newyorkunicycleblog

Getting back in the saddle

2009-05-01T22:42:00.002-04:00

I finally had a chance to go for a lengthy ride this afternoon. I forgot to bring a trip meter of any sort, but I estimated the the loop around Central Park (6.2 miles) took 26 minutes. This isn't a great time (averaging just under 15 mph), but it's not bad for my first lengthy ride in months.

My knee is still really clicky, but it rarely hurts. I happened to jog about a half-mile yesterday in Doc Marten shoes on my way to seeing West Side Story with my mom, and that felt a bit uncomfy at the time. Whlie sitting in the theater, I noticed that I didn't have the leg strength to tap along with the music. Man, I'm out of shape!

So being able to ride around the park at a decent clip was all the more of a relief, considering.

I'll have to get back to riding now that the weather has improved.

I also have an appointment with the doctor this Tuesday. Maybe I'll finally get that MRI.

Update on That Knee of Mine

2009-04-22T22:53:00.003-04:00

Unforch, not much to reporch:

My knee has remained 'clicky' since I first noticed the problem in late Oct (2008). Physical therapy didn't seem to help with the clicking, tho the swelling is mostly gone and I have little pain, and that only after heavy work or uni'ing.

I'm going to make another appointment with the doctor who barely looked at me and seemed to wave off the idea of anything more invasive (oops -- I mean 'expensive') like an MRI or arthroscopic surgery.

Time will tell.

At this point, I can still walk and unicycle, and I'm looking forward to the upcoming uni convention in late July (in Minnesota). My son and I will be driving there in the smart car!

To Knee or Not to Knee, That is the Question

2009-01-08T12:28:00.002-05:00

My left knee has been to a physical therapist ten times now. It seems to have plateaued. At first, it would clunk every so often as I walked up the stairs or otherwise bent it at the wrong angle. In addition, it was looking pretty swollen (my 4yo daughter called it my fat knee). Within a few visits to the P/T, the swelling was down and the clunking had disappeared.

I went back to the same office where I'd had my first visit. A medico (not an official doctor, but something medical nonetheless) initially prescribed the P/T and a few other things, and when I revisited him two weeks ago, he thought I'd need an MRI and maybe some arthroscoping; maybe even arthroscopic surgery. But first I had to see the head honcho, a Dr. Moscowitz.

Dr M had the bedside manner of a crossing guard. Nonetheless, I still had the feeling that his diagnosis is probably correct: Time heals all wounds. He didn't think I'd need an MRI or any scoping. Because the injury had taken awhile to develop, he said, the healing time will be longer than if it had been due to a sudden fall.

I was definitely looking forward to the MRI and even the scoping, but already my knee feels better. I'll keep giving it time. In the meanwhile, I'll keep riding a few blocks everyday and when the weather improves, I'll take my uni for some longer rides.

Check out our new website!!! Plus, a word about my knee

2008-12-17T15:07:00.002-05:00

We've updated the club's website (thanks, Mitch and Ken!). Check it out!!!

In the near future, we'll have even more cool content, and right now you can look at old meeting notes and examine new videos and photos.

In the meantime, here is something you won't learn elsewhere:
My left side continues to heal from that "Ride the Lobster" race this past June. First it was my left ankle (tendinitis), then it was my left elbow (tendinitis, commonly called tennis elbow), and now it's my left knee. Rather than tendinitis, this time the problem is more like arthritis. There was a lot of clunking as tho my knee was out of kilter. At first, I had no pain, but I knew that that state of affairs would change, so I made an appointment with a specialist. After a month of improvement thanks to physical therapy in New Paltz twice a week, it looks like I have some condition I can't recall the name of (femoral patella syndrome, or something like that). Whatever it is, it's not bad, and my prognosis is quite good.

Oddly, I find it easier (less painful) to get around on my 29" uni than to walk, so if I have to locomote more than, say, 100 feet, I'll take the unicycle. This doesn't come up very often, and I'm resting a lot, so I'm sure I'll heal fast. Now if only I could motivate myself to do my exercises more often (STRETCH!!!).

Physical Therapy Now!

2008-11-25T18:10:00.006-05:00

Yes, now I'm receiving P/T for something that's wrong with my left knee. The story gets weirder and weirder!

After the "Ride the Lobster" race back in June, I had a moderate case of tendinitis in my left ankle. This went away with rest and some ibuprofen. Then I started feeling pain in my left arm, especially centered around the elbow. I saw a few doctors about this and had it diagnosed as tennis elbow -- tennis elbow from unicycling. Apparently this was a direct result from holding the extension that comes out of the uni's seat post, and considering that I was holding this thing for dear life all thru the race, this isn't surprising. I also made things a bit worse by riding 85 miles in one day, but that was in September, after the pain had already set in.

Then a few weeks ago, my left knee started to pop. It didn't hurt at the time, but I knew it would soon enough. This time I saw a specialist, and he proclaimed it to be chondromalacia* or maybe something similar. I was given a referral for physical therapy and the use of a TENS device, which causes muscles to flex (and relax) by stimulating them subcutaneously.

The TENS device uses electrodes that attach to your skin on rubbery squares. It can be used while driving, so I have it on during my commutes into and out of Manhattan.

So far the treatment seems to be working, and it also helped that I went back to wearing orthodics in my shoes. I'd been prescribed them years ago but had switched to shoes that they didn't fit into.

If my knee didn't respond to the treatments, I'd be a candidate for arthroscopic surgery, but I don't think that's going to be necessary.

Note: That is not a picture of me.

* According to some website, my illness is... (pronounced KON-dro-mah-LAY-she-ah), also called chondromalacia patellae, refers to softening of the articular cartilage of the kneecap. This disorder occurs most often in young adults and can be caused by injury, overuse, misalignment of the patella, or muscle weakness. Instead of gliding smoothly across the lower end of the thigh bone, the kneecap rubs against it, thereby roughening the cartilage underneath the kneecap. The damage may range from a slightly abnormal surface of the cartilage to a surface that has been worn away to the bone. Chondromalacia related to injury occurs when a blow to the kneecap tears off either a small piece of cartilage or a large fragment containing a piece of bone (osteochondral fracture).

Tennis Elbow from Unicycling

2008-09-12T22:59:00.000-04:00

It was bad enough to get tendinitis in my left ankle/shin from the Lobster. That went away after a few weeks. Then I started feeling tingling and getting occasional numbness in my left arm, esp'ly around my elbow. The doctor's verdict: Tennis Elbow.

Am I the only person ever to get tennis elbow from unicycling?

Apparently this came about from my use of the Wyganofsky extension on my guni. I happen to find the extension comfortable and indispensable, but from riding for a total of about 15 hours in 5 days, I guess I put a lot of strain on that left elbow, not to mention the riding that went into the training ahead of time. The 85% century that I rode this past Sunday didn't help much either.

So I'm supposed to wear a sling and take anti-inflammatories (super-ibu) until it goes away on its own. And I'm not supposed to unicycle. Well, at least not with the extension. Bummer for me.

85 Miles in a Day (or: I Rode Most of the Century)

2008-09-07T23:02:00.000-04:00

Unicycling to Manhattan

I rode my unicycle 85 miles yesterday as part of the NYC Century Ride of 2008. That's longer than the ride from New Paltz to Manhattan (a ride I've contemplated recently). So while I didn't actually ride from one city to the other, I could have!

I set out with five other riders, 3 of whom I'd met during the recent Ride the Lobster race in Nova Scotia. Of the six of us, only my friend Roland and I were on geared 29s, and we rode together for most of the day. One rider joined us later due to car troubles.

