My First 100 Mile Ride!

[MuniAddict]

Originally Posted by Tyler_N

i want to do a 100 mile ride really bad but...

1. I'm the only one who unicycles that lives close to me that...
a. is a good enough rider
b. is strong enough
c. has enough stamina
2. I don't have a coker or chain guard for my GUni(homemade)
3. riding around a track is boring
4. my dad doesn't want me to go alone

if in the near future i have everything I need I may do a 100 mile ride, but it doesn't look so good for me.

I'd do the ride with you, but you'll need to get a real coker. Your homemade guni is cool, but it's not reliable enough (remember the charity event?) and you don't want it to fall apart 50 miles from home!

[johnfoss]

Nice writeup. Also your JavaScript photo viewer is quite beautiful. Made from scratch? I need something like that...

Anyway I noticed you complaining a lot about your camera so I tried to analyze one of your photos to see what kind of EXIF data it contained. Unfortunately all of this was stripped when you converted it for Web so I don't know your camera brand/model, shutter speeds used, etc.

Most point-and-shoot cameras have tiny image sensors, about 1/4" across. They need a lot of light and usually operate at ISO 50 or 100. The camera doesn't know when you want a fast shutter speed unless you buy one with different shooting modes or (better yet) manual controls. If your camera has a "sport" mode it should speed up the shutter, but this may be at the expense of ISO (grainy).

Motion blur is not a bad thing Photos containing motion should have some sort of blur in them or there is no sense of motion. In most of your examples the blurry road looked just the way I thought it should.

[chuckaeronut]

@Tyler and Terry: You guys are both easily within 100 miles of me! We should ride somewhere, and soon!

@boisei, yeah, I think my bonk could've been solved by me eating and drinking more lightly (i.e. not fast food chicken junk, but powerbars and gel and a banana or two) more consistently throughout the ride. I was going pretty strong until the 70 mile mark, and after the hill climb, I wasn't the same. I could still ride just fine, but not with an "effortless" 14-15mph spin like before.

... and @John, yeah, I complain about my PnS camera too much, I know :], it's because I have a DSLR (EOS 40D) that would have OWNED all those night shots. I also like the motion blur in the shadow pictures (thanks you ), but I was astonished that it was there, because I had no choice! That's as fast as it would possibly get in ISO 50. (And I only know it was ISO 50 because that's what it defaults to in daylight). Some of the night pics are ISO 200, and the noise is just unbearable. You get what you pay for, and carry, though!

Also....... I can give you a copy of everything you need to crank some of your own photos into that viewer, if you want! If you've got Photoshop, you're set. If not.... then, in order for others to use it, I have to write a little program that will take your files and save new ones at different sizes and with reflections. It just involves running an action on your photos that save them with the right names and into the right directories, and then you go into the index.html file and type in the number of photos in the line of code where it's specified. (clearly visible!). It's quite a manual, tedious process, actually, due to the fact that you have to rename them all yourself, separate out the vertical/horizontal photos, etc... because I specifically wanted no back end database, and want each "photo viewer" to be statically movable and copyable and able to be put anywhere and have it work.

I'm actually wanting to make a new photoviewer that'll be with much better code, because this one is HACKED. It started out as a frameset that reloaded an entirely different HTML page for each photo, and I just changed what I needed to change, little by little, to get it like that. I go back and look at some of the code and think "what the heck was I THINKING!??". Hopefully when I do that I'll also streamline the put-it-together process. Heckers, all the HTML and JS source code is in that single HTML file! It's something like 140 kilobytes.

[lpounds]

Chuck, quite an inspiring ride. I hope to have one of my own posted soon, though it won't be nearly as beautiful as your locale. Also, I agree with John. That photo viewer made the experience all the more enjoyable.

[Triball]

So, what does it feel like to do 100 miles? Does it give you a feel of accomplishment or a waste of time? I think it would be nice if did it, but given my non-existing sport history and lack of fitness, I doubt it...I do have my whole life ahead

[Triball]

Not to mention the yummy sandwich at the start....makes up for all the trouble

[csuko]

Thanks for the interesting description of your ride! I was just wondering if you used some headlight after dark.

[chuckaeronut]

It feels quite freaking awesome to do 100 miles, and if you allocate the time and chose to spend it riding your Coker, it feels far from a waste.

No headlight, but I ddddeefinitely had a taillight. There was a 7/8 moon out, so I had plenty of light to do what I needed.

Big yummy sandwiches before rides are always good!

[Tyler_N]

Originally Posted by MuniAddict

I'd do the ride with you, but you'll need to get a real coker. Your homemade guni is cool, but it's not reliable enough (remember the charity event?) and you don't want it to fall apart 50 miles from home!

yea your right but im kinda broke now.

[MuniAddict]

Originally Posted by Tyler_N

yea your right but im kinda broke now.

I might be able to get a loner for you for the ride. It'll have an airfoil rim too!

[boo radley]

impressive speeds man. congrats.

Originally Posted by chuckaeronut

unless you're masochistic, it's gotta be pretty boring to read about...

we're all masochists around here. unicycles are bred for their skill in sadism. it's why the relationship works.

[Tyler_N]

Originally Posted by MuniAddict

I might be able to get a loner for you for the ride. It'll have an airfoil rim too!

that sounds good. ill think about it

[MuniAddict]

Originally Posted by Tyler_N

that sounds good. ill think about it

Lol, don't do me any favors!

[Tyler_N]

Originally Posted by MuniAddict

Lol, don't do me any favors!

do you have 2 cokers?

[Spencer Hochberg]

Wow, thats really awesome. I really like the gallery too.

How many bikes/cars did you race along the way?