I am lucky. I’ve known and ridden with my Ride The Lobster team-mates
for 10 or more years and they all live with or near me. Although it’s
harder for teams that live far apart, I really recommend getting
together at least once before departure for Nova Scotia in June to
practice racing together. My team has had two practices so far and we
learned quite a bit.
TRANSITIONS
First, we had a day of “Transition Practice”. We picked a section of
road about 16km long and rode it out and back, doing transitions almost
as frequently as possible. This worked out to be about every 1.5-2km,
and we did about twenty transitions in about 1:40, not pushing as hard
as in the race. We used a camera case that’s about the same size and
shape as the real GPS baton will be in the race:
[image: http://nhoover.smugmug.com/photos/251054250-O.jpg]
We tried riding with and without Camelbaks. We preferred riding without
a Camelbak and simply stuffing the baton in our jersey pockets while
riding. The baton case has a Velcro strap that can be easily stuck to
the Camelbak strap and rides nicely out of the way, but keeping it in
the jersey pocket is the easiest.
The ideal transition is where the incoming rider maintains full speed
and the outgoing rider is just hitting full speed when the actual
hand-off occurs. In a 200km stage, each team is likely do to 20-40
hand-offs, so losing even 10 seconds per hand-off will translate to
minutes off your time for that stage. But you want to take care as
crashing due to riding too fast, or having two riders maintain full
speed for a long time are not good. We tried for as efficient as
possible transfers, although I don’t think we ever did a “perfect”
one.
The most important thing we learned doing this practice is that
communication is key. We tried several methods, but having the incoming
rider announce his distance in a loud voice (40 feet…20 feet…GO GO…5
feet…Here it is!), then decisively putting the baton in the
outstretched hand of the outgoing rider seemed to work best. This way
it isn’t necessary for the rider in front to look backwards during the
hand-off. We worked out in advance that the incoming rider would
approach on the right side, passing the baton with the left hand to the
right hand.
[image: http://nhoover.smugmug.com/photos/228108538-L.jpg]
RACING
Late in December 2007, we organized a local “Ride The Lobster Team
Practice Day”. Four teams participated. We picked a route that was
one-way and had some hills but nothing too steep, similar to Nova
Scotia. Since the days are short in December, we chose a route a bit
over 120km instead of 190-200km as in the race. The weather cooperated;
it was drizzly and cool (about 8C at the start, warming to 12C midday).
I imagine the weather in the race could be similar.
We met in San Francisco at 8:15am and the first riders started out soon
after. Each team had its own vehicle and planned their transitions
independently, just as in the race. As in the race, no transitions were
done in the first 10km, although later on, some legs were as short as
2km for some riders. We raced with no breaks or check points, with each
team responsible for navigation and food.
Here is the route we followed: http://tinyurl.com/387tmo
[image: http://nhoover.smugmug.com/photos/251053133-O.jpg]
We also used this website to map our route and obtain an elevation
profile:
http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=1512756
Each team had to decide how far each rider would ride and in what
order. This was based on each rider’s strengths and weaknesses as well
as equipment. Team Totally Doable was using a normal 36” cycle plus a
geared up (54” equivalent) cycle. The geared up cycle wasn’t shift-able
though and was very tough to ride up hills. So they did more
transitions than the other teams, swapping out equipment as well as
riders. They were lucky in that all three of their riders could ride
the geared up cycle without adjustments, although their shortest team
member complained of hip pain afterwards from reaching for the pedals.
For my team, it seemed that doing legs of 5-9km worked best. While it’s
hard to keep up “race pace” for a long time, especially while climbing,
short legs mean short breaks for the other two riders. Probably the
best thing to do is start out with some slightly longer legs and go
progressively shorter as the day wears on and the riders wear out.
In the end, we surprised ourselves with how fast we covered the 123km.
Team Totally Doable took first place in about 6:10 using their geared
up speed machine—their average speed for the course, including stops,
falls (two), and transitions, came out right at 20km/hr. My team,
Yellow Line Fever, finished 5 minutes later. Team Venus (all woman
racers, two members from California, two from Minnesota) finished soon
after. Team Yam Power! was missing one of their racers and finished
later while we were having dinner – but Jim Sowers managed to ride far
enough to make this day his first qualifying ride, and successfully
completed his qualification the next day.
So what is the fastest unicycle? Geared or non-geared? Ever since the
Laos Unitour in 2006, I have been a believer that given a skilled
rider, an effective wheel size of over 36” on the flat or downhill will
beat a standard 36” cycle. That appears to be especially true with a
geared up 36” cycle. But the course is not all downhill and flat, and
it is very, very long. Whatever you ride, make sure you’re completely
comfortable on it. There are many factors involved and there is no one
“best” unicycle for this race. It depends on the rider.
When you sit down and think about actually racing 200km in a day, day
after day, it sounds pretty hard. After these practice sessions, I know
it’s not only doable, but will be really fun. With only four teams, it
was surprisingly exciting and fun. Just imagine what it will be like
with over 20 teams, and racers from all over the world! I can’t wait -
see you in Nova Scotia!
MORE PHOTOS
Transition practice 12/2/2007:
http://nhoover.smugmug.com/gallery/3929534
Racing practice 12/29/2007: http://nhoover.smugmug.com/gallery/4147057
Racing practice 12/29/2007:
http://www.flickr.com/gp/83189681@N00/q0CXAJ (Tom Holub)
Nova Scotia visit, course preview 9/2007:
http://nhoover.smugmug.com/gallery/3495421
--
nathan
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