Start
The other 5 of us took off a few minutes earlier than the training wheel crowd, but they quickly passed us when I took everyone 5 blocks out of the way by accident (I possess a wonderful sense of misdirection). Eventually we headed down a slightly different route that allowed us a faster, smoother (and longer) ride towards the Brooklyn Bridge. We stayed together until the first rest stop (at mile 14) after which Roland and I zipped off with the goal of 100 miles; the others had to contend with choosing 55 or 75-mile options due to the time constraints.

Going for the hundred
Roland and I had a great time. The route took us around all of Brooklyn, which had a pretty flat route, and thence around Queens, which never seemed to end. In fact, the break between rest stops is surprisingly large at that point, going from mile 42 to 71 without any peanut butter or bananas. We took our own breaks frequently, partly to rest my groin or Roland's legs.

Pain and breaks
It was odd how each of us suffered differently, especially since I was not expecting any troubles after having such a relatively pain-free Lobster. But the rest stops made a huge difference, and by mile 71, we'd made great time and were looking at finishing by 5pm (that is, in 11 hours, total). This was not to be.

More pain: a massive UPD for me and wet pants
A few miles later, as we finally arrived in the Bronx, it was time for me to upshift yet again. I was just ruminating over how many times I'd successfully shifted up to that point -- 50? 100? -- when suddenly the gear didn't catch and I fell over backwards like a bowling pin. Happily I was wearing a helmet, wrist guards, and even a fanny pack hydration system. All of these were essential in my coming out of the fall with nothing more than two tiny scratches on my elbows. But in falling, I smashed my helmet on the ground. I wasn't dazed, but it was certainly the hardest I've hit my head (out of three times total). But as I lay there realizing that I was ok, I wondered why my pants were wet: my hydration pack had ruptured. Having checked that my body was unhurt, I next checked my 2nd-most valuable possession at the time, but luckily my iPhone was ok. Phew!

Gun shy and sore
At this point, I had ridden about 78 miles. There was still time to complete the 100, but I was nervous that my head or neck might have some latent injury and that I had no water for the remainder of the ride, tho I could always buy liquid, so that wasn't a big issue. The real issue, however, was my bum. I was really sore at this point, and I worried that I'd only be making things worse if I rode for 3 more hours. I decided to quit the ride a bit early and headed to the race's endpoint while Roland rode on thru the hilly Bronx. He ended up finishing the ride (about 105 miles) in just over 12 hours. Then he threw up. It turns out that his stomach had knotted up, so to speak, and that he wasn't able to get any food down. Maybe he was dehydrated, but by the next morning he was fine.

Rosy cheeks
When I got to my mom's an hour later for a shower, I took a look at my bottom. It looked like one of those cartoon Santa faces from the 1960s with really red cheeks, only in my case, the cheeks were a bit closer to the, uh, nose.
The shower was painful and the drive home (80 miles, or just about the same distance it took me 10 hours to ride) was a bit uncomfortable.

The good news
Well, I was happy that my ride didn't tire my legs or make any other muscles sore and that I was able to ride nearly 85 miles after having only ridden about 25 in the two months since the Lobster race. It's too bad about my toosh and about that nasty fall, but it was still a great day.

"New Paltz resident loves to race unicycles"

2008-07-13T20:37:00.003-04:00

I was featured in the Poughkeepsie Journal's Sunday Sports section today. Nancy Haggerty, who had written about me two years ago when I presented a uni demonstration at the Mohonk Preserve, interviewed me for an hour and followed up with a bunch of email Qs.

Here is the article:

Think unicycle and image 1 might be a clown or street performer teetering side to side at all of a mile or two per hour.

But now think 500 miles of unicycle racing, often at 20-plus mph, of riding roads that not only go up and down hills but also mountains.

Think Ride the Lobster, the recent 35-team relay held in Nova Scotia.

The June 16-20 race, officially 800 kilometers or 497.1 miles, included four days of 35-rider mass-start, roughly 120-mile road racing and one day of time trials and criterium.

It also included riders from as far away as Korea, Germany, Denmark Singapore, Britain, New Zealand and Australia.

By comparison, David Stone was a local.

The 41-year-old New Paltz resident teamed with John Foss, 46, of California and Dave White, 52, of Ohio on The Centurions. The name represents the fact the three, who met through unicycle conventions, have among them 101 years of unicycling experience, Stone the least at 28.

Stone, president/founder of the Manhattan-based New York Unicycle Club, had done long unicycle rides, including a New York City century in which he logged 102 miles in one day. But his longest previous races were only 10Ks.

"I treated this racing as if I had to do about six to eight of those each day for four days," he said.

Stone, who works in Manhattan as a private tutor, trained for two months, logging 13 to 25 miles a day, sometimes in Central Park, but most often on the rail trail out of New Paltz.

Going in, his team's goal was a top-10 finish and that's exactly what it got, finishing 10th in 40 hours, 27 minutes, 34 seconds. That was four-plus hours behind the winning German team and more than 19 hours ahead of the last-place team. But 10th was a battle, with the 11th-place squad finishing just seven minutes back.

"When I rode, I always thought, 'Never let up.' I didn't want to give up even a second to another team... I rode like gangbusters the whole way," said Stone, whose motto was "None shall pass" and who noted, "It was very rare when someone did."

ENJOYS SPEED ASPECT

Stone, a former high school runner who explained, "Speed is what I always had as a weapon in any sport," logged 87 of the final day's 180 kilometers, cycling mostly flats and downhills, his strengths.

He rode one three-mile, paved mountain downhill at 19 mph.

"On a unicycle that's way too fast to fall off," he remarked.

But while one opponent broke a leg crossing train tracks, even on gravel, Stone's team had no falls. It was on a gravel downhill, that the gravel-loving Stone hit 22.5 mph, his top race speed.

"That was just amazing," Stone said, adding, "I see gravel and it's almost like I get hungry."

Foss' wife, Jacquie, drove the team's support van routinely six or more miles ahead of the team's current rider. Then, at the van, a GPS tracking baton was passed to the next rider, who'd already be pedaling.

Stone, who owns 30 unicycles, rode a 29-inch, wheel-geared unicycle throughout the race. Other racers rode geared and ungeared unicycles of various sizes. The winning Germans, who took home a $4,000 prize (The Centurions split $125 for 10th place) used a more difficult to handle but very fast 36-inch, wheel-geared unicycle.

The race, run through areas that reminded Stone of the Hudson Valley, was designed to boost tourism. Rooms and breakfast and dinner were provided free to participants, who shared information and more with each other.

"Imagine a new golfer coming along and wanting tips on how to avoid a slice and he started chatting up Tiger Woods. It's never going to happen. ... The nice thing about the sport is it's in its youth. We're still so innocent," said Stone, who noted his and others teams loaned unicycles to competitors and one team actually built one for another team.

The camaraderie extended to fans. Schoolchildren lined parts of the route and gave teams care packages.

"... As a tutor, former teacher and father, the kids were the best (part of the race)," said Stone.

While his own kids, Fiona, 12, a five-year rider; Emmett, 8, a two-year rider; and Maeve, 4, were home in school and his wife, Shirra, was running her New Paltz shop, Knit and Be Happy, the GPS baton allowed them to follow The Centurions' progress online.

This was the first ever Ride the Lobster and if Nova Scotia hosts it again, Stone plans to be there.

He also dreams of someday unicycling cross-country with his brother, John, who has unicycled across the Alps, the Pyrenees and Norway.

More immediately, though, Stone plans to do a New York century ride on Sept. 7. And he's also talking about teaming with John and Emmett in a race.

The name of that team? The Rolling Stones.

Back from the Lobster!

2008-06-24T20:31:00.005-04:00

I'm back, and almost fully recovered, from the Lobster, the 5-day race across Nova Scotia.

