Mail article on Kris Holm

[SmellyGeekBoy]

I know it's from the Daily Mail, but here's a story on Kris Holm a friend just sent to me. Sorry if someone's already posted it somewhere.

Good stuff!

[danger_uni]

Thanks; that's funny as I didn't know about it. I did chat with the writer but most of those quotes are completely made up. Despite the article's comment my life is somewhat revolving around training for it - e.g. a spring dominated by long XC muni rides. A hard job but I guess someone's got to do it =).

Anyway, the race will be hard but hopefully good - in 7 days it goes through some of the most beautiful singletrack anywhere.

Kris

[SmellyGeekBoy]

Good luck, sounds like it's going to be a really awesome event.

I actually got the impression that your entire life was dominated by long XC Muni rides! I guess not though.

[redwelly]

Nice one Kris! To say that the Daily Mail is hardly top-quality journalism is doing them a kindness, so it's little surprise that it's mostly made up! It is very widely read though, so if the article is that large in the print edition it is great for our sport.

Great photos too. Good luck in the race. 18 miles a day sounds tough

Sam

[Gadge]

An unusually positive article for the Daily Mail - even if they got most of it wrong! I'd have expected it to be more along the lines of "unicycles are dangerous, they should be banned". Not my favourite paper in case you hadn't guessed

So a good result and some good publicity for the sport.

Good luck in the race Kris!

[SmellyGeekBoy]

Originally Posted by Gadge

I'd have expected it to be more along the lines of "unicycles are dangerous, they should be banned".

I was expecting "Immigrants on unicycles ruin UK economy" ...

[unireed]

it must be a very challenging daily ride if it's only 18 miles a day; on a bike that is less than an hour of riding at 20mph.

[simonb]

Originally Posted by SmellyGeekBoy

I was expecting "Immigrants on unicycles ruin UK economy" ...

or "unicycles new cause of cancer"

YouTube- The Daily Mail Song

reminds me of this :P

[Jap]

Well Kris, you made page three of the Metro today, London's free, daily paper, read by a lot of people, almost everyone commuting on trains and tubes. It was a highly edited version of that in the Daily Mail, with some nice pictures, taking the whole page!

I felt quite exposed sitting there with my KM MUni!

[Gadge]

Originally Posted by SmellyGeekBoy

I was expecting "Immigrants on unicycles ruin UK economy" ...

Or foreign made unicycles destroy British cycle industry

[danger_uni]

Originally Posted by unireed

it must be a very challenging daily ride if it's only 18 miles a day; on a bike that is less than an hour of riding at 20mph.

Good question. There are 2 categories, one averaging 30 km/day (18 miles) and one 60 km/day (37 miles). Both have, I think, around 1000 m (3000 feet) average of climbing or so, all offroad and mostly on singletrack. As a race of course you can exhaust yourself at any distance but it was a hard call on which to enter. I think the NZ UNICON XC race was 14 km (9 miles).

I initially signed up for the longer category, but after trying out a few days at race length on similar trails, I wasn't sure I could be fast enough to make the cutoff times every day for a week. One day would have been fine but by day 7 I'm not so sure. Somewhere between the two would have been nice but hopefully this means it's possible to do a reasonable job of it.

I'm glad that it perhaps created some exposure for unicycling in the UK but I have to say the hype was a bit embarrassing. Despite that hype the main point as far as I'm concerned is that I get to ride beautiful hard singletrack every day for a week in some places I've never been before.

Cheers,

Kris

[Jap]

The race sound great Kris.

All the stage races in the UK seem to be much longer, like 100km/day, so are not viable on the MUni. I think it's great to have a low milage but challenging terrain course, I hope you have fun.

[siafirede]

What unicycle will you be using? Ungeared 29er? Geared 26er/29er?

I have found the geared 29er great on smooth singletrack, but I bet a geared 26er would allow slightly more high geared riding.

[danger_uni]

I'll use a geared 26 (photo attached). I have really been liking this size for all-around riding. For North Shore DH I would still take my 24, but for most other riding it seems to be a very versatile setup. It's also a cool learning curve trying to increase the proportion of terrain that's rideable in 2nd gear.

K.

[1wheelwill]

Originally Posted by Jap

Well Kris, you made page three of the Metro today, London's free, daily paper, read by a lot of people, almost everyone commuting on trains and tubes. It was a highly edited version of that in the Daily Mail, with some nice pictures, taking the whole page!

I felt quite exposed sitting there with my KM MUni!

Hmmmm....Does this mean the London tabloids have gone away from the tradition of having a topless page three girl? Was Kris, um, topless? Great day for the sport...not so much for teenage libidos.