Archive for the 'Unicycling' Category

Hmmm pizza!

We had a great time riding mr
Toads. 3hrs and 15 min– quite fast!

Chuck and kevin finished an x large pizza. Louise and I ate only half.

Chuck had a snack on the drive up.

Do you want to just learn to unicycle, or do you want to eventually mountain unicycle (muni)?

If your goal is simply to learn to unicycle, your best bet is to get a cheap starter unicycle. These can cost $40-$160, depending on how you get it and from where. If you want a new one, the easiest way is to buy one from unicycle.com . A good starter uni could be the Torker Unistar CX 20-inch for $86, or the slightly stronger Torker Unistar LX 20-inch. Torker also has 24″ models that you can easily find on unicycle.com — they cost a little more. Another alternative is to search craigslist.org for unicycles — you can usually find them for $40-$80; however, I would not recommend paying over $50 or $60 for a used unicycle on craigslist, as people seem to over value them (especially old rust buckets). Another place to purchase unicycles is Amazon.com. You can find 20-24″ inch Torker’s for pretty cheap: Search Results on Amazon. For instance, this CX 24″ is only $90, and would be an ideal unicycle to learn on.

Should you get a 20″ or a 24″ wheel? A lot of people feel that a 20″ wheel is easier to learn on. If your goal is just to learn to unicycle, then get a 20″. If you eventually want to ride it around for some distance, get a 24″ — it will pretty much be just as easy to learn on. A 24″ might also be better for larger people (however, many adults would be fine with the 20″, in my opinion — just get a long seat post. If it is too long, you can always cut it down with a hack saw or pipe cutter).

If you want to get into mountain unicycling, and you are welling to spend the money, then go for the gold, and get the best mountain unicycle for the price. That is the Kris Holm 24″ mountain unicycle (muni), also called the KH24 for short. Unicycle.com has the KH24 for $590. Pricey, but it will last you for a long time. The (older model) KH 24 was my first unicycle, and I was glad I didn’t spend $200 on a cheaper model, as I would have eventually got the KH 24.

If you are looking to spend a little less, the Torker DX 24″ is an excellent mountain unicycle for under $300 (usually $260). The main difference is in weight and build quality. The KH is beautifully built and light. The Torker is heavy.

Anyways, this is just a short introduction. Eventually I hope to post more details for helping people who want to get into unicycling. If you need advice, just post a comment or email me.

We are going to go muni riding in northstar this weekend! The place has lifts so we can just ride downhill.

Here’s the car with my first ever attempt of loading unicycles on the roof.

Edit: I can spell…but writing some posts on the iPhone sometimes doesn’t work well…

The typical ride to work with my 20″ uni:

I picked up some sweet metallic red auto paint, and painted our unicycles. Here’s some final shots, and eventually I may write up a post on how it was done.

Corbin’s KH 24 frame and wheel (to be built into a Schlumpf hub, when i get it back):

Close up of the cool rim:

My KH 20:

Louise’s rim:

Howdy! I forgot to pick up a copy of this newspaper in Canada, but it was quite cool as I was on the cover (lower left) at the start of the last day. Click for a larger picture, or see the blow up below:

Tha’s me, on the left! Sam is in the red/white in the middle, and Ken is on the right side in all black.

I asked Louise to marry me on our unicycle ride last friday, 7/4/08. we are engaged!

The night before I rode up and spray painted over a bunch of graffiti and the painted the words on it. For those who want to know, “Dead Camper” is the name of one of the trails we ride off of santa cruz.

corbin

Well, Louise and I had a great week riding our unicycles at a maddening pace throughout Nova Scotia.

Final results are here: http://www.ridethelobster.com/race/final.php

My team, Texacali, placed third overall! (out of 35 teams). I’m quite amazed as we didn’t set out to really be competitive. I was figuring it would be cool to be in the top 10, but to make it to third was just amazing. A big thanks goes out to my teammates, AJ and Kevin, and a huge thanks to our support person, Sondra, who we couldn’t have done it without.

I also ended up getting second in the Time Trials — that’s 2nd out of 105 people racing against the clock. I’m quite amazed that I placed so high. Chuck beat me by quite a bit, which I wasn’t surprised by, since he is a powerful rider.

Pictures are slowly rolling in from various places. I’m putting mine up here: http://picasaweb.google.com/corbin.dunn/RideTheLobster

Roland has been putting his here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rolandisimo/sets/72157605602863789/

With some of the ones with me in it:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rolandisimo/2601873910/in/set-72157605602863789/

Pictures from Carl:

http://picasaweb.google.com/crhoyer/RTLDay3Criterium

With my favorite being this one, copied below (thanks Carl!!) http://picasaweb.google.com/crhoyer/RTLDay3Criterium/photo#5213902607772471618

I still have some more pictures to upload, but I was more focused on riding than using the camera.

We finished the first 200km! It was pretty tough. Amazingly enough, my team, TexaCali, is in third place! We probably exerted too much energy today, but it was pretty fun. For a while at the start, I was even leading! It was a cool experience to be out in front of 35 other teams.

The current top five teams: The German Speeders (insanely fast riders all on geared 36′ers), Team NZ (New Zealanders), who did an amazing pace mostly on ungeared unicycles, team TexaCali (one geared 36, one geared 29′er, one ungeared 36′er). Next was team Personal Roller Coaster — which was an amazingly fast team. After that was another bay area team, team Totally Doable.

Super cool! Pictures up eventually…