The TEAM
My team, the Centurions, was made up of three riders with over 100 years of unicycling experience. As the youngest of the group, at 41, I rated only 28 years of riding (ok, 27 if you subtract that year when I neglected to bring my uni to Australia -- what a mistake!). John Foss, 46, is the past prez of the Unicycling Society of America and owner of dozens of unicycles. He has been riding since about 1976, tho there were a few years in the beginning when he didn't devote most of his waking moments to one-wheeling it. Dave White, at 52, is the grandpa among the three of us (literally -- his son's wife is expecting her first child). He's been riding since 1966, several months before I was born. But it's not like we were old geezers participating in a youngun's race. All three of us have won countless medals at unicycle conventions including a bunch of them for 10K marathons.

We had never ridden together as a team until the race actually started. In fact, our idea for the team came together on the last evening of last summer's NAUCC. We communicated a bit by phone and wrote a volley of emails from March till June, and that was the best we could do. John, from Sacramento, had slightly better weather to play with, but Dave and I had to wait for some snow to melt before we could really begin training. I did try uni'ing in place, but that idea didn't really take hold after I nearly smashed the window behind the treadmill; shortly after that attempt, the weather improved enough for training so I didn't give it another thought.

SUPPORT
John's wife, Jacquie, generously volunteered to drive our support minivan for the trip. She has almost no unicycling experience, but she was invaluable in helping us stay well-fed and hydrated. She also assisted with driving, but perhaps most importantly, she served as look-out when we were about to swap riders. Her platinum blond hair was visible for miles and was a welcoming beacon to any tired rider on our team.

The UNICYCLES
I mainly trained on my 29" Schlumpf guni. Dave actually has two of them. John tried out various unis before deciding to bring an ungeared Coker. He didn't feel that he was ready to ride the geared 36" uni that he'd been trying out, but I would have loved a chance to try one out. How did I let the whole Lobster go by without even trying someone's geared 36?

TRAINING
I made time to ride at least 13 miles a day or to attack a very tall mountain road. There is nothing special about 13 miles -- that's just how far it was round-trip to the end of my rail trail and back to my daughter's pre-school. I would gladly have taken longer rides, but the all-gravel trail oddly ended in the middle of a bridge. I'd often add to the milage by taking a diversion along a paved road with few cars. This pretty trail ran alongside a river and afforded me the opportunity to ride about 16 mph (25-26 kph) on a flat path. I also worked out on the bike path in New York's Central Park, a loop of almost exactly 10 kilometers which I would usually circle two or three times. On several occasions I rode up a local mountain path instead. This ride was, thru sheer accident, an almost exact replica of the uphill section of the Lobster's Mt Kelley, the tremendous spike on our Day-5 contour maps that looked like a shark fin jutting out of a bathtub. As a result of my training, I felt prepared for this last ascent -- in theory. In practice, it was a different matter since this climb came at the end of our final day.

Dave White's training was quite impressive: He rode at least 10 miles a day for about six weeks straight. Occasionally he rode as far as 20 miles in a day. John, meanwhile, put in many hours on several of his unicycles. He mainly worked out on an ungeared Coker but occasionally toyed around with a geared version; in the end, because he was flying from California and didn't want to lug two unis, he took over only the ungeared Coker on which he'd done most of his training.

The FERRY
I made it with no problem from New Paltz to Portland, ME. OK, there was a major accident on the road at one point, but I waited it out by shutting off the car and reading for awhile. The next morning, I boarded the ferry: The CAT, as it's called. It's an amazing boat, featuring several large dining areas, three screening areas for first- (or second-) run movies, and a gambling spot with about three dozen slot machines. I mainly busied myself watching "The Bourne Ultimatum," a surprisingly good flick, tho I considered heading to the kids' section to watch "Ratatouille" and some good cartoons. The ride takes about 4.5 hours and was quite restful.

DAY 0
At about 2pm on Sunday,I arrived at the Yarmouth ferry terminal, virtually the last racer to show up since most people had gotten there at least a day in advance of the registration. My teammates were busy, so I had to schlepp my two unis, a backpack, and two small duffel bags about a half-mile north towards our hotel. I managed this by riding the 29" and pushing the Coker while shouldering the other stuff; it wasn't fun. I registered and discovered that I'd somehow been left off the list for the free jerseys that all the riders and support drivers were getting, but happily, Jacquie's was too small, so she gave hers to me (I'm hoping she gets one soon). Once settled into the hotel room I was sharing with Dave, my team headed out to a nice dinner at a nearby restaurant.

DAY 1 -- Monday

The START
One of the rules of the ride was that there was to be no switching of riders for at least the first 10K of every morning (to prevent supprt-vehicle congestion). We decided to take turns starting each day, and for some reason, I ended up going first. I was excited and nervous, but both of those feelings gave way to pain when the rider in front of me fell down at the start and caused me to trip over him. I came down on my feet, straddling our little pile of unicycles, but I must have landed funny because I managed to smack the tip of my penis on one of the unicycles during the exchange. I immediately hopped back onto my uni and pedaled furiously to catch up to the head of the pack, the pain diminishing with each rider I passed. It was also lovely to see our first bunch of organized onlookers as we passed a local school, where the kids had come outside to watch us ride by and to cheer us on. Seeing people along the route -- especially school-kids -- was one of the best parts of the whole experience for a lot of us.

TRANSITIONS
We figured that we'd each ride about 10K at the start of the first day, but I suggested that I take us at least 15K before the first exchange. That way, we could avoid the crowd while putting a bit of distance between us and some of the other groups. I rode about 20K and was exhausted and thrilled to see my team when it was time for our first transition. We tended to ride 10K (6 mile) stints on the first day. Since we were riding such lengthy distances, we didn't need to make our transitions too tidy (tho we did a good job anyway), but we got the hang of them pretty early on, and by Thursday, we were able to swap out riders every 3 or 4 kilometers if necessary. On at least two occasions, we swapped after just 2K on a huge hill.

WEATHER
We knew that weather would be an issue; the forecast for Nova Scotia showed a lot of moisture, so we were quite pleasantly surprised when it didn't rain on Monday. We actually needed sunscreen that day! Dave had brought along his amazing Garmin GPS that shows up-to-date weather radar, and we could see that a wet patch was heading our way the next day. Sure enough, we were rained on for most of Tuesday and absolutely soaked by torrential rain the first part of Wednesday. Thursday was partly cloudy with spotty rain, and Friday was much like Monday's lovely weather, only with a bit of cloud cover.

END of DAY 1
We rode all-out and were never able to get a sense of where we were within the pack except that it felt like we were among the top teams. when John Foss crossed the finish line for us that day, we were quite pleased to discover that we were in 9th place, with 8-minute gaps on either side of us. That spacing, it only occurred to me now, was equal to about 2 miles, but that explains why we stayed in 9th place after a few problems we had on Tuesday.

I had heard ahead of the race that 16 teams had designated themselves as possible top-10 finishers before the race began. It was great to find that we'd gauged ourselves correctly. I was proud of our team of older men, and I wasn't nearly as sore as I would have expected. Nor were any of us too tired. We had a filling dinner that night where we loaded up with pasta, and Dave and I went to sleep just before midnight in order to get up around 6:30 the next morning. Just before bed, I shave my legs below the knees, as I'd promised I'd do if we finished among the top ten. Guys, if you ever decide to shave your legs, be forewarned: It takes much longer than you'd think!

