Unicon 14: Marathon results

[DustinSchaap]

Hey everybody,

The results for the marathon are now online, check again at:

www.eenwiel.nl

Cheers,

Dustin

[phlegm]

Congrats Chuck and way to go Beau! It's good to see some local names up in the rankings.

[corbin]

yeah, serious congrats! It makes me wish I could have been there. The bay area has so many fast riders.

corbin

[siafirede]

Originally Posted by phlegm

Congrats Chuck and way to go Beau! It's good to see some local names up in the rankings.

I always wondered what people from California considered local. Isn't San Diego(I think thats where Chuck is from right?) extremely far from Santa Cruz/Bay Area?

P.S. I was just out in Santa Barbara and the weather was amazing, it sucks to be back in VA with the humidity.

P.P.S. Richard Simmons was on my flight from Dulles to LAX, he is odd, I got a picture.

[phlegm]

Originally Posted by siafirede

I always wondered what people from California considered local. Isn't San Diego(I think thats where Chuck is from right?) extremely far from Santa Cruz/Bay Area?

Chuck is in school in SoCal, but I believe he's planning to move to the Bay Area when he graduates. We've already adopted him.

[corbin]

Originally Posted by phlegm

Chuck is in school in SoCal, but I believe he's planning to move to the Bay Area when he graduates. We've already adopted him.

Yeah, technically, Chuck is local right now, since he is living in Cupertino and working at the sample little computer company as me. (apple -- heard of it?)

corbin

EDIT: we also tried to get him to transfer to UC Santa Cruz

[siafirede]

Originally Posted by corbin

Yeah, technically, Chuck is local right now, since he is living in Cupertino and working at the sample little computer company as me. (apple -- heard of it?)

corbin

EDIT: we also tried to get him to transfer to UC Santa Cruz

Nope, I don't think I have ever heard of apple.

I am still debating moving out to the bay area, it would definitely be a change in scenery, and it is up there on my list of possible places to move to.

[/threadjack]


Congrats to all the riders, Chuck is a beast. I am going to guess that he will dominate the world of unicycle racing for quite some time.

I think the next unicon is going to be interesting because there will be A LOT more geared 36ers competing. Is this the first year that a guni has beat out an ungeared uni on the marathon? I remember reading a lot of threads from last year that said that many riders chose to go ungeared because they thought they were faster ungeared. This might have been true for last years course? Was last years course significantly hillier than this years?

[GizmoDuck]

Originally Posted by siafirede

Congrats to all the riders, Chuck is a beast. I am going to guess that he will dominate the world of unicycle racing for quite some time.

Chuck most certainly is a beast, but I think it's too early call world domination. Not alot of the top riders have a 36" Schlumpf yet. In fact, not one of the top four riders from last Unicon marathon has one. The first shipment of KH 36" frames haven't even arrived in most countries.

I think one of the most impressive rides of the day was Dustin and Sams on the fixed gear, but there is no way of comparing our rides with theirs. Put either Sam or Dustin on a 36" Schlumpf and I suspect they'll blow everyone away.

Originally Posted by siafirede

I think the next unicon is going to be interesting because there will be A LOT more geared 36ers competing. Is this the first year that a guni has beat out an ungeared uni on the marathon? I remember reading a lot of threads from last year that said that many riders chose to go ungeared because they thought they were faster ungeared. This might have been true for last years course? Was last years course significantly hillier than this years?

Unicon 13 ran the first full length Marathon. Previously the 10km road race was called a 'Marathon'. So yes, it is the first Unicon marathon where geared unicycles beat fixed unicycles.

At Unicon 13, the fastest riders essentially all rode on fixed gear. I would be the first to concede that I was one of those who said that I went ungeared because it felt like it was faster than geared. However, I suspect the result was what it was because all the fastest riders chose to ride fixed rather than geared....Patrick, Roger and Dustin.

So yes, I'll eat my words. The 29" Schlumpf today felt much faster than a 36" fixed, as evidenced by the quality of riders riding fixed gears who were dropped.

As for the course...todays was essentially flat (it is Denmark). Unicon 13 was also pretty flat, but had a couple of short climbs.

[tholub]

Originally Posted by GizmoDuck

I think one of the most impressive rides of the day was Dustin and Sams on the fixed gear, but there is no way of comparing our rides with theirs. Put either Sam or Dustin on a 36" Schlumpf and I suspect they'll blow everyone away.

Come on, Ken, give credit where it's due. Chuck has demolished the fastest riders in the world four times in a row. (RTL TT and criterium, UNICON 10k and marathon). He beat Sam and Dustin by almost 8 minutes in the marathon. Eight minutes! Maybe, if those guys got Schlumpf 36ers and trained on them for six months or so, they might be able to compete with Chuck. I expect they're going to try, and then we'll have something to talk about. But to dismiss Chuck's accomplishment as somehow based on the equipment rather than his own strength is really lame. There were at least five other geared 36ers in the marathon, two of whom came from the winning Ride The Lobster team, and Chuck beat them all by over three minutes. Chuck beat them because he's freaking fast.

