Unicross

john_childs said:

*One big problem with riding on a BMX track is that unicycles can ruin
the track for the bikes. Unicycles cannot get air over a jump or even
a small bump so the unicycle plows right over the lip and then rides
down the other side. It ruins the jump or feature for the bikes. The
20" BMX riders don't even like 26" wheel bikes riding on the track
because the different wheel size messes up the jumps and ramps and
moguls.

A UMX course for unicycles would also be designed differently than a
BMX course for bikes. A bike course has jumps. A unicycle course
would have features that would challenge a unicycle but be rather tame
for a bike. *

It's really not a problem for a Coker to get air off those jumps. An
existing BMX track seems pretty ideal for a UMX race on Cokers,
actually... and I don't think Cokers would mess the track up too badly
(if at all).

Quoted message said:

-Originally posted by caw89-
*I was mostly refering to the table tops and ramps, but also my tracks
are flat and some spots go uphil and some downhill, when its on a dirt
bike you dont need it downhill. An actual dowhill courdse sounds crazy
fun!*

Oh, ok... those "hills" (table tops and ramps) are actually still jumps
when you're riding a Coker 😄!

Yeah, I can't wait to try the downhill BMX track in NH. Hopefully some
local riders (KcTheAcy) will want to meet me there to battle the
track!

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A friend and me rode our unicycles on a downhill BMX track, just last
Sunday. It was great fun.

Klaas Bil

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HardcoreCokerRider said:

*It's really not a problem for a Coker to get air off those jumps. An
existing BMX track seems pretty ideal for a UMX race on Cokers,
actually... and I don't think Cokers would mess the track up too badly
(if at all). *

It depends on the track. There was a local BMX track that was official
and actively maintained by the city. They wouldn't even allow 24" or
26" bikes on the track because the bigger wheels messed up the track for
the 20" bikes.

Then there are the outlaw tracks that are built on vacant land. They
get traffic from all types of bikes. They're volunteer or outlaw
tracks. You could take a unicycle there without kicked out. But you do
need to respect the trail and the track. Don't take a unicycle over a
kicker jump if you're going to damage the jump. It is very easy to
damage a jump by riding over it repeatedly on a unicycle. That wouldn't
be cool.

On the right trail or track you could ride around causing no damage. On
the wrong track you could be messing it up for all the other riders and
the people who put in the work to build it.

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john_childs said:

*One big problem with riding on a BMX track is that unicycles can ruin
the track for the bikes. Unicycles cannot get air over a jump or even
a small bump so the unicycle plows right over the lip and then rides
down the other side. It ruins the jump or feature for the bikes. The
20" BMX riders don't even like 26" wheel bikes riding on the track
because the different wheel size messes up the jumps and ramps and
moguls.

A UMX course for unicycles would also be designed differently than a
BMX course for bikes. A bike course has jumps. A unicycle course
would have features that would challenge a unicycle but be rather tame
for a bike. *

Near the end of my ride with Adam (JustOneWheel) on the Greenbelt
yesterday, we stopped off at the BMX track. Having experienced
attempting to ride my Coker on a (pretty hairy) BMX track, I now realize
that I was completely wrong and John was right... I am now pretty much
in total agreement with what John said.

Having ridden similar types of obstacles at Rays in Cleveland, I thought
the BMX track would be a lot of fun and fairly rideable.

The problem is that the obstacles are spaced way to close together to
maintain a decent speed between them and the natural dirt trail makes
rolling fast enough a lot more difficult than on Rays smooth concrete
floor with a nice run-up.

I can see how unicycles could mess up the track so I tried to take care
to avoid causing any damage and I didn't ride there for too long.

The local BMXers seemed to get a kick out of my follies on the track,
though, and were friendly and encouraging. Adam said one guy had even
heard about me from the skatepark community somehow.

All in all, I think there were small sections of track that were
rideable and could be a lot of fun... especially sections you could ride
in the trails along side to get sufficient speed and then turn to enter
the section of track you want to ride. I know I could have done much
better if I wasn't exhasted from climbing hills on my first Muni ride
(and still sore from 1st long endurance ride of the season the day
before that) but I won't spend much time there because I don't want to
risk messing up an awesome BMX track.

A (UMX) track designed specifically for unicyclists would probably be
awesome... though I'd have to really build up my stamina to do that kind
of riding for very long.

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I imagine there are some BMX tracks that are downhill and/or less
radical in design that could be a lot of fun for unicyclists.

I'd like to ride one that was either less radical (or the obstacles
spaced wider) than the track I rode yesterday, yet a bit more
challenging than the track Klass posted a picture of (from the looks of
the photo, anyway) in this thread.

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john_childs said:

*One big problem with riding on a BMX track is that unicycles can ruin
the track for the bikes. Unicycles cannot get air over a jump or even
a small bump so the unicycle plows right over the lip and then rides
down the other side. It ruins the jump or feature for the bikes. The
20" BMX riders don't even like 26" wheel bikes riding on the track
because the different wheel size messes up the jumps and ramps and
moguls.