FAVORITE Moment of Day 1
At one point, we found ourselves racing on a long gravel road. I mentioned that this was just like what I'd trained on in New Paltz (on the rail trail) and that I'd be very comfortable riding quickly on the long downhill stretch. Dave started the uphill part and I relieved him and noticed that Signe, a 17-year-old Danish girl from one of the top teams was not far in front of me. I caught up just as we crested the hill and raced past her as my teammates saw a cloud of dust erupt from under my wheel. Later I noticed that I'd reached 35.6 kph, or just over 22 mph; this would turn out to be the fastest speed I'd reach on the trip and was probably the fastest I'd ever ridden on a unicycle. The fact that it was on dry and uneven gravel made it even more fun. It was a wild ride that felt a lot like waterskiing.

DAY 2 -- Tuesday
We experienced a few technical difficulties during the race, but all of them took place on Tuesday, and luckily none of them cost us too much time. I think that we lost less than 5 minutes over the course of the entire race. Ironically, one of our problems was that we'd lent a unicycle to another team whose members were missing TWO of theirs! One of the lovely things about the uni'ing community is the way we look out for each other.

At one point early in the day, Dave realized that he should try different crank arms in order to increase his speed. Normally this isn't a big deal, but somehow one of the cranks got loose. Amazingly, this happened just as I had switched on one of our walkie-talkies that my brother had lent me for the ride. Dave had brought a set, too. We both reckoned that in the event of an emergency, it would be really handy to get in contact with a teammate in the car. Somehow Dave's crank got loose the one time he'd remembered to bring a walkie-talkie and the one time I'd remembered to turn mine on. Just as luckily, we were behind him a bit at the time, so we quickly drove up to meet him and I grabbed the GPS baton while he and John worked on the crank. They caught up with me later, and then the same thing happened, but with John's crank. Again I rode as they fixed the problem, but I didn't have to go too far before they relieved me.

This day was hillier than the first one, and it was also a bit lengthier. We'd arrived just before 6pm at Monday's finishing point, but it took us almost a whole extra hour to make it to the finish on Tuesday.

FAVORITE Moments of Day 2:
There were some funny moments on the trip, and most of them seemed to have happened on Day 2.
1. Early in the day, before the rain started, John, Jacquie and I were in the support van as Dave rode ahead. We were having a bit of trouble navigating with the GPS, so we looked on the road for the familiar orange arrows, but there weren't any at one intersection. I announced, "I don't see anything orange telling us where to go," and John replied, "I do. I see something orange telling us where to go!" It was Darren Bedford, the Canadian inventor of Flaming Puck (unicycle hockey using a puck that's on fire), wearing an orange shirt and waving us to the right.
2. At another point, while I was driving I noticed a big turtle in the road. I stopped the car and got out, but I was nervous about the turtle because it was so large, and I got more nervous when John mentioned that this might be a snapping turtle. I gave the plate-sized reptile a gentle prod with my foot, and the thing lunged at me (as only a turtle can lunge) and tried to bite before waving an angry foot at me. If turtles could hiss, this one would have done so. Eventually one of the EMT volunteers was able to persuade Yurtle to mosey across the road safely.
3. That night we went to a restaurant where I tried my first lobster (despite going to camp in Maine for 8 years!). I had to take a phone call at one point, and as I headed outside for a moment, I heard one waitress tell another a comment you'd never hear outside of Nova Scotia: "We're running low on the fettucini. Push the lobster!"

It was also great to see so many school kids waving and cheering us on. Some of them yelled, "Where are you from?" to each rider and then cheered loudly when they got a response.

DAY 3: Wednesday at the Races
This was the one day we got to sleep late -- as late as about 7:15. Calgon, take me away!

After the fairly hilly and quite-lengthy Tuesday, our third day was a reprieve. We didn't mind the extra 45 minutes of sleep, and tho the weather threatened (and then delivered) a good deal of rain, we would only be riding in it for 45-50 minutes, so it wasn't too bad.

This was the day of the time trial and the 'criterium.' As in the Tour de France, each rider began the time trial a half-minute behind the rider in front of him. Our placement in the trial was based on our team finish. As my team's fastest rider, I went last among the three of us with only 8 riders behind me (that is, I was the 97th rider). I got off to a good start and quickly passed many riders in my grouping and even a few of the riders who had started much earlier, and I was passed by most of the riders from the faster teams behind me, like Ken Looi, who blew past me on his ungeared 36"er and wound up in 3rd place over all. The rain at some points was pelting down so hard that it was hurting my eyeballs. I managed to finish a very respectable 20th or 21st place (they were seconds apart), covering 21K (about 14 miles) in just under 56 minutes. This time qualified me for the top heat of the criterium in Truro that afternoon. But before that short race, we had to drive nearly two hours to get there.

I wanted to blast straight ahead for Truro, but John was aching with hunger and our clothes and shoes were soaked, so we decided to stop in a town called Bedford for crepes and a visit to a laundromat. The meal was delicieux and tres francais, and the laundromat hit the spot, too! Pressed for time, we had no time to wash our clothes. Opening the drier after three men's shirts and sneakers have spun around in the heat for 40 minutes was perhaps the most unpleasant thing we had to endure for the entire trip.

The rain stopped and we soon found ourselves in Truro, a lovely place with a college-town feel. As was the case thruout the Lobster, there was something about Truro that reminded me a lot of Ulster County. It's a much bigger town than New Paltz, but it had a similar feel to Rhinebeck. We caught up with some of the other teams and wound up having dinner with Team Smile (who would eventually finish in 5th place). This team featured Chuck, perhaps the world's fastest long-distance rider at the moment. Not only had he won the Time Trial, but he would soon finish first in the 4-mile race (6 laps around a few city blocks) that we called the Criterium, netting himself $1000 and another one of Florian Schlumpf's priceless (ok, not priceless -- just 'pricey') geared hubs. Again I did pretty well for a geezer-in-training, finishing among the top 25. My team took a conservative approach to this short race. We knew we had no chance to win, so we made sure to ride safely to ensure that we wouldn't get hurt.

FAVORITE Moments of Day 3:
Certainly those crepes rank right up there, much as the laundry was simply rank. I loved waving to the school kids who had come out to see the start of the time trial.

DAY 4 -- Thursday

Relatively well-rested after Wednesday's relatively light demands, we found ourselves once again waking early and riding in some rain. By now it had become apparent who the eventual winning teams were going to be (German Speeders, followed by NZUNI of New Zealand) as well as which teams were our closest competition for the top ten. At this point, we had to watch for:
* the Hans Islanders team (featuring two Danes, Tomas and Signe, as well as an American) who had leapt ahead of several teams in climbing from 12th to 8th place,
* the Korean Dream team, who had gotten off to a similarly weak start and were making gains on us, and
* Nathan and Beau Hoover, the father-and-son team who were going duo because their third teammate had been barred from entering Halifax airport due to a DUI 9 years earlier.
In addition, Team Manly Legs, Atlas, and The Goonies were further back of us but were within reach if we had any sort of major problems.

The Korean team and the Hoovers were our biggest threats, however, because both appeared to be gaining on us, and because both appeared to have a good deal of stamina. But Nathan Hoover was beginning to feel some pains in one of his Achilles tendons (after all, he was riding about 50% than everyone except his son!), and by the end of the day, their team was still about a quarter hour behind us. The Dream Team, however, started the day about 8 minutes back and ended only 90 seconds behind us. I think that most of their catching-up was on account of The Fangs!

THE FANGS
When we looked over the topographical profile of the day, we saw what appeared to be four upwards-pointing fangs near the end of the ride. Each of these involved a fairly low but quite steep climb, rising about 50 meters in just a few hundred meters, times four! We decided to break up these nasty hills so that no one had to ride more than one in a row, but since these came near the end of the day, we were so exhausted that we began running our transitions every 2-3 kilometers, rather than the usual 6-8 K segments we'd usually ride. I think that two of my rides were just under 2K.

