I'm going to find a way to run a 'poor cousin' version of your ride some time....... for all the 29'ers I can scare up....humm, now, lets see, I know of three 29'er riders here in town so far.....;)
Bainbridge Island is in a funny gravity zone. The first 1/2 of the ride is predominanty South and West and wasn't too bad, except for a huge hill right before the 14 mile rest stop. But Northbound, every grade, no matter how slight, had much more gravity. :rolleyes:
There was the occasional "other wheel" or "circus" comment but the overwhelming mood was that of encouragement. Having 10 riders was an impressive show. Shortly after the start we broke into a fast group and moderate group and regrouped at about 6 miles then at the 14 mile rest stop. After that it was the super human group and the not-quite-as-super human group.
Abram not only cleaned the course, he rode home from downtown too!
I tried 170's because of lack of pre-conditioning. They were nice for slow uphill grinds but I found them too bouncy for faster cruising. I also had some soreness below the knees, don't know whether that was from repetition or the larger cranks. Back to 150's and better conditioning for next big ride.
All my pics are pretty redundant to those already submitted except this fine group shot of nine unicyclists and ten unicycles. Harper was behind the camera.
UniBrier wrote:> *All my pics are pretty redundant to those already submitted except> this fine group shot of nine unicyclists and ten unicycles. Harper was> behind the camera. *
The Chilly Hilly was fun this year. An amazing showing of unicycle power.
I did the Chilly Hilly last year with Irene. It was colder last year. I remember trying to warm up my toes last year at one of the rest stops. It really was the Chilly Hilly last year. There were more riders this year. In fact, it was a record year for the number of riders. Last year there were about 3700 riders and this year there were over 5000. It was noticeably more crowded on the roads this year, especially on the climbs where the bikes all bunch up as some people stop to walk up the bigger hills.
I felt better at then end this year, but I did better on the hills last year. I ended up walking the last bit of one long steep hill that I rode up last year. And there was one short little hill that I UPDed on for no real reason other than inattention and trying to doge weaving bicyclists while trying to stay out of the oncoming lane of car traffic.
It was a surprise to see Jack Hughes waiting there in Seattle for the start of the ride. We were too disorganized to think of trying to contact Jack ahead of time to find out if he was going to do the Chilly Hilly this year. It was just luck that we met him in Seattle.
All in all it was a fun ride and even better to have 10 unicyclists along. I'm a little sore today. 33 Chilly Hilly miles seems to feel like 60 regular miles. It's brutal on the legs. Those of you doing the Alps tour are in for some punishment with all the climbing you'll be doing.
Last year I rode with 150's and no trunk bag on my uni. Instead of the trunk bag I wore a backpack style hydration pack. This year I went with 140's and the trunk bag on the uni. I wore a small 50 oz. bum bag style hydration pack for water. Having more weight on the back of the unicycle due to the trunk bag made the climbing more difficult. Normally I don't weigh it down as much but for this ride I had extra food, my camera, extra clothes, and tools in the trunk bag. That really throws the weight distribution off for climbing and makes the uni feel sluggish while climbing. If you're going to be doing a lot of climbing it's better to have the weight on your back rather than on your uni. For the flats it doesn't make much difference, but for climbing I now believe that it does.
Another update on the Unicycle presence last Sunday. My wife just came home from work with a copy of the 'Bainbridge Island Review' (http://www.bainbridgereview.com/), the local island paper, that a co-worker brought in for her.
The Chilly Hilly article was Headlined "more Ups than downs". In the middle of the article is the following:
Stealing the scene at the outset were the Seattle Area Riders, a group> whose numbers – 10 – equaled the wheels among them. Each trundled off> the ferry astride a robust unicycle, whose 36-inch pneumatic tires> were said to the largest in production. >
The display provoked frivolity from other participants, including> mock-serious exclamations like, “Hey! You’ve only got one wheel!” >
“Did you make that up yourself?” one unicyclist rejoined, while> another said drily, “Ask us where the other one is.” >
Unicyclist Steve DeKoekkoek of Seattle said the biggest challenges> would be the amount of “saddle time,” and the lack of gearing over the> undulating course. >
“It’s the equivalent to riding in ‘granny gear’ the whole time,” he> said.>
There is also a pic with the caption "Steve DeKoekkoek mounts an enormous unicycle as the Chilly Hilly gets under way Sunday". That is my new levitation mount.
I was riding around Moscow, Idaho today and this guy started talking about all these huge wheeled unicycles that he seen on a 33mile ride a few weeks ago.
