Hi everyone and welcome to the first edition of the AUS newsletter for 2006!
Upcoming Events
MUni Weekend - Chiltern 2006
Saturday 20th May and Sunday 21st May
Yes – it's on again! Get down to Chiltern/Mt Pilot National Park, Victoria for two amazing days of muni, forest rides, trials, cross-country and more.
The event, organised by Mal Bird, is open to all levels of riders. Lake Anderson, the Magenta Mine, Pipeline Track, Donchi Hill and Bullant Track should provide enough challenge and variety to suit all tastes.
The event kicks off on Saturday morning at 10.00am at Lake Anderson.
Cost is $15 ($10 for early birds).
For all the details of the event, conditions of entry and registration, go to: Municycle.com.au
This is an AUS members event.
Eastern Creek - CycleOps 12 Hour Cycling Classic
Saturday 20th May (8am-8pm) - Barbara Pinning
Next Saturday the organisers of the 12 hour Eastern Creek CycleOps 12 hour bike race will allow a team of unicyclists in for free entry. You will need to pay $15 for a licence, but you don't need to pay the normal $80/pp registration fee.
For details of the event, see the CycleOps website, but to gain free entry you must register by contacting Barbara Pinning (details below) ASAP.
Last year, Barbara's son did one lap of about 4.5km in the dark in about 30 minutes (with lights on the uni!). Both he and her daughter will be doing at least one lap each this year.
Contact Barbara on: Phone 02 4751 3874 Mobile: 0417 600 128 Email: barbara6p@hotmail.com
You will need to supply: Full name, Address, Telephone no., Date of Birth & Emergency Contact details. Helmets required!
Unicycle Poker!
Friday 2nd June
Ashley Curtis is running a one night poker tournament as a fundraiser to help get him to Unicon XIII.
The night is Friday 2nd June in a function room at the Revesby Workers Club in Sydney. The game is no-limit hold-em playing for prizes donated for the event. Prizes include a standard 20-inch unicycle, One Wheel Addiction, Universe2, and Defect DVDs and a KH-style unicycle saddle, all donated by Gary Land from unicycles.com.au plus skateboards decks, sports memorabilia and more.
Tournament entry is $35 which includes playing chips and food. He is also running a quilt raffle that will be drawn at the event. If interested in coming along let Ashley know on 0414 321 150 or e-mail Ashley. If anyone may be able to donate a prize for the event, that would be great.
RSVP is the 26th May - just need to know for catering numbers. Should be a good night!
NZUni Weekend
An NZUni Weekend (New Zealand!) is planned for 20th-23rd October – more details to follow in the next few months....
Do you have an upcoming ride or event?
Let the AUS newsletter editor know and we can publicise it in the newsletter and on the AUS website, and can also put people in contact with you.
Call for WA unicyclists and rides!
Do you know of any Western Australian unicyclists and/or rides? The famous Reg Bolton and the AUS are very interested in hearing about riders and rides in WA.
Unicon XIII
Congratulations to young Errol from Darwin, who is going to Unicon XIII, with the assistance of a $500 grant from the Department of the Chief Minister, Northern Territory Government.
As of this week, Errol will be practicing at the NT Athletics track (site of UniNats 2005 track and field events) to get some racing practice. Errol will be accompanied by his mother Nena, who says:
"We're all starting to feel a bit excited now! We'll be at NTA track this Wed from 3.30 - 4.30 pm (unless anything unforseen happens). Even if nobody turns up this week it'll be good for Errol to get the feel of racing on a 'real' track again."
Other AUS members are also attending Unicon XIII, including David Buchanan, Ashley Curtis, Rod and Tom Lambert, Dale Newbery, Julian Orbach and Nic Vevers. If you are also planning to attend Unicon and would like to be put in contact with the rest of the Australian participants, please contact the AUS secretary.
The 13th Unicycle World Championships will take place 23 July – 2 August in Langenthaal and Berne, in Switzerland. For more information about Unicon XIII, visit the official web site.
Touring Laos....
January/Febuary 2006, By David Buchanan & John Cooper (Laos Unicycle Tour veterans)
John had just finished the Great Victorian Bike Ride (6,000+ riders and 1 unicyclist) and was almost fit enough, while I had only just had my Coker for three months and really needed more training for those mountains (one was 18 km to the top).