PAPER BAGS
The coolest thing of the day was when we passed thru one of the major transition points where each rider was given a brown paper bag beautifully designed by an elementary schooler. I saved mine, which features a red lobster and many encouraging words from the several children who collaborated on the item. Inside each bag were some treats for us racers, including apple juice and a choco chip cookie! Those cookies really hit the spot after an exhausting day.

TENDINITIS
That night we spent the evening resting in a gorgeous college dorm where students have private shower stalls and wonderful two-person rooms. I took a lengthy shower and tried to massage my sore left anterior (top) tendon, the one right below where you'd tie your left shoe. This tendon was so creaky that you could actually hear it if I raised and lowered my foot. I used the two-I method: ice and ibuprofen, and I also applied a lotion that causes a warm sensation. I was nervous that I wouldn't be of much use to my team for the final day, but I noticed that my ankle felt better as the evening wore on.

DAY 5 -- TGIF!
Our last day was possibly the easiest of the four long days. Not only was the distance a mere 187 kilometers (or about 116 miles), but there was a break built into it on account of a transition that called for each team to drive over a long bridge that was too dangerous for unicycling.

The day started weirdly when I realized -- just after we'd all begun pedaling furiously -- that I'd neglected to gear up. In other words, I was going to have to shift as soon as I could, but (a) there were riders all around me, so I couldn't risk falling and having someone land on me, and (b) I had had no luck shifting for most of the race. The good news was that I did manage to shift as soon as the crowd had thinned out a bit, but by then, the rider for the Korean team had built up a sizable lead. In fact, I never saw him again on that ride -- he'd pulled out too far ahead for me to catch him. I sensed that our hopes of 10th place were dashed.

John took over after my initial ride of 15 K. I was pretty exhausted, but happily my ankle/shin area wasn't too sore or creaky. I massaged the area and applied heat lotion while John and Dave rode, and then I was at it again. This day's profile was rather peculiar: For the most part, it was extremely flat, but near the end was a steep uphill followed immediately by a steep downhill. After that, the ride was flat to the finish. Essentially, the profile looked like a shark fin in a bathtub.

THREE GREAT SEGMENTS
1. Because there were so few nasty uphills, I could ride longer stretches without hurting my foot or getting too tired, and as it turned out, I ended up riding about 87 of the 187 kilometers that day. There was also a gravel stretch, and since I love gravel flats and downhills, I was put on the uni for a lengthy stretch of it. As it happened, we had been closing in on the Korean Dream Team, and as I took the baton from Dave, I noticed that the same man who had bested me at the start of that day's riding was now just a few hundred meters ahead of me. He was riding an ungeared Coker with short cranks. This uni gave him an advantage only on the inclines. Any downhills or flats would be chances for me to catch up. Just as I crested one little hill, I saw him fall off his uni not more than 2 city-blocks ahead of me. He still had me by a decent margin, but in his haste to remount, he fell off again. By this time, I zoomed past him, but I expected to see him in my helmet mirror soon. Instead, I never saw his team -- neither the riders nor the support vehicle -- for the rest of the day. In fact, now that I think about it, I never saw them again even after the race, which was too bad because I wanted to congratulate them on doing such a good job.

2. The shark fin was called Mt Kelly, and it involved a climb of 250 meters over 2 kilometers followed by a 3 kilometer descent back to sea level. The three of us took turns riding up the mountain, which found us uni'ing alongside drivers on a wide highway, and then I took over for the lengthy downhill. I managed to keep up a pace of 30.0 kph, or just under 19 mph, for the entire duration of the descent, and I even managed to pass a rider on the way down. I've never ridden that fast for so long, and tho I did hit a top speed of 35 kph, I never outshone my speed on the gravel downhill. Still, it was incredible to feel the speed of that mountain for such a long ride.

3. I was also fortunate enough to ride the very last segment as the team came into a small town. The last of the highway riding came with a stiff back-wind, giving me the feeling that I was somehow stronger by day's end, and the ride into town was mostly downhill and straight, allowing me to maintain an almost scary pace as I headed across the finish line.

Much later we found out that the Korean team somehow lost 21 minutes on us, finishing 12th over all. We'd managed to hold on to 10th place by just 8 minutes over Beau and Nathan. Whew! And it would only be 10 days before I could ride a unicycle again without pain.

Coming Soon: Ride the Lobster!

2008-06-08T21:57:00.005-04:00

I have been training for the past few months for next week's 500-mile Tour de Nova Scotia, the first ever "Ride the Lobster." Each team of racers consists of 3 riders who take turns, tag-team style, riding about 120 miles a day, swapping riders whenever fatigue or injury dictates. My team consists of the three riders with the most years of unicycling, a combined 100. I suggested the team name, Centurions, based on that fact, and it stuck.

For the most part, our riding will consist of flat, paved roads. I've been training mainly on the gravel-and-dirt 'rail trail' that runs thru New Paltz and all over this county. My daily rides are generally 13-20 miles, riding as fast as I can on my geared unicycle (in high gear), and I would say that I've gotten to the point where I can maintain an average speed of 14 mph for the rail trail. Lately I've also taken a diversion onto a local paved road (Springtown) that leads to a nearby town or two. The lightly-trafficked road allows me to reach average speeds over 15 mph. Today I also hit my greatest speed, albeit momentarily: 22 mph. Occasionally I'll also ride around the Central Park bike loop; it's 6 miles around, including a monstrous hill, or 5 miles if you skip the nasty part. In all, I've pedaled around long enough to see a significant increase in my leg muscles and my stamina (as well as in my ability to withstand lengthy rides without saddle soreness or other discomforts).

Unicycling with My Son

2008-03-04T11:13:00.004-05:00

One of the few things I miss about NYC is that I could ride around town doing errands, and what makes this even worse is that I could be riding around town with my kids. Emmett has been riding for over a year, and Fiona learned nearly four years ago, and when we lived in Brooklyn, we often rode around in Manhattan when we'd visit for the weekend. Nowadays, it's quite rare for me to have a unicycling day in The City with the kids. I ride there by myself nearly everyday, but it takes a special occasion for me to ride with one of them.

Happily, a few days ago was a uniclub Sunday, and as we've done for a few months, we made a sleepover out of it. I drove down with Emmett and Maeve on Saturday (Fiona was having an overnight with a friend in the Noop; Shirra stayed home to woman the store). That day, we parked 5 blocks, or just over a quarter mile, from my mom's place, and then Emmett and I rode our unis to my mom's place, me pushing Maeve in the stroller. We had arrived with just enough time to drop off our stuff before heading to the Danny Kaye Theater on 68th St and Lex -- about 1.5 miles from Mom's. On his 20" wheel uni, that's quite a ride, and he was doing his best to pedal fast, so I was really impressed that he only had a couple UPDs. The ride back was even more fun, since we weren't in a rush, and again we rode thru Central Park with me pointing out different landmarks.

The next day was uni club, and I was excited because Shirra's mom had volunteered to take Maeve for the afternoon (lunch and the Children's Museum). Unforch, this plan fell thru when Maeve panicked upon seeing her grandparents. She decided she wanted to spend the day with me instead. I coaxed her into going to the lunch, and that meant that Emmett and I had to ride from 75th and Amsterdam, where we'd met up with Shirra's folks, to 87th St, where the favored diner is. They didn't get into said diner, but luckily there were tables at the one next door. Unluckily, Maeve was still pining for me, so before Emmett and I had made it back to 75th St (for some shopping), we had to head back to retrieve Maeve. Then we went to unicycle club. In the end, we rode about 8 miles over the weekend. Emmett confided that he was experiencing a little pain -- the kind that girls don't get, he said -- and I acknowledged that this happens to every guy who rides enough. [Some seats are better than others, but still -- it's hard to avoid some of that. Apparently our bodies weren't meant to cycle.]