A UMX course for unicycles would also be designed differently than a
BMX course for bikes. A bike course has jumps. A unicycle course
would have features that would challenge a unicycle but be rather tame
for a bike. *

i think you are confusing a dirt jump parkand a bmx race track. bmx race
tracks normally have rollers and tatble tops, and the jumps are small
and have rounded lips, which unis wont mess up. Unis would destroy a DJ
park... the differece is that dj parks are singletrack, big jumps and
steep lips and landing, ie, if you rool it you screw them up.

--
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-Hunter-
> -Originally posted by TheObieOne3226-

Quoted message said:

*Time to sex up your mothers! *

DK said:

*i think you are confusing a dirt jump parkand a bmx race track. bmx
race tracks normally have rollers and tatble tops, and the jumps are
small and have rounded lips, which unis wont mess up. Unis would
destroy a DJ park... the differece is that dj parks are singletrack,
big jumps and steep lips and landing, ie, if you rool it you screw
them up.

bmx race track- [image:
http://gallery.consumerreview.com/mtbr/gallery/pictures/FirstTurn.jpg]
smooth

dirt jump park
[image:
http://www.bikerag.com/images/PICTURES/ma_robinson_state_park_pics/DSCF0009.JPG]
*

Ah...thanks for clarifying that! I was confusing the two as well. The
track Adam (JustOneWheel) took me to yesterday was DEFINITELY a dirt
jump park... only WAY more radical than the one pictured!

A BMX track like the one pictured seems like it would be awesome for
Coker races!

It's great to have MTB, BMX, and skateboard guys on the forum to educate
us and clarify things. Riding on a lot of the same terrain, it's nice to
know the correct terminology and to become more knowledge about the
other sports that the terrain was originally designed for. Thanks DK.

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DK said:

*i think you are confusing a dirt jump parkand a bmx race track. *

I wasn't confused because I know the difference. 🙂
But yeah, I was talking more about the dirt jump oriented tracks than
the racing tracks. The dirt jump tracks are what you'll find out and
about. The racing tracks are purpose built and managed by an
organization that does racing.

There is a small BMX racing track here near Seattle. I haven't gone
there to ride. There is a list of BMX race tracks at the ABA web site:
'ABA BMX track search' (http://www.ababmx.com/index.php?page=tracks).
From there you can find links to many of the tracks and see what they
look like. The track near Seattle is here: 'Sea Tac BMX'
(http://www.seatacbmx.org/photos.htm). The racing BMX tracks are much
more suited to Coker riding than anything designed for dirt jumping,
even the ones with small jumps.

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We did some jumps on Saturday. Trick is just to ride really fast at them
and not to lose momentum before the top. I think a 24 or 26 muni is a
good wheel size for them.

You need a certain size, little kickers are the best.

http://gallery.unicyclist.com/album485/DSC03209

We've actually got some little abandoned jumps right near us (not the
ones on that picture), that are just the right size for uni but have
been left to get worn down and don't have a good lip, so I may go down
with a shovel and optimise them a bit.

The most important thing is not to ride jumps you've got no chance of
launching, ie. really big tabletops etc. as you'll screw the ramp by
rolling the jump.

If you're launching jumps not just rolling them, then you don't screw
the jump any more than a biker.

At a lot of jump sites people have a rule that anyone who jumps the
jumps should sort them out with a shovel afterwards so they're nice for
whoever turns up next.

Joe

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joemarshall said:

*We did some jumps on Saturday. Trick is just to ride really fast at
them and not to lose momentum before the top. *

And a lot of fun it was too, must go do it again soon. I reckon the run
up is quite important, get it wrong and you can just stall.

Here's a photo of myself getting air on another ride. And I believe
that's Joe in the background taking a photo of me crashing the landing
on that occasion 🙂

Cheers, Gary

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TonyMelton said:

*I'm sure John Foss will be able to tell us more about the original
use of the term 'UMX'.

One other point is that I think the Muni race at UNICON is still
officially rather quaintly called a UMX race.*

The first use of "U.M.X." for us may have been in a 1981 issue of the
USA Newsletter. It was the title of an article I did about riding
offroad. I consider this article one of the origin points of what we now
call MUni (some of the earlier ones being 100 years previous). At the
time BMX was at a peak of popularity, and the idea was to possibly
attract some of that huge audience into unicycling.

We didn't do any offroad racing at the big unicycle conventions until
1988 (Unicon IV) and 1989 (USA Convention in Mobile, AL). We still
called it UMX then, as "muni" didn't come around until 1994 or so.

UMX was added to the IUF/USA rulebooks somewhere in there, with a loose
definition of racing on dirt. More recently, the IUF noticed it was
still called that in the 2002 book and we only updated it for 2004 (see
rulebook links, below).

The name UMX breaks down into Unicycle Motocross. To be done properly,
it's supposed to be a heat event on a short course, with several
"motos." The only place where I know this has been done is at Toque.
Everything we've done in the USA and IUF have been cross-country races,
uphill, downhill, or combinations of those.

UMX would be fun. As always, the first hurdle is getting access to a
track. I also like the idea of rolling trials, and would like to do that
someday as well.

--
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John Foss, the Uni-Cyclone
"jfoss" at "unicycling.com" -- www.unicycling.com

"Read the rules!" -- 'IUF Rulebook'
(http://www.unicycling.org/iuf/rulebook/) -- 'USA Rulebook'
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