NAUCC/UNICON marathon suggestion

Any convention host that endeavors to set up their own marathon course
would, in my humble opinion, own the choice to do this or not.
Certainly you wouldn't want it open to riders of any speed! Less-fit
riders are much less inclined to take on a ride of such a distance,
based on the attendance at Unicon. The 10k gets a lot more "try it and
see" riders.

Today I rode 37.2 miles, including the first 18.1 nonstop! Now I'm
either as ready as I'll ever be for the Tahoe ride day after tomorrow,
or I'm overtrained and I'm going to be sore Sunday morning...

--
johnfoss

John Foss
Email: "jfoss" at "unicycling.com" -- www.unicycling.com
-----------------------------------------------

"pretty much every trail that we've done on the California or Moab Muni
weekends is an XC trail." -- Kris Holm, on XC from a North Shore point
of view
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David_Stone said:

...If you run a 43km ride, then a good idea would be a 10 km split time
of, say, 30 minutes. Any slower than that and the competitor would have
to bow out of the ride...

That's pretty stringent. I rode a 25.4 mile ride Monday at 11.94 mph
avg and I thought that was pretty fast. What do I do, I guess.
🙄

David_Stone said:

As for riding 16 mph for over an hour: I've done it, but I've never
tried it for a full 26 miles. I maintained that speed for about an hour
on a Coker with 125s. I think I could do even better on my 29" guni,
but I know there are a few people who could do better still (Ken,
Smiley, Roger, Christian, ...). I'd just like to see someone snag that
record!

I've exceeded 16 mph, (my best is 17.85mph) but only for a sprint. It's
phenomenal to me that anyone could keep it up for any sustained period.

--
steveyo

steveyo
...like having your own personal rollercoaster...

- a few 'uni race write-ups'
(http://home.nycap.rr.com/rduhan/uni_race_writeups/)
- muni and kokopelli uni 't-shirts, mugs and stickers'
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johnfoss said:

...Today I rode 37.2 miles, including the first 18.1 nonstop! Now I'm
either as ready as I'll ever be for the Tahoe ride day after tomorrow,
or I'm overtrained and I'm going to be sore Sunday morning...

:eek: I would be resting more this close to a race of that magnitude.
You're an animal.

--
steveyo

steveyo
...like having your own personal rollercoaster...

- a few 'uni race write-ups'
(http://home.nycap.rr.com/rduhan/uni_race_writeups/)
- muni and kokopelli uni 't-shirts, mugs and stickers'
(http://www.cafepress.com/steveyo)
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steveyo said:

That's pretty stringent. I rode a 25.4 mile ride Monday at 11.94 mph
avg and I thought that was pretty fast. What do I do, I guess.
🙄

I've exceeded 16 mph, (my best is 17.85mph) but only for a sprint.
It's phenomenal to me that anyone could keep it up for any sustained
period.

Hey, Steve.

Yeah, that's the thing about a marathon. No one, and I mean not even
your mom, wants to watch someone take nearly three hours to finish a
'race.' That's why an organizer would have to impose a minimum time for
certain mile- (or km-) markers. The race would have to end before the
excitement did. I think a rider would have to maintain at least 13-14
mph (breaks included) for this to seem interesting. The premier riders
would definitely make it fun to watch, especially at the end. And
thanks to our on-back water-packs, spectators wouldn't have to hand out
water in little paper cups!

--
David_Stone

Dictator for Life,
NYUC

Check out my blog (or else):
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David_Stone said:

Hey, Steve.

Yeah, that's the thing about a marathon. No one, and I mean *not even
your mom*, wants to watch someone take nearly three hours to finish a
'race.' That's why an organizer would have to impose a minimum time for
certain mile- (or km-) markers. The race would have to end before the
excitement did. I think a rider would have to maintain at least 13-14
mph (breaks included) for this to seem interesting. The premier riders
would definitely make it fun to watch, especially at the end. And
thanks to our on-back water-packs, spectators wouldn't have to hand out
water in little paper cups!

I'll just have to work harder. BTW, my mom ran in a marathon, and took
longer than 3 hours, so she's not a good example.