Anyone who can ride as many miles as his age -- on a 20" uni no less -- is impressive in my book. Go Emmett!

100th Post! Treadmill Unicycling

2007-12-19T08:40:00.000-05:00

I finally tried riding a unicycle on my treadmill. It wasn't a bad experience.

Last year, I bought my wife a 2nd-hand treadmill, a super model with bells and whistles, the kind you see in a fancy gym. It hasn't gotten much use lately, but that will change.

I figured out that mounting on this treadmill is easy. You get on the uni, then activate the machine, and it slowly gets up to your desired speed. Trying to mount while the machine is running wouldn't be a good idea, tho I succeeded at 1 mph.

Once on, you can speed it up or slow it down pretty easily, but this requires removing a hand from the sides of the treadmill. I found that I could ride hands-free, but it's not necessarily the safest or smartest idea. I have a deep-seated fear that the belt is going to jam, so I don't really want to let go of the sides. There are other possible slip-ups, so for now, I'll prolly hold on most of the time.

I used my 24" muni with a Gaz tire (it rides like a low-psi 26"). It has 6" cranks. 10 mph seemed a bit speedy but not difficult to maintain. I'm thinking that a 26" skinny tire Semcycle with 110s would approximate the feel of a Coker in terms of cadence. Maintaining 10mph would be like somewhat like maintaining 15 mph on a Coker. [In fact, a Coker would be easier to maintain that cadence on due to flywheel effect.]

I tried changing the grade, taking it as high as 10%. Sure enough, grade made a difference in the riding, but it was still fairly easy to ride the uni safely. I needed the handrails a bit more, tho, so changing grade was trickier.

My wife warned me (somewhat jokingly) not to smash the window that is a few feet behind the treadmill. In fact, a few minutes later, I twisted around to check something and lost my balance. The uni shot out behind me and nearly broke the window. Oops. This kind of accident, however, would easily be avoided by simply not twisting around awkwardly. I don't foresee that being an issue.

In sum, the treadmill seems a surprisingly good way to stay in shape and to get in some long 'rides' on a unicycle during bad weather.

Scary Guni Gear Incident

2007-10-24T21:32:00.000-04:00

If you don't already know by now, I have one of the few change-on-the-fly geared unicycles in the world. There are only a handful on the East Coast, a bushelful in the whole US, and fewer than a bowl-of-riceful in the entire world*. They were created by Florian Schlumpf, a Swiss engineer, using a planetary gearing system similar to what's found in a motorcycle. Basically there is a small 'sun' gear surrounded by a dozen 'planet' gears that are activated or deactivated by having a piece click into or out of place. Shifting gears is accomplished by knocking a button with your ankle or sneaker while you're riding, tho less adventurous or skilled types can simply hop off the uni to change the gear from a safer position.

Florian is currently on his third gearing system. His first hub had 6 planet gears, which meant that sometimes the wheel rotated freely for 60 degrees before the gear shifted. Since the 29" wheel moves about 10 feet per revolution, a rider could easily find himself coasting for about two feet before the gear's teeth were reactivated. As disconcerting as this was, the first-generation hub had a bad habit of not always catching gear or, worse, slipping out of gear and into coasting mode. This resulted in one really badly broken leg for a well-known Kiwi rider named Ken Looi during a group trip thru Laos that he had organzied. It also happened to me, tho happily I was not injured in the resulting fall. Then it happened a few more times. In the end, Florian was generous enough to replace every 1st-gen hub he'd sold with his newer, 12-planet version.

I was riding to Port Authority three weeks ago when I attempted to shift into low gear as I neared the depot. Suddenly, I slipped forward from the waist down and landed on my backpack, with my helmet basically kissing the pavement too softly to make even a scratch. I was wearing wrist-guards, too, but I didn't have time to react and simply landed with my hands by my side. The funny thing was that this came a day after my doctor had suggested I take it easy on my back since I'd strained a muscle during firefighting duties. Ah well.

I didn't contact Florian about the gear; instead I wrote about the incident to the online uni community. Ken and others suggested that I had experienced a non-catch of a gear rather than a gear-slipping (which is what happened to Ken). The consensus was that I had hit the button just hard enough to put it in no-man's land. After further discussion, we all seemed to arrive at a name for this deadly location: the sour spot.

Since then, it took me a few days (ok, weeks) to recover the gumption to try that down-shifting again. It's been fine ever since, but if I fail to hit the button hard enough to shift gears, I immediately jump off just in case.

* Rice is a great food if you want to eat 2,000 of something -- Mitch Hedberg

Nose News

2007-09-18T15:14:00.000-04:00

My nose healed well, and within a week, I was breathing thru both nostrils. The healing process has been a bit odd, tho.

The doctor warned me last week that I'd have a runny nose and a lot of congestion, and he was right. He failed to mention that the scabs forming in my nose during the night would feel as tho I had somehow inhaled a Lego piece in my sleep. On a hunch, I decided to work some of these crusty things out, a process that was both captivating and painful. The resulting stalagtites were the sort of thing best enjoyed in privacy: no one in my family wanted to see the extracted item. It was yet another time in my life that I longed for an identical twin. ("Look what came out of my nose!" "Cool!") Later the doctor confirmed that scabs are like crystals in that they can grow unabated; I can only imagine how large these minerals could have been had I left them alone.

Weirder still was something that I succeeded in pulling out two days ago after many minutes of coaxing. This globular mass resembled nothing human. If you've seen The Matrix, you might recall the bug that Trinity removes from Neo's bellybutton; that's pretty much what I had, only mine was no longer glowing. I removed the mass from my nose and put it out of its misery with a swift blow to what I took to be its head. Suddenly I could breathe! Once again I didn't find any immediate interest from the wife and kids -- apparently they were content to use their imaginations. I had to console myself that at least the aliens would no longer be able to track me with the device they'd implanted in my head.

I saw the doctor again today. This visit ranked right up there on the list of the most pain I've experienced in a seated position. Initially everything went smoothly, as he calmly peered into my nostrils and pronounced them satisfactory. I mentioned my alien visitors and he nodded, acknowledging that these demonstrate that I had not fully healed. As a precaution, he peered and poked deeply into my sinus with a long thin tube that tripped nerves normally protected from such probing. He worked out a few small remnants of the earlier tracking device -- apparently I had missed some of its legs and part of its abdomen -- and then, to my relief, he removed a second implant that had been lodged even further down. The removal of this second locust allowed even smoother breathing, but it came at a cost. My face was hurting in places he hadn't even visited, like my eyeballs. Eventually the pain subsided, but so did my effortless breathing. Once again my nose is slightly stuffed. It seems that the implantation process can take place even when the mother ship is nowhere in sight.

I'll have to rely on my menthol cough drops for a few more days.

How My Nose Felt

2007-09-12T15:51:00.001-04:00

This photo from Total Recall, with Arnold, illustrates how my nose felt when the doctor removed my dressing. The gauze, plus this inflatable plastic bladder, extended pretty deep into my schnozz, but when they came out, I felt a delicious sense of relief, similar, I'm sure, to what Arnold's character felt when he removed the Martian 'bug' from his honker in this sci-fi thriller from the 1980s.

Viated Septum

2007-09-11T21:02:00.000-04:00

For as long as I remember, I've had a deviated septum. But today I had that surgically repaired. At long last, mine is once again a viated septum.

