Moonride '04- Nathan Hoover joins us down-under! - Page 2

I made it home safely yesterday after a fantastic visit to
New Zealand to attempt riding for 24 hours in the Moonride.
I left on April 30, arriving Sunday morning May 2. I made it
to Tony Melton's house in Auckland after 9am and we drove
off to the Woodhill MTB park soon after. It was amazing
pulling in there and seeing 100 cars and SO many mountain
bikers. It was humid and warm and drizzling a little. We
rode our Cokers on MANY trails for about 3 1/2 hours, with a
bit of real rain. The ground is very sandy so it's no
problem in the wet. It was my first time riding a teeter
totter and a ladder bridge on a Coker - exciting! Tony is
fast and strong. I was using my 'adjustable cranks'
(http://tinyurl.com/36b8h), first set at 150mm, then at the
max, 160mm. Tony was on 170mm and doing very well. I ended
up having to tighten the cranks too many times - they are
just not suited to bumpy hard Muni rides.

That evening, we visited Peter Bier, another unicycle.co.nz
partner. He was sick and couldn't ride with us. His basement
is FULL of unicycle and other inventory. I bought a pair of
170mm Bicycle Euro cranks for the race. Tony and I stayed up
until 11:30pm or so - no problem with such a good sleep on
the plane.

The next morning I took off for 3 days of touring the
Coromandel Peninsula. It was great retracing my bike
adventures with Megumi from '89-'90 and exploring some new
areas too. I didn't ride on these days and really noticed
that I got no special treatment. When you're on a
unicycle, people just want to talk to you! I stayed at
backpacker lodges at Fletcher's Bay, Kaotunu and Mt
Maunganui on these days.

Thursday afternoon, the day before the race, I arrived in
Rotorua. After some touristing around, I met Ken at the race
venue. The course was not marked so we couldn't do a
practice lap. We headed over to Hank and Judy Bier's house
(2km away!) where we stayed. Hank and Judy were fantastic
hosts (sponsors really), opening their house to so many
unicyclists, cooking so much food - it was really great to
get to know them.

Friday morning, we headed over to Whakarewarewa Mountain
Bike Park and met up with Joe and Pete. We tried doing a
lap, but the marking was incomplete and we ended up doing a
shorter and more technical route than the actual course.
After a nice lunch in town, we came back and rode the real
course, 6.8km of mainly twisty singletrack through the
woods. There are Redwood trees and ferns so some parts
looked very similar to areas of the Santa Cruz mountains
here in California. After showers, we took a nap, then
headed back to the park. Our incredible support team from
J'Ville Cycles was there: Blair and his partner Alison
(riding 12 hours solo bike) plus Benny, in a very nice
camper van (4 bunks, stove, toilet, etc). We had some
dinner, then Ken and I settled down to pretend to sleep for
a couple of hours.

We woke up a little before 9pm and prepared for the race. It
started at 10pm with an extra 2km of road riding to separate
out the riders before the singletrack. I had screwed up and
not brought enough batteries. I had enough for the 9 hours
of dark riding, but only on my lower power setting. You
REALLY want LOTS of light! Ken understood this from his
previous experience and was well equiped. The first lap plus
2km took me 42 minutes (39 for Ken), and we stopped for just
a brief drink, then off again. Lap 2 was 39 minutes and I
pretty much kept up that pace for most of the night. Blair
was fantastic, forcing me to drink and eat enough. Even with
600ml of electrolyte replacement drink every lap, I didn't
pee until lap 10. It got colder and colder as the night went
on, but I think it only got down to about 5C/40F. Still, by
the time it got light at
6:30, my jerseys and shorts were soaked with sweat. Another
thing I learned is that you have to avoid chafing when
riding for so long. I haven't had a problem before, but
needed Buttr or more changes of shorts or something. Sore!

I was starting to feel pretty low around 6am. 8 hours of
night Coker/Muni is hard. But when it got light, it was a
whole new world - that must be the origin of that expression
"as different as night and day". My first daytime lap felt
about 50% as difficult as the night laps. It was sort of sad
to see the inefficient lines I had been taking lap after
lap. I enjoyed the laps between 6:30 and 9:50, then took a
break for 20 minutes or so since the 12 hour racers were
joining us.

For the 24 hour race, we had 99 riders - 16 soloists (2
unicycles) plus 83 teams (also 2 on unicycle) on the course.
But for the second 12 hours, we were joined by 308 more
teams (with 47 being solo). The result on a 6.8km course was
crowded conditions. The laps after 10am included a constant
stream of "On your right", along with "You're a legend" and
MANY other positive comments. Luckily on most parts of the
course passing wasn't too hard. And of course all the bikers
were great sports about it.

