attention.

Phil

[bugman]

I just completed the Tour De Cure in May, and signed up for the MS150 for September last night. This is right from their website.

YOUR BIKE

Many different kinds of bikes are used during the bike tour, including: road, mountain, recumbent, hybrid and yes, some unicycles. No bike will be disqualified from use so long as it is in safe mechanical condition.

Skippii wrote:
> Anyone ever registered for some charity ride or other event, and then
> been told they can't ride when you arrived because they only had one
> wheel?

Dunno about in your neck of the woods, but in the UK all the charity
rides that I'm aware of take place on the public highway. They might be
able to refuse registration, but there's nothing they can do to stop you
riding (short of taking out an injunction).

Can you imagine any charity wanting the publicity that would result from
turning away a unicyclist? If they tried to do so then the chances are
that there would be journalists in attendance who would be interested to
hear about it.

--
Danny Colyer (the UK company has been laughed out of my reply address)
<URL:http://www.speedy5.freeserve.co.uk/danny/>
"He who dares not offend cannot be honest." - Thomas Paine

[Skippii]

Is that on the MS150 website? I've been searching that site, as I hope to do that.
Are you doing the tanglewood/greensboro ride?

[bugman]

Originally posted by Skippii
Is that on the MS150 website? I've been searching that site, as I hope to do that.
Are you doing the tanglewood/greensboro ride?

Actually the one in Atlanta. Heres the page.

[HistoricalGoof]

I was trying to get into a charity run on my uni, but was not allowed. I understand why they wouldn't let me, although I wasn't going for any sort of recognition. I didn't even care if they timed me...I just wanted to do the distance on the uni.

I ended up simply running the race, which was fun in and of itself.

On Thu, 11 Aug 2005, Skippii <> wrote:
>
> Anyone ever registered for some charity ride or other event, and then
> been told they can't ride when you arrived because they only had one
> wheel?

When some UK unicyclists were getting refused entry to UK mountain
bike events, they fitted a tiny wheel underneath teh saddle. It then
becomes a pedal-powered two-wheeled cycle, and is more difficult to
exclude from bicycle events.

That wasn't a charity event. I would expect a charity event to be
more tolerant.

regards, Ian SMith
--
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I few of use did a 17mile charity walk on our uni's for the British
Heart Foundation last year, they didn't mind at all, in fact they liked
us so much they used a photo of us at the finish line in this years
premotional flyer...

www.bhf.org.uk for details of this winter's high peak trail walk

[tomblackwood]

Before signing up for the MS 150, I went and talked to some of the MS Society events folks at a "pre-ride" interest-building session. When I told them I was a distance unicyclist and was thinking about riding the event on my uni, they were quite interested and supportive. They mentioned that it hadn't been done before on uni (at least the WA version) to their knowledge, and gave me lots of encouragement to sign up.

I'm hoping my training will pay off and I'll be able to both finish the event and deliver some good fundraising for the MS Society.

[Skippii]

I called them today.
They are all to happy for me to ride a uni, and sounded very excited.

[tomblackwood]

Originally posted by Skippii
I called them today.
They are all to happy for me to ride a uni, and sounded very excited.

Excellent...that's the same reception I got. Good Luck if you decide to go for it!

Ian Smith wrote:
> When some UK unicyclists were getting refused entry to UK mountain
> bike events, they fitted a tiny wheel underneath teh saddle. It then
> becomes a pedal-powered two-wheeled cycle, and is more difficult to
> exclude from bicycle events.

AIUI that was a legal issue, rather than any desire on the part of the
organisers to exclude unicyclists. The law that allows cyclists to ride
on bridleways in the UK specifically mentions bicycles. Unicyclists and
tricyclists have no explicit right to use the bridleways that were used
in Polaris events (at least in England and Wales, they do things
differently up in Scotland).

--
Danny Colyer (the UK company has been laughed out of my reply address)
<URL:http://www.speedy5.freeserve.co.uk/danny/>
"He who dares not offend cannot be honest." - Thomas Paine