As tortured as that term sounds, that's as tortured as I felt when the anesthesia wore off. One would think that the worst pain was in my nose and generall sinus area, but one would be wrong. Instead, my throat was the source of agony. My nose merely ached a bit. My first thought as I came back to consciousness was, "I hope I've just had a dream about how bad I could feel if I go thru with this, because I'm going to tell them that I've changed my mind." Needless to say, it was too late.

My next thought was about that unfortunate pro football player who likely will never regain complete use of his limbs as a result of an accident a couple days ago. That guy must have been thru a lot more surgery than I'll ever endure. My third thought was that my wife survived thru 3 nasty deliveries, the last a planned C-section. Maybe I could toughen up a bit. My choices were: complain or refrain. I went with 'refrain.' It's not like I could have whined about my plight anyway, since I could barely speak.

Your throat hurts after nasal surgery for the specific and obvious-later reason that in order to operate on your nose, the doctor has to intubate you. 'Intubate' comes from the Latin "in-," meaning "in," and "tuba," meaning "feels like a tuba has been pushed." Actually my throat feels as tho I swallowed some sand paper and then threw it back up. And then swallowed it just once more. And the worst part of this whole experience is that, at least until my nose gets unpacked by the doctor tomorrow, I have to breathe thru my mouth, compounding the problem. Ice cream and icies help, as do cough drops, but only so far.

I was lucky enough to have a wonderful friend take me to and from the hospital. Diane is my kids' great-godmother, if there could be such a thing. Her title is somewhat odd since no one in my family has believed in a god for many generations, but if there were a god, then there could be saints, and Diane would qualify in my book. She made sure I got home okay and then explained the redressing of my bandages to Shirra. In case it wasn't already painfully obvious, I couldn't have driven myself home if not for the pain but also the pain meds. Shirra has been a saint since I got home, and the kids were great. Eventually my second batch of meds kicked in and I was ready for dinner, an online game of Scrabble, some TV, and this blogging. The pain is coming back, so I just took my codeine dose #3, and I'll have to hit the sheets soon.

So why is my formerly-deviant* septum fodder for my blog about unicycling? I only had this operation in order to have an easier time with my breathing during exercise, and my only exercise is unicycling. I race every summer at the annual unicycling Olympics, and I'm going to be riding over 120 miles in 5 days during a big race in 2008. I had begun to notice that it was possible for other people to nose-breathe during races but not for me. It was also impossible for me to sleep on my back, since I would probably attract the turkeys that always roam about our garden, but as I slept on my side since college, this was really not the issue. It really came down to unicycling.

I nearly started the 2nd sentence in that last paragraph with the word "Because." Clearly the codeine has taken effect. I'd better head to bed soon.

* Shirra's joke

1st Annual Yonkers Race

2007-09-08T21:59:00.000-04:00

Today was a first for me: a unicycle race with a cash prize.

Organized by the friend of one of our club members, the race was meant to draw some needed attention to the beautified (and beautiful) downtown area of Yonkers. A guy named John contacted me to ask if I could summon as many unicyclists as possible to participate in the race. I was skeptical -- it's one thing to get people to meet at Grant's Tomb, but Yonkers is a bit out of the way, and the time (10 am) didn't help either. We managed to get there -- in my case, this involved an extra hour's drive to avoid the Tappan Zee bridge only to run into a delay at the GWB -- and by 11 am, the races were over, prizes distributed, and photos taken. Again I hit traffic getting home, but I did manage to get Emmett to his inaugural soccer game in time.

The race was meant to be similar in length to a 10K, about 6.2 miles. John measured the track and found it to be just over three-quarters of a mile. We decided to make the race 2 laps for kids (under-14s) and 6 laps for the rest of us. We ran the kids' race first in order to lessen the chances of a collision since the track was fairly narrow at points. Emmett did fine, winning $20 while riding for the first time on his new 20" uni -- I accompanied him thruout the ride -- and Fiona did well enough to come in 2nd of 5 girls, good for a $40 prize. Because the route wound thru a garden at one point and had a few other twists, my speedy guni was a poor match for the conditions, but I'm not sure I could have done as well as my brother -- he finished first by a wide marge. He and I discussed later how the kid in charge of the laps seems to have made a mistake that caused all of us to ride one less time around, so in the end it appears that my brother's winning time of 16 minutes was for a course a bit less than 4 miles long. He came away with a $50 cash prize and a $75 gift certif for a restaurant nearby.

I was happy that we got so many riders, mostly from our club...twenty in all. We all got medallions, courtesy of the organizer, and more than half of the participants (including all of the kids) got cash prizes from a fund of over $400. The day was gorgeous, too. The only thing I was disappointed by was the almost non-existent public turnout, including a lack of press coverage. Ah well...next time.

The Smallest Uni in the East

2007-08-05T01:35:00.000-04:00

Here is Maeve modeling her new unicycle. To be precise, it's an old uni that's been altered to fit her wee gams. I had Mike the Bike cut down both the frame and the seat post. Unfortunately, due to a sleeve in the frame, the post can't slide down to just above the wheel (as is the case with most unicycles), so at this point, the uni only has one size; in order to raise it, I'll have to cut down other seat posts that are fractionally bigger (as Maeve grows up).

For the time being, it's definitely the smallest unicycle on the East Coast. In fact, you can't make a much smaller unicycle without contacting the Guiness Book of World Records.

Maeve can't ride it yet, but she's looking forward to doing so -- soon. Tomorrow my unicycle club meets again, and Maeve can't wait. Helping Maeve means that I have to lean over to hold her seat from behind, but a bad back is worth it if she's having fun.

NAUCC 007

2007-08-03T23:00:00.000-04:00

We just drove back yesterday from Michigan, the site of this year's North American unicycle convention. It was one of the best ones I've been to.

We had to arrive a day after the fun events started on account of my stint at the fire academy. I finished up on a Friday afternoon, drove back that evening, and packed the car full of unicycles. The next day, we headed to Michigan.

O CANADA
Shirra had checked the route on randmcnally.com, but the GPS in the car had us going north rather than south. Geography isn't my strong suit, and Shirra, a great map-reader, drew a blank when I mentioned that we'd be heading up route 87 rather than down. After all, the GPS hasn't steered us wrong so far. Looking at the map on the small screen, I wondered what the blip of land was between upstate NY and Michigan. It turns out that this was Canada.

I remembered that our government had been talking about the use of passports between the USA and Canada, but I wasn't sure when that was supposed to kick in. Luckily we only needed our driver's licenses, especially since the kids look just like us (we didn't happen to have their birth certs with us). The delay for immigration took a lot less time that the Rand McNally route, saving us many hours. The drive thru Canada was pretty dull, tho.

BEST (?) WESTERN
We stayed at a cheap hotel that had many rooms saved for conventioneers. At $59/night, it would be hard to do better. The hotel had once been pretty nice, but by now, it was falling slowly into decrepitude. Our air conditioning didn't work, first in one room, and then in both. The breakfasts were as abysmal as they are in most motels, with styrofoam cups for juice and crappy cereal options (along with some pretty tasty muffins). Rungs were breaking on the pool ladders, and one of the doorknobs from the stairs to the lobby was lying on the floor by the door. A cigaret butt lay in the same position on the stairs for the 5 days we stayed at the hotel.

But I really can't complain about the hotel. After all, it was cheap, and there were two pools, a free (and almost edible) breakfast, decent TVs, and so on. The kids loved playing Marco Polo with their friends in the pool, and on the last night, we joined a party downstairs that the beneficent Darren Bedford (of Canada) threw for his friends on both sides of the border. His suite had a jacuzzi, a kitchenette, an empty library, and three rooms.

RELLIES
Our first full day in Michigan, we took a few hours to visit Shirra's cousins in a nearby suburb of Detroit. The kids had a great time, and then we headed back to the convention in time for the Public Show.