We flew to and then north to Chiang Rai. Here we met the other riders, like Barry and Nick Clearwater from and went for dinner. We saw our first elephant which was walking down the street taking tourists for a ride. Here we crossed the border into Laos and then took a lazy two day boat trip down the Mekong river to the ancient capital of Luang Prabang which is a World Heritage site. We had a 60km day ride to some falls for a swim and saw a tiger too.
Coming back there was a huge hill where John hit 29kph and I hit 35 kph on the downhill – scary at that speed!
After another rest day, it was off on the serious part of the ride with 95 km and 107 km days. Those of us who had Cokers for three months found the going a bit hard, especially on the hills until we improved our style. We had a couple of bikes for the long down hills and it was wonderful to speed down the hills. Our nights were spent in backpacker style accommodation and our food was mainly fried rice and fir (noodle soup) but sometimes we had some meat dishes too.
The serious unicyclists were on their geared Schlumpfs (their maker Florian Schlumpf was riding with us too) and spent a lot of time changing cranks to have the right cranks for the terrain. (I stuck with 152s the whole way).
The ride into was exciting as the traffic made room for us to ride through and we finished under the beautiful Victory Arch, which is like the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. We farewelled all our friends that night and we’ll hope to see them at Unicon in July.
The Lao people thought we were amazing and wanted to cheer us along all through the villages. Certainly it is a poor country but improving. The ride was a part charity ride and we raised over $4,500 for Oxfam to help with their work in Laos. The website is well worth a look: Laos Uni Tour Web Site.
We can recommend Jason, our adventure leader, and Grasshopper Adventures. Check out his other cycle adventures through Laos.
What a wonderful experience to ride through the mountains and then down onto the plain into Vientiane. We have wonderful memories of the people we rode with and the people we met. It is certainly one of those experiences we will cherish forever.
Recent Events
Extreme unicylists head to head in Sydney
April 2006
Five days of extreme unicycling trials in Sydney during April saw plenty of handrails, ledge grinding, 360 unispins, outflips and trick combos.
For all the cool pics and highlights see the photo page.
Round the Bay in a Day....
October 2005 - By Roz Beste
On 16 Oct 2005, Max Pfeifer (14), Iain McCoy (18) and Roz Beste (a lot older than the other two) took on the 100km Century part of the Round the Bay In A Day. On a perfect weather day more than 10,000 other riders registered for the event.
Starting from Sorrento at 7.15am, and experiencing only minor technical difficulties with one of the unicycle cranks, we managed to complete the ride in 10 hours 45 minutes.
The real star (or the most mad, depending on your perspective) of the day was George Carra, who decided to ride the full 210km Round the Bay' route. Going in the opposite direction to us, he passed us near Dromana around 9am. By that stage he had already had a fall.
While George was delayed at the ferry and didn't actually finish - he managed an amazing 130km to Geelong station in about 12 hours!
Unicycles weren't the only unusual “bikes”. There were a few recumbent bikes, including some with aerodynamic shells making them look like cycling torpedoes, 2 guys on scooters (with a front 24" wheel and a smaller rear wheel pushing themselves along with one foot on the foot plate and one on the ground. Don't laugh - apparently they beat us! And some amazing people on hand-cycles - a kind of wheelchair bike where you pedal with your hands - they beat us too!
Many thanks go to:
- Jane Pfeifer (Max's mum) who organised a place for us to stay in Mount Martha the night before the race, and gave us a ride to the start and home from the finish;
- Amy Pfeifer (Max's sister) who, together with Jane, gave us lots of support and cheering at various places along the route;
- Guy from www.unicycle.com who lent a new 36" unicycle to Max for the training and race; and
- Barry Clearwater who lent his 36" unicycle to Iain for the race.
Visit the photo tour of the ride.
Warrandyte Festival 2006
Roz Beste and other unicylists also attended the Warrandyte Festival in Victoria. See Roz's photos from the parade
AUS Committee & Uninats 2007
We have a new AUS committee. See the main AUS website for details and contacts.
Planning for UniNats 2007 in Sydney is also underway. If you have queries, ideas, items to offer as prizes, offers of venues or want to volunteer support, contact any one of the AUS committee members.
If you've got news, pics, stories or info to contribute to the AUS newsletter, send them on to:
AUS Newsletter Editor
aus_newsletter@unicycling.org.au
Ph: (02) 9550 2970