leo said:
And for when the link doesn't work here it is:
A unique White Rim ride
September 9, 2005
By Stormy Colman | Special to the Herald
It seemed like a good idea at the time - that's my story and I'm
sticking to it.
Courtesy Photo / www.thewildpixel.com
Durango resident Stormy Colman, left, and Steve Holmes of Salida take
advantage of a relatively smooth section of the White Rim Trail and
break out the unicyles on a bike trip to Canyonlands National Park in
May. Both Colman and Holmes rode the majority of the rim on conventional
mountain bikes, but brought along their unicycles for a challenge.
I mean, why not ride a unicycle on Utah's White Rim Trail?
It's been traveled by just about every other kind of wheeled vehicle
there is except maybe your father's Oldsmobile.
Why not unis?
The White Rim Trail in Canyonlands National Park is a 103-mile loop of
four-wheel-drive road with a bit of easy slickrock thrown in.
There are a few Class IV-plus climbs, well, Class IV-plus for me,
anyway, but by and large it's mostly intermediate pedaling. In other
words, perfect for a hacker unicyclist like me.
The trip was billed as a mountain bike outing. Thirteen of us on
two-wheelers, a couple of sag wagons, one with a full-time driver, four
days and three nights riding the circuit clockwise from the Shafer Trail
entry to the parking lot at Horsethief trailhead.
A few days before our scheduled departure, I called my friend Homer, aka
Steve Holmes, in Salida.
"I'll take my uni (unicycle) if you'll take yours," I said. "In fact,
I'm going to take mine even if you don't take yours."
"I'm way ahead of you," he said.
As usual. I don't know about Homer, but I was sort of secretly hoping we
might be - gasp! - the first to mountain unicycle at least part of the
famed trail. Neither of us had any plans, or illusions, about doing the
whole thing on one wheel.
For me, unicycling a few stretches of the famed route, riding a little
slickrock, all while keeping body, soul and private parts more or less
intact would be plenty stout enough.
I checked out my chops on a short ride from our pre-launch campsite at
Dead Horse Point to the canyon overlook. Watching the late-spring violet
velvet darkness creep across the canyon we'd drop into the next day, I
launched into an optimistic little fantasy about riding the entire loop
on a uni.
At my age, fantasizing is often about as far as it gets anyway. Plus, we
had four days, not a week.
The next morning, while most of the crew ran shuttle, four of us set off
on a two-wheeler warm-up ride from camp to the Shafer Trail put-in near
the park's visitor center. A good thing, too.
Back home, I'd been neglecting the mountain bike in favor of trail
riding on the unicycle, and it showed. My trusty two-wheeled steed with
its lung and leg-saving gears, needed some minor tweaking.
That's one of the unicycle's many advantages - fewer moving parts, less
to go wrong. It's pretty much set the seat height, and you're ready to
rock.
Some interesting slickrock across from the visitor center was just
moaning to be ridden while we waited for the shuttle drivers' return.
Homer, adventurous soul that he is, was first out of the gate. I was
moaning myself in short order after taking a tumble on the unforgiving
sandstone. (Memo to self: Padding is good.)
Once our group had coalesced, it was back to the bikes and the long
coast down to the rim, the unis, for the time being, securely stashed on
the sag wagon.
It was easy to get spoiled by the biking. The mid-May weather was cool
and partly cloudy, just right for windbreakers on the long downhill
entry.
A different story by late afternoon as we were two-wheeling it up a
short, intermediate steep grade before the 3- to 4-mile cruise into camp
at Airport.
"Hey, Homer," I said once we'd cleared the rise, "let's uni to camp."
Homer, as usual, was all over it.
We found a good pull-out spot for the sag wagon, then it was back in the
saddle, single-wheel style this time.
Three or 4 miles on a mountain bike may not sound like much and it's
not. On a uni, it's a different story.
Even with a mid-fat tire slightly under-inflated to suck up some shock,
it's a moderately demanding ride when the road's knobbier than your
tire. Factor in a few hours of crotch chafe and blood sugar levels
dropping like a rock over the rim and it verges on stupid.
Never let that stop me before, so I pushed on until shadows were
tripping my tire. I did make it to camp, but it wasn't pretty. Which
sums it up about my unicycling.
Graceful is not my middle name. Do I look like I care? (Visualize
sweaty, dirt-streaked human with a blissed out, goofy grin.)
It ain't about aesthetics, unless you're planning on a nightclub act.
There were a few more uni tangents throughout the course of the trip,
including Homer's death-defying - or at least that's how it looked -
skyline traverse on some slickrock near camp at White Crack.
And once I'd completed the big grunt climb out from Mineral Bottom, I
just couldn't resist riding back down a ways on the uni to see how much
climb I still had left.
Answer: about a quarter mile.
Next year?
We'll see.
My Fantasies R Us budget is modest for the moment, but who knows, a
little more training, the right motivation, I might bust a big one, if
only to keep Homer honest.
Freelance writer Stormy Colman lives and rides in Durango.
--
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