After 15 laps in just under 15 hours I had had enough. But
after a rest, I managed one more lap on Peter Bier's 29er.
It was sort of an experiment and pretty fun. It took a
little while to get used to, but at that point, I think it
was just as fast as Cokering. It is SO much lighter and more
maneuverable. It rolled over obstacles pretty well too. When
you're fresh, the Coker feels great, but after being awake
so long and riding so hard, the 29er felt better. With 152mm
cranks, the torque felt exactly the same as on my Coker with
170mm cranks. In fact, the 152s are a slightly lower
(easier) gear on the 29er. After that 16th lap, the
combination of my very sore behind plus the crowded
conditions on the course made me decide to call it quits.
Benny tried hard to shame me into riding more, but I had
really had enough. During the ride I had missed the social
side of these races that you get when on a team, but luckily
will have that a lot in the coming weeks! My total distance
was just over 110km, which is a new record distance for me
on a unicycle, and almost doubles my previous offroad
distance record.

Anyway, a HUGE thank-you to all the awesome NZ riders plus
our wonderful support people: Hank, Judy, Blair and Benny. I
couldn't've done it without you. And a massive
CONGRATULATIONS to Ken for setting a new world record for 24
hour offroad unicycle racing. 172km - YOW! It was a true
pleasure to join the small but -awesome- offroad unicycle
community in New Zealand.

Here are 'some photos I took'
(http://community.webshots.com/album/142139790envLkZ) - NZ
guys let me know if I screwed up on any of the captions.

---Nathan

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I came across a couple of really cool shots of Nathan and I- there was a
photographer out on course:

Should I buy this?

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o-kO

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I think this shot and the one above just gives an idea of
how totally knackered we really were!

Nathan in full concentration:

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o-kO

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I'm curious. Did anyone try a HID style light for the night
riding? HID lights are super super bright. I'm just not sure
how they would work for muni.

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Nathan used a HID. Most of the top teams and soloists were HID
equipped.
I had a 35W IRC lamp which is apparently equivalent to 50W normal
halogen. I'm thinking of getting a HID or the new 3x3W LED systems
coming out. MY 35W lamp sucked up a 7ah battery in less than 2hrs. I
used SLA batteries- heavy as lead but cheap as chips. I had five of
these

Are you doing any of the upcoming 24hr races John?

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I'm not going to do a 24 hour race in the immediate future.
Maybe in a year or two.

My endurance has not been very good. But I just recently
figured out what the problem was. It seems I sweat out a lot
more salt than normal people. I now bring salt tablets
('Lava Salts' (http://www.lavasalts.com/salts.htm)) with me
on long rides and I'm feeling much much better at the end of
the ride. I no longer feel like a knackered zombie at the
end of a 12+ mile muni ride. It's like a magic energy pill.

I was gulping down a lot of Gatorade before the ride and
then eating energy gels and bars during the ride. But that
didn't do the trick. I was considering putting Gatorade in
my hydration pack, but that causes nasty things to grow in
the bladder and I didn't want to do that. The salt tablets
do the trick. Too bad I didn't figure this out several
years ago.

I'm going to some big muni rides and see how my energy level
is at the end. If I'm able to do the big rides and still
feel good then I might try a 24 hour or 12 hour race.

The advances in LED lighting is exciting. The LEDs are
getting very bright. With luck the new generation of LED
lights may be just perfect for muni. HID seems to be a bit
of overkill.

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john_childs wrote:
> *My endurance has not been very good. But I just recently
> figured out what the problem was. It seems I sweat out a
> lot more salt than normal people. I now bring salt tablets
> ('Lava Salts' (http://www.lavasalts.com/salts.htm)) with
> me on long rides and I'm feeling much much better at the
> end of the ride. I no longer feel like a knackered zombie
> at the end of a 12+ mile muni ride. It's like a magic
> energy pill. *

I get something similar, I've got energy drink that has some
salt in which seems to work (in the camelbak). Some people
just put a teaspoon of salt into their camelbak each time
they fill it up to avoid this.

As a team rider, a 24 hour race isn't an incredible amount
of riding, it's like doing 6 hours of riding in a day, a
kind of long muni ride. You should enter one, because it
forces you to bother training, I never ride as much as when
I've entered an event that scares me.

172km is super lots. I reckon 200km would be doable in 24
hours by someone training really really incredibly hard.
Maybe Ken will do it next year?

Ken - I reckon you should try for the 202miles (320km) on
road 24 hour record, it'd probably be not that hard if
you're capable of riding solidly for that long, it's about
8.5 mph average. On a short cranked coker and a flat course,
you could probably average at least 12mph consistently,
which would give you about 8 hours of breaks over the time.

Joe

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joemarshall wrote:
> *
>
> 172km is super lots. I reckon 200km would be doable in 24
> hours by someone training really really incredibly hard.
> Maybe Ken will do it next year?
>
> Ken - I reckon you should try for the 202miles (320km) on
> road 24 hour record, it'd probably be not that hard if
> you're capable of riding solidly for that long, it's about
> 8.5 mph average. On a short cranked coker and a flat
> course, you could probably average at least 12mph
> consistently, which would give you about 8 hours of breaks
> over the time.
>
> Joe *

Thanks Joe- I think yourself, Nathan and I are the only
three people to have done a 24hr Mountainbike race solo on
unicycles! Are you going to do it again? (you should!)

Yeah, I reckon I could have gone a few more laps if I had
stuck to my original gameplan. I was better prepared than
last year but still have trouble getting enough sleep before
the race and pacing myself. Again I went out way too fast-
lapped both Uni teams by the fourth or fifth lap- and
suffered badly later on as a result.

The main problem with this race is the nightime start. By
the time you hit the light of day you are totally wasted- I
estimate the night laps take at least twice as much effort
as day laps- even if you have good lights. I couldn't
believe some of the terrible lines I was taking at night
when I saw the course during daylight.

I think the road record is 360km- but I've done a century
around Lake Taupo (160km/100miles) in about 8hrs 20min - it
didn't feel anywhere nearly hard as doing 24hrs offroad,
although it was really hilly. Maybe later this year I'll
have a go at two laps of Lake Taupo (200miles).

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GizmoDuck wrote:
> *Maybe later this year I'll have a go at two laps of Lake
> Taupo (200miles). *
!!!!!

Hey Ken, call us when you're next in Welly & wanna go for
Muni and/or Trials... how's the 1ft WWing coming along? And
Is it ok for me to randomly hijack this thread like this?
well, I guess this way it all gets put back up to the top so
even more people can marvel at yours and Nathan's heroics!

cheers Pete

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Congrats to all of you!!! You guys rock, great write ups and great
photos. Just got back from a long river trip in the utah canyonlands,
and it is so fun to come back and read up on all the latest and greatest
unicycling stuff. Congrats again on a job well done!!!!!!!

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Rowan, your municycle has 140mm cranks (or 145mm)?

I was wanting to know if I will be able to keep up with a
Coker (on a leisurely ride) with 145mm cranks and the
circumference of a 3" tire. I have the Profile set - and it
does not appear that anything smaller than 145mm is made.

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My MUni has 145mm cranks, you are right that is the shortest
that Profile makes. Ken has a KH 24x3" with 170mm and 140mm
cranks, so it is understandable that he made a small error
when quoting the size of my cranks, and considering he says
he rides a 36 foot wheel, I didn't bother correcting him for
the few mm in crank length.

When I was riding the Coker offroad, I was not able to keep
it at the pace which it was designed for. Because Cokering
is new to me, I just took it easy on the steeper bits,
trying to maintain control rather than top speed. If I was a
Coker expert, I probably would have been able to go way
faster over the rougher terrain rather than just the flat
bits. On the MUni I was able to do the steeper bits faster,
and still maintain a reasonable pace on the flat bits due to
the short cranks. I was also able to avoid the cyclists
easier with the MUni, taking bumpy lines on the edge.

I'd say it depends on the terrain where you are doing the
leisurely ride, and just how slow the coker rider goes,
whether or not you can keep up. Also depends on your ability
to spin the wheel fast enough to keep up. Have fun- if the
Coker rider keeps beating you, ask to swap for a bit maybe,
Cokers are wicked!

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Another aspect of my question:

I see the lap times posted on the board which seem to range
from 27 minutes to 42. On the lap you used a municycle, I
think you got something like 33 minutes. Could you have
maintained that speed for 3 laps?

Have you ridden with Cokers in paved terrain (with your
24")? I understand that I will have to work a bit harder,
but I am trying to understand whether or not getting 145mm
cranks will enable me to ride 20 miles with a Coker and not
burden the Coker riders too much.

/doesn't want another unicycle

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I've never ridden much with Cokers. There are only four or
five of them in the country (maybe more now that
'unicycle.co.nz' (http://www.unicycle.co.nz/) stocks
them). I reckon I could have easily sustained my 33 minute
lap time speed for three laps on 24x3", and probably
improved on it, provided that it was still daylight. On
that lap I was falling off quite a bit and the track was
really busy. If you are going on a casual ride, it should
not matter too much how slow you are. When I go riding
with other people, I usually have to wait for them when
they are on the same sized wheel as me. 20 miles is quite
a bit further than three 7k laps, it is quite far to ride
on a MUni but is doable.

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When it comes to "paved terrain", you really can't keep up
with cokers on a 24" MUni... at a guess, I'd say that the
MUni (with 145s) would chug along at about 12km/h but the
Cokers would cruise along at about 23km/h.

cheers Pete

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