--
steveyo

steveyo
...like having your own personal rollercoaster...

- a few 'uni race write-ups'
(http://home.nycap.rr.com/rduhan/uni_race_writeups/)
- muni and kokopelli uni 't-shirts, mugs and stickers'
(http://www.cafepress.com/steveyo)
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Similar to Sailboat racing, IMHO all races should be "one-design" races
to pit human against human and factor out any mechanical advantage.
36ers only race against 36ers...24s against 24s...etc. Set up distances
accordingly.

But I wouldn't exclude the just-for-fun racers. That's why most of us
participate.

-Mmud.

--
Memphis Mud
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I rode the unicon marathon this year, having never ridden that distance
before, on a last minute whim. It was the highlight of my week and a
very happy memorey. It since has inspired me to by an N36 of my own and
get in to distance riding. Please don't take this opportunity away from
people like me, it really was one of the most fantastic days of my
life.

And since when has this been about the spectators? It's not like they
have to stay to see the backmarkers trundle through. I agree
reorganising it so that all the fast riders took off together, instead
of the stagered small groups at unicon 13, would make the finish more
spectacular, as they would be closer packed and it would be obvious who
was winning, no need to remember who went off in which group and what
the relative start times were.

--
kington99

Dave

- what a thoroughly post-modern subversion of the cycling genre -
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Maybe instead of offering a race especially for the elite few who want
to exclude the fray from competition, two vans could be arranged to
pick up the people at different intervals, or there could be separate
start times. As someone who would be in the fray with the bulk of the
riders, I guess I am biased to keep it all in good fun.

Also... give the 9yo on a 24 due credit, he's had a harder race than an
adult on a coker! That'd be the sporting thing to do.

All in all. I suppose it largely depends on the nature of the
competition. If folks want to be all serious about it, fine, have a
separate race at the exclusion of most. The Memphis NAUCC had such a
warm open spirit, however, I think such exclusions wouldn't have been
consistent with the rest of the conference.

--
podzol

http://www.wobblinglions.com
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at last UNICON I rode the 10k race in just over one hour :p !
I would have been able to run it in 45 minutes but I was washed out
(as usual when temperature is over 20° C 🙂 ) and decided to wait for a
pal who had his own problems.
What I liked about that is that nobody objected and so I enjoyed it!
for sure I did not want to run the marathon but would you have objected
if I had decided to spend 4 hours on the saddle with long pauses for
drinks and pee 😄 ?
what I really like about unicycling event is that you get your own
choice of competitiveness.
so is your argument only about the problem of immobilizing the
organizers for such a long time? I can understand that but may be we
can imagine some compromise for security reasons ..... I can read my
watch if I want to know how long the ride was ....

--
wobbling bear

One Wheel : bear necessity
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wobbling bear said:

so is your argument only about the problem of immobilizing the
organizers for such a long time? I can understand that but may be we
can imagine some compromise for security reasons ..... I can read my
watch if I want to know how long the ride was ....

Exactly. I don't want to immobilize the organizers. And it would also
be cool if, somehow, we could get the marathon to end (if not run in
its entirety) where spectators could possibly witness history or at
least an exciting finish.

I have nothing against a bunch of ppl deciding it would be fun to go
off and ride 26 miles on their own, stopwatches in hand. I just don't
want to saddle the organizers with the task of monitoring them for
upwards of 4 hours. That wouldn't be fair to them, and it would also
reduce the chances of the event being run at the following NAUCCs
(precedent being what it is).

Anyway, I'm mainly speaking hypothetically bc I don't see that anyone
is planning to run a marathon at an NAUCC in the near future. If it's
done as a race, I'm just suggesting that it be relegated to the people
who would make it practical. And I'm only making this point about the
marathon -- and not the shorter races -- because it's so damn long. I
don't mind watching someone ride around the track at a snail's pace for
a shorter race like the 1600m, but if it's the 43000m, that's another
matter entirely!

--
David_Stone

Dictator for Life,
NYUC

Check out my blog (or else):
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