PUBLIC SHOW
Every year, these shows combine a few performances from the expert riders in the artistic competition as well as some outside talent. This year, the hosts had a duo from the world of Frisbees and Hacky Sacks (or 'discs' and 'footbags' to the trademark-less society of those sports). They were outstanding, and if you haven't seen someone excel in the world of footbags, you haven't seen the mundane elevated to the superior. At the end of the show, I hosted the annual raffle, where Darren won a nice unicycle and my son won some juggling sacks.

TRACK
The next two days were dominated by track and field. Because we span so many age groups, my family had to be at the track for most of the day, starting at 8am, with no ostensible break for lunch. Shirra hadn't had breakfast and soon found herself getting woozy. I happened to find a snack place nearby, and soon she and the kids were back to normal.

The third race of the day was Emmett's. Since he hadn't mastered riding a 20" wheel, he was relegated to his 16-incher for the whole competition. This meant that he had to pedal really fast just to keep up with the slower kids in the races. He managed to beat one kid in the half-mile, and later he did pretty well in the quarter-mile and the 100m races. When he gets the right-sized uni, he's going to be zooming! Fiona isn't a racer -- she likes to ride, but she doesn't seem to have the fast-twitch muscles that racers need. She was proud that she managed to finish all of her races, and she even beat someone's time in the obstacle course. As for me, I found the track (or the hot, muggy conditions) to be slow; no one managed to set any kinds of racing records at this convention. But I managed to do well compared with my competition and finished first in most of the races in my age group (1500m, 400m, and the 10k). I also found myself among the top 5 male competitors of any age in four races (my best was 3rd over all in the 10k), earning myself an 'expert' t-shirt for the third year in a row. My only disappointment was not qualifying for the expert heat of the 100m race. I was proudest of my finish in the 10k because the competition was tough and I beat a lot of younger guys over the course of 25 grueling minutes.

WATER PARK
The 10k was just around the corner from a great water park. It's a city park, so the admission price was really cheap (at least by NY standards). For $8 each, the kids and Shirra got to have a great afternoon of water slides, a 'lazy river,' and a scary wave pool.

MISC
There were muni events, a street competition, and uphill and downhill 'races,' too. There were also the usual unicycle hockey and uni basketball, but I didn't compete (or even watch) any of those. I didn't even get to see most of the artistic competition (or the parade competition, or the group performance competition), but I'm sure it was amazing.

The drive back from Michigan was fine, and we got in yesterday at about 11 pm. I was buzzing for almost an hour after getting out of the car; it felt like I was sitting on a clothes dryer. We were glad to be home, but it was a great convention, and we look forward to the club this Sunday.

NAUCC 2007

2007-07-30T23:29:00.000-04:00

This year, the annual North American uni convention is being held (as we speak) in Michigan. Michigan, as we all remember from looking over maps found on the flip side of the children's menu at cheap roadside diners, is the state that's really two land masses cut by a big river. So now, when locals ask "Where's your other wheel," I can retort, "Hey, where's the other half of your state?" Ha. Take that. Yeah.

O Canada
Shirra looked up a good route using randmcnally.com, but our car's GPS took us a different (and faster) way. Luckily we didn't need our passports because before we knew what was going on, we were in Canada. Oops, eh!?

Public Show
Thankfully, the convention is going a lot better than my joke-telling. We got here late, thanks to my trip to the Fire Academy in central NY that ended a few days ago, but we didn't miss much of what we like at these conventions. We missed the artistic competition (in favor of a trip to Shirra's cousins an hour away), but we saw some of it later during the public show. Ryan Woessner and Amy Shields were absolutely flawless and amazing in their pairs routine, and Amy recreated her unbelievable (and flawless) solo routine that made her the American champion this year. There was also a juggling act, a pair of frisbee whizzes (one of whom is also an incredible foot-bag (Hacky Sack) artist, and a great visit from Sem and Teresa Abrams; Sem's finale had him riding around the gym on a 14' giraffe while pretending to lose his balance. I've seen many public shows, and this was one of the best over the past 7 years.

A Day (or Two) at the Races
Today was the first of two race days. The weather was nigh perfect (a bit too hot), and the track is in pretty decent shape. The volunteers assisting with the events did a great job, and thanks to them and the weather, we were done nearly 3 hours ahead of schedule, finishing the 1500m and 400m races and leaving the 100m and 'weird' races for tomorrow. Emmett managed to finish the 800m (kids under 9 ride a shorter race than the 1500m), so he automatically gets a medal since he was one of only 4 in his age category. He actually placed 3rd but forgot to ride past the finish line, so he had to remount and finish the race properly. Fiona finished her first 1500m and also rode a 400m race, both without falling off, but she's not a fast rider yet, so she came in last both times. I was proud of her for finishing and for keeping up her spirits. Her friend Emmy did so well in the 400 that she qualified for the expert heat, where she did even better, earning an 'Expert' tee shirt. Other club members did ok, too. As for me, I managed to eke out Expert tee shirts in both events, but my times were a bit off from last year. The nice thing for me was finishing ahead of so many fast kids. I noticed that after the races, I was the only one panting like a dog -- the young'uns all shrugged off their races and headed for their cars in time for a parade competition that I didn't care for.

Misc
I ran into Brian Mackenzie, and he gave me a great DVD he made last year; some of the footage featured some of our club members, and there were a couple sections focusing on me and a small group of riders from NYC. We are staying for the awards ceremony (first time I'll have been to one of those). I look forward to collecting my own medals and tee shirts. I hope my kids get a few prizes, too!

NY Times Article about the Club

2007-07-05T22:49:00.000-04:00

The New York Times ran a story about my unicycle club this week (July 2, page B2). This is the club I founded along with Joe Merrill back at the beginning of 2001. Co-founder Joe rarely makes it to the club these days. If he comes out twice in a year, it's a treat. He's got his own things going on in his life, including some cool muni'ing that he organizes. So at this point, the New York Unicycle Club is essentially a one-man operation, and I'm that dude.

In addition to attending almost all of the 150 get-togethers of our group, I've written up a 'minutes' of every meeting, discussing which people attended and what those people did. Through my chronicles, fellow riders could read about their own successes and could follow the successes of others. There are people on the list who haven't been to the club in over two years but who still want to stay on my email list, just so they can read about their friends' exploits.

I've always been a publicity whore, so when the writer from the Times contacted me about a potential article, I was happy to oblige. We've been featured on an early morning NBC show ("Today in New York") and in a weird article in Time Out New York, and each time, we've garnered new members as a result. I figured a piece in the Times would be great for the club and might be a nice for me, too. Unfortunately, I was unable to make it to the club on the day the writer came -- Emmett had a dance performance at about the same time. But I figured that after our long interview on the phone, the writer would include me in one way or another. I even forwarded him some great photos of me and the kids on unicycles.

Instead, the article turned out to be about my brother and a few others, but there was no mention of me. I was disappointed not to be mentioned. Oh well. next time I'll insist. It would also have been nice if the Times had included our website address. In any case, I look forward to a few new members joining us at Grant's Tomb.

Here is the article:

JOHN STONE is a composer and an athlete in Manhattan, and he has never been in a circus. This last fact is an important but often misunderstood aspect of his life, but perhaps one of the drawbacks of commuting to work in Midtown from his home on the Upper West Side on a unicycle.

“It gets tiresome that people see me on my unicycle and they only think of that,” he said on a recent Sunday while holding a tall black unicycle with special features to accommodate long-distance rides. “Sometimes people will see me riding and start singing circus music at me.”

Mr. Stone, 37, was with others who understood his plight. Every other Sunday, unicyclists who call themselