America's Most Beautiful Unicycle Ride

thats awesome! i went to lake tahoe once, and it was absolutely
gorgeous. update us if you find yourself in any newspapers 🙂

-grant

--
tennisgh22 - When will my kh24 come?!?!

The problem with America is stupidity. I'm not saying there should be a
capital punishment for stupidity, but why don't we just take the safety
labels off of everything and let the problem solve itself?
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You can read one article 'here.' (http://tinyurl.com/ywx82)

With one photo of 'Scot'
(http://www.rgj.com/news/files/2004/06/06/45551.jpg.php) and one of
'Gary.' (http://www.rgj.com/news/files/2004/06/06/45555.jpg.php)

---Nathan

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You can read one article 'here.' (http://tinyurl.com/ywx82)

With one photo of 'Scot'
(http://www.rgj.com/news/files/2004/06/06/45551.jpg.php) and one of
'Gary.' (http://www.rgj.com/news/files/2004/06/06/45555.jpg.php)

---Nathan

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nathan - BIG rides: Muni & Coker
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Thanks Nathan for sharing this great story. That makes six weekends in a
row that Nathan's done major unicycle rides, including a solo 24 hours
in New Zealand, and riding in Telluride, CO last weekend (even higher
altitude than Lake Tahoe).

You too can do some riding at Tahoe with a big group, at this fall's
California Mountain Unicycle Weekend. This will be Sept. 17-19. We will
ride in Truckee, at the Northstar ski resort, and on other trails around
Lake Tahoe. If you want you can stay extra and even ride the 72 miles
around America's second-deepest lake (over 1600'😉!

http://www.unicycling.com/muni/2004/index.htm

Nathan and family joined me for dinner on their way home from Tahoe last
night, calling me up out of the blue asking about sushi places. Mana,
the place we went during MUni Weekend last year, is unfortunately closed
on Sundays. But we went to another excellent sushi location...

--
johnfoss - Walkin' on the edge

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

"if you can do balloon animals,you can lace your own wheel." -- Jagur
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nathan said:

*My cyclometer said 4400' of climbing, but I think it is really more
like 3000'. *

Great write-up Nathan. I would love to join that ride next year. Is it
first come first serve, or is there some other criteria to keep the 3000
limit?

On the quote above, what type cyclometer do you have that tracks your
climbing altitude? I wish mine had that feature, but it only shows
distance, top and average speed, and total pedal time.

--
tomblackwood - Registered Nurtz

Tailgate at your own risk.....

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johnfoss said:

*Mana, the place we went during MUni Weekend last year, is
unfortunately closed on Sundays. But we went to another excellent
sushi location... *

ah,yes. Mana the place DudleyDoRide and I did the fastest u-turn his
Toyota could handle without rolling..ABORT ABORT!..off to the steak
house.

--
jagur - #3649_all fluff i hear?

---------------------------------------------------
-Forget_Your_Life-

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Great job Nathan! That is a lot of miles and a good pace. I am really
anxious to see that area at the MUni Weekend. Until then, thanks for
the report for those of us that must live vicariously.

Scott

--
S_Wallis - Back in the saddle

"Don't neglect your knees! They're really useful." Words of wisdom from
Cyberbellum

"I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn
how to do it." Pablo Picasso
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To answer Tom's question, it is first come, first served.

See their webpage at: http://www.bikethewest.com/AMBRR.html

I believe they must block off about 2,000 spots for the TNT Leukemia
riders, so registration fills up by late March. Registration for 2005
will be open in Jan. 2005. It would be great if you could come.

Yesterday was absolutely the most beautiful day I have spent in Tahoe.
The water was an intense blue I had not previously witnessed there.

Gary and Nathan could have done the 72 miles in under 6.5 hrs. had they
not waited for me. The only time I had an advantage on those guys was
on the climbing. The rest of the time, I could not keep up. Nathan
with his 125mm cranks was about 3 mph faster. Using 152mm cranks, it
took me 6 hrs and 55 minutes of riding time.

It was a great day for everyone. I dont think that Nathan mentioned
that Beau did the last 12-13 miles without a dismount.

If you cant make it in June, the organizers also hold some other events
at Tahoe.

See: http://www.bikethewest.com/index.html

for their homepage.

--
scot - cyclops

stick with what works
http://www.unitours.org/tours/ScotCooper/
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Scot, I saw the crank length difference in the picture and wondered how
that worked out. With my very limited Coker experience I can't imagine
doing that kind of climbing on 125's. I guess 3 mph on the downhills
does add up. With any length crank, that is an amazing ride.

And way to go Beau!

Scott

--
S_Wallis - Back in the saddle

"Don't neglect your knees! They're really useful." Words of wisdom from
Cyberbellum

"I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn
how to do it." Pablo Picasso
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Well done again to all. Nathan, you must be in the best shape of your
life. It must be nice to be able to dedicate all that time to
unicycling. Your an animal.

--
aspenmike - unicycling albino
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I saw you guys!!!

I was working up in Tahoe this weekend and I drove past you and Scot. We
honked and waved, but I'm pretty sure you didn't see.

I was jealous.

Mike

--
mscalisi - Not such a newbie anymore
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scot said:

*If you cant make it in June, the organizers also hold some other
events at Tahoe.*

The fall version definitely has my attention:

http://www.bikethewest.com/tourdetahoe.html

Hmmm...

--
tomblackwood - Registered Nurtz

Tailgate at your own risk.....

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Gary Kanuch sent me his photos and I combined some of them with some of
mine into an 'album'
(http://community.webshots.com/album/151100455SkhtDE).

Mike, that's cool you saw us, but we had SO many people honking etc at
us, it's not surprising we didn't notice. Scot met one of his neighbors
which was pretty funny.

And Tom, not sure about the September ride - that month is usually very
busy for us. But let me know if you decide to register and I might do it
with you.

---Nathan

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The same ride in Sept. is Sept. 12th. That's the Sunday before
CalMUniWkd....

Here are some details from the website.

The 72-mile Tour de Tahoe – Bike Big Blue course circumnavigates the
highways clockwise around Lake Tahoe in both Nevada and California. It
includes a challenging 800-foot climb to a rest stop overlooking Emerald
Bay and a 1,000-foot climb to Spooner Junction. There are also many
short rolling ascents and descents totaling over 2,600 vertical feet of
elevation gain! The altitude ranges between 6,300 feet and 7,100 feet
above sea level and the ride is recommended for conditioned recreational
bicyclists, not for beginners. Participants must be at least 14 years of
age (no children, please) and must be experienced in riding roadways.

For those traveling from out of town, just plan on staying in Cali for a
week. Yeah...Dont forget to bring your Coker and your MUni.

--
scot - cyclops

stick with what works
http://www.unitours.org/tours/ScotCooper/
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The Sierra Sun from Truckee put out a couple of articles yesterday. This
one 'mentions and quotes unicyclists' (http://tinyurl.com/2pmnj) and
this one 'just talks about riding a Huffy 10 speed mountain bike in the
tour.' (http://tinyurl.com/2b392) If they are correct, there were 3500
riders - a new record. I sure did see a lot of numbers over 3000.

---Nathan

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I forgot to answer Tom's question on cyclometers. I used a Vetta RT88
wireless on my Hunter36 last year, including the Norway tour. It worked
ok, but as time went on it got harder and harder to reset (press 2
buttons exactly simultaneously and hold). To the point where it couldn't
reset. Since I know I have to train hills MUCH more seriously next year,
I wanted to upgrade to one with an altimeter. There are some nice ones
on the market, but many have a problem fitting on my Hunter. Since I
have Dave Stockton's SuperCoker Wide hub, the frame is further from the
wheel, especially so at the top where you want to mount a wireless
cyclometer pickup. The basic problem is that transmission distance is
only something like 70cm so you need to mount it high. But then the
sensor has to extend quite a way to get close enough to the magnet on
the spoke.

The Vetta wireless models all work ok in this regard, so I bought a
'V100A' (http://www.vetta.com/product_computerv100A.html) which is
wireless with altimeter and thermometer in addition to the normal
features. Now I've used it for 500 miles or more and it works great. It
even shows % grade and has other nifty features. It cost about $100 at
'www.beyondbikes.com' (http://www.beyondbikes.com) and has a single
button to reset. In fact, I lost that button in a crash once and wrote
to Vetta asking if I could order just that button - they immediately
sent me one for free in the mail.

One other thing on the Tahoe ride newspaper articles. When I saw the
article in the Sierra Sun, I wrote to thank the reporter for getting all
the factual stuff right (which is rare) and he wrote back saying he
liked my mail so much that he went back and edited the story on the
website to add a photo of us at the finish line! Very cool. 'Here it
is.' (<br />
<b>Warning</b>: mysql_pconnect(): Host 'gilby.com' is blocked because
of many connection errors. Unblock with 'mysqladmin flush-hosts' in
<b>/home/sites/site15/web/db_connect.php</b> on line <b>3</b><br />
<br />
<b>Fatal error</b>: Call to undefined function: mysqlerror() in
<b>/home/sites/site15/web/db_connect.php</b> on line <b>3</b><br />
)

---Nathan

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The cycle computer that I used on the unibago is a Cateye cordless 2
which I think I bought on close-out last year. They now may have the
4th version.

Cordless is the way to go.

--
scot - cyclops

Copyright 2001,
Lagunitas Brewing Company, Beer Speaks, People Mumble

stick with what works
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The Cateye Cordless 2 is a great one too. I've had one on my Mountain
Bike for the last 2 years and it works perfectly - no glitches
whatsoever.

---Nathan

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I've got a Cateye Cordless 1 tucked away in a box in a dark corner.
Very retro...I'm thinking of bringing it out of retirement now 🙂

--
GizmoDuck - New Zealands fastest unicyclist

o-kO

"Give a man dead fish, and he feed himself for lunch, teach man to catch
fish, and he feed himself for life. Teach man to wheel ride, and he
make friends everywhere, and even have lunch at their place."

Ancient Chinese saying
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