[osmundo]

You da man, Chuck! Way to go!!

[steveyo]

First, a big terrorist fist jab to Chuck for the marathon win! Congrats to Ken for spinning into second place on a guni29. And Jan and Tony - you guys are fast! Then for Sam and Dustin, less than two seconds apart and in top spots on fixies! Simply incredible!

Ken, you talked about "laps". How long were the laps?

Originally Posted by tholub

Come on, Ken, give credit where it's due. Chuck has demolished the fastest riders...to dismiss Chuck's accomplishment as somehow based on the equipment rather than his own strength is really lame.

Eeeeasy, big fella! No need for that kinda talk.

Chuck is amazing, like a buffalo/cheetah hybrid. But he does have that first-ever KH36 prototype, thus has maybe practiced fast guni36 riding more than anyone else has had the opportunity to. There are many crazy-fast unicyclists, some of which were in that race on slower machines - when they all have KH36 gunis the races will be closer.

[anso]

Originally Posted by steveyo

Then for Sam and Dustin, less than two seconds apart and in top spots on fixies! Simply incredible!

Since you congratulate them, I would like to add Martin Charrier (7th) who's only 24 seconds after them on a fixie too and whom almost nobody had heard about before.

An'So

(PS: Bravo, Ken and Tony, Vancouver's favorite kiwis)

[peter.bier]

Originally Posted by steveyo

Chuck is amazing, like a buffalo/cheetah hybrid. But he does have that first-ever KH36 prototype, thus has maybe practiced fast guni36 riding more than anyone else has had the opportunity to. There are many crazy-fast unicyclists, some of which were in that race on slower machines - when they all have KH36 gunis the races will be closer.

Or it may actually spread the field a little more.

It is becoming clear that for some riders, a geared 36 gives a significant advantage.

Case in point - I know Tony built up a geared 36 literally a day or two before he left for unicon because he suspected it would make him faster. It was a big gamble (as he had to dismantle his geared 29er to do so). Fortunately his decision was backed up on the one day he had for a training ride. He discovered he was about 8% faster over the same course that he had previously ridden on a geared 29er. Remember that he has had plenty of experience on a geared 29er and virtually none on a geared 36. I would expect the advantage to increase a little more with practice.

I did some back of the envelope calculations and if Ken sees a similar increase in speed, he would have shaved more than 6 and a half minutes off his marathon time, putting him about 5 minutes ahead of Chuck!

It looks like the winning combination will be a crazy-fast rider on a geared 36 and as yet very few of the fastest riders out there have one. Unfortunately we couldn't get Ken his geared 36 in time as our shipment was delayed a month :-(

[GizmoDuck]

Originally Posted by tholub

Come on, Ken, give credit where it's due. Chuck has demolished the fastest riders in the world four times in a row. (RTL TT and criterium, UNICON 10k and marathon). He beat Sam and Dustin by almost 8 minutes in the marathon. Eight minutes! Maybe, if those guys got Schlumpf 36ers and trained on them for six months or so, they might be able to compete with Chuck. I expect they're going to try, and then we'll have something to talk about. But to dismiss Chuck's accomplishment as somehow based on the equipment rather than his own strength is really lame. There were at least five other geared 36ers in the marathon, two of whom came from the winning Ride The Lobster team, and Chuck beat them all by over three minutes. Chuck beat them because he's freaking fast.

Chuck blew me away yesterday, and I was on a 29" Schlumpf. Don't get me wrong, Chuck is truly amazing. But so is Sam and Dustin. I haven't seen them compete on the same equipment yet though. Until everyone is riding the same equipment, I don't think it can be a fair comparison.

[GizmoDuck]

Originally Posted by peter.bier

O

I did some back of the envelope calculations and if Ken sees a similar increase in speed, he would have shaved more than 6 and a half minutes off his marathon time, putting him about 5 minutes ahead of Chuck!

Peter,

Back of the envelope calculations are just that. There is no way of knowing without actually doing it in practice. I probably don't have the legs to push such a big gear. Chuck is a really powerful rider...he did thrash the entire marathon field yesterday, and there were quite a few Schlumpfs there.

The GUNIs will make unicycling more like bikes. If you stuck Lance Armstrong on a unicycle 5yrs ago, even with practice, he may or may not be very fast. Because it was about how fast you could pedal without falling off. How many 12yr old kids in Japan could cruise at 23km/hr on a 24? Probably quite a few.

Now with bigger gears, it is definitely more fitness and strength biased. Really strong riders will have an advantage over the spinners.