U
unidaddy
Guest
Just a shout from the rooftop to express the fun that was had on the
Montour Trial today by me and Billham. I got a fantastic new Coker for
Christmas (inspired gift of my wife), and today was the first day to
really get on it and see what it was all about. Beautiful day,
mid-40's, overcast and low wind. Very comfortable riding weather. The
trail is converted rail lines from the steel era here in SW
Pennsylvania....actually coal lines which moved the stuff from the
Pittsburgh coal seam to the furnaces along the Monongehela, and
Youghigheny Rivers.......I still have no idea how to pronounce those.
We set out on a paved section, smooth dry and lightly populated with
couples, families, and other groups that had no apparent connection,
mostly encouraging......we didn't get by anybody without saying "hi" to
them. I learned quickly what a false sense of security you can have
when the nice smooth pavement suddenly has a less than graceful pavement
joint as we crossed a bridge.....no biggie....just a typical UPD without
incident, followed by a freemount and a return to our pace. I've ridden
this trail many times on my bike with my family and have wanted to be
able to keep up on a uni, and now I'm confident I can. We established
an 8.7mph average speed with a spike at 14.7mph over the course of 6.9
miles....the halfway point of our ride. In the middle of the ride there
is a beautiful horse farm, and then a quick ascent to a grade crossing
with a road which I assume must have been a filled in tunnel, as the
trains would never have been scaling that hill in either direction.
This was my location for my higher speed UPD that came when I started to
lose speed going up the grade only to lean forward to accellerate and
not be able to recover from my lean.....I gained some speed alright, it
was just wasted by me taking the palms of my gloves off and grinding
into my wrist guards for a few feet. I snagged my left kneecap on the
pavement for a minor strawberry (but one I'm no less proud of).
Unfortunately this UPD happened in front of the biggest group of people
we had seen on the trail so far in the ride, so there was no hiding the
fact and quickly remounting with the "meant to do that" look on my face.
Since the hill was fairly steep, I decided to walk the last 20 meters
or so to the top.
The second half of this ride was over finely crushed limestone which can
squish out this time of year, but was remarkably firm with only a few
areas that gave us the clay stripe up our backs. Another badge of honor
in my book. The highlight of the trip for me was passing a nice lady on
a bike who reacted with great surprise to two unicyclists speeding by on
her left. We stopped to take a few pictures up the trail, and she
showered the praise for our bravery on our little quest. The last stop
for us was at a farm house which has a rooster that my family
traditionally stops to hear "****-a-doodle-doo" from. This time there
was only a goose who was feeling rather shy.
The beautiful thing about old rail lines is that they are at nearly
imperceptible grades and we had been going uphill slightly the whole
time to the turnaround point, so we started picking up the pace on the
way back to the cars. We ended up with a 12.8 mile ride, 9.2mph average
speed, and a blistering (for me) 15mph high speed.........I'm actually
taking credit for Bill's computer readout. I near his pace but lagged
behind a few yard a couple of times.
So far, this is the kind of riding I've always wanted to do on a
unicycle......I'm in heaven having one under my belt and all the next
ones to look forward to. Hope everybody out there is having a great
winter and experiencing the joy that zipping along on one wheel can
bring.
Sincerely,
Bob Lauver (unidaddy)
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--
unidaddy - waiting for the first face plant
------------------------------------------------------------------------
unidaddy's Profile: http://www.unicyclist.com/profile/7879
View this thread: http://www.unicyclist.com/thread/37181
Montour Trial today by me and Billham. I got a fantastic new Coker for
Christmas (inspired gift of my wife), and today was the first day to
really get on it and see what it was all about. Beautiful day,
mid-40's, overcast and low wind. Very comfortable riding weather. The
trail is converted rail lines from the steel era here in SW
Pennsylvania....actually coal lines which moved the stuff from the
Pittsburgh coal seam to the furnaces along the Monongehela, and
Youghigheny Rivers.......I still have no idea how to pronounce those.
We set out on a paved section, smooth dry and lightly populated with
couples, families, and other groups that had no apparent connection,
mostly encouraging......we didn't get by anybody without saying "hi" to
them. I learned quickly what a false sense of security you can have
when the nice smooth pavement suddenly has a less than graceful pavement
joint as we crossed a bridge.....no biggie....just a typical UPD without
incident, followed by a freemount and a return to our pace. I've ridden
this trail many times on my bike with my family and have wanted to be
able to keep up on a uni, and now I'm confident I can. We established
an 8.7mph average speed with a spike at 14.7mph over the course of 6.9
miles....the halfway point of our ride. In the middle of the ride there
is a beautiful horse farm, and then a quick ascent to a grade crossing
with a road which I assume must have been a filled in tunnel, as the
trains would never have been scaling that hill in either direction.
This was my location for my higher speed UPD that came when I started to
lose speed going up the grade only to lean forward to accellerate and
not be able to recover from my lean.....I gained some speed alright, it
was just wasted by me taking the palms of my gloves off and grinding
into my wrist guards for a few feet. I snagged my left kneecap on the
pavement for a minor strawberry (but one I'm no less proud of).
Unfortunately this UPD happened in front of the biggest group of people
we had seen on the trail so far in the ride, so there was no hiding the
fact and quickly remounting with the "meant to do that" look on my face.
Since the hill was fairly steep, I decided to walk the last 20 meters
or so to the top.
The second half of this ride was over finely crushed limestone which can
squish out this time of year, but was remarkably firm with only a few
areas that gave us the clay stripe up our backs. Another badge of honor
in my book. The highlight of the trip for me was passing a nice lady on
a bike who reacted with great surprise to two unicyclists speeding by on
her left. We stopped to take a few pictures up the trail, and she
showered the praise for our bravery on our little quest. The last stop
for us was at a farm house which has a rooster that my family
traditionally stops to hear "****-a-doodle-doo" from. This time there
was only a goose who was feeling rather shy.
The beautiful thing about old rail lines is that they are at nearly
imperceptible grades and we had been going uphill slightly the whole
time to the turnaround point, so we started picking up the pace on the
way back to the cars. We ended up with a 12.8 mile ride, 9.2mph average
speed, and a blistering (for me) 15mph high speed.........I'm actually
taking credit for Bill's computer readout. I near his pace but lagged
behind a few yard a couple of times.
So far, this is the kind of riding I've always wanted to do on a
unicycle......I'm in heaven having one under my belt and all the next
ones to look forward to. Hope everybody out there is having a great
winter and experiencing the joy that zipping along on one wheel can
bring.
Sincerely,
Bob Lauver (unidaddy)
+----------------------------------------------------------------+
| Attachment filename: imag0004.jpg |
|Download attachment: http://www.unicyclist.com/attachment/260696|
+----------------------------------------------------------------+
--
unidaddy - waiting for the first face plant
------------------------------------------------------------------------
unidaddy's Profile: http://www.unicyclist.com/profile/7879
View this thread: http://www.unicyclist.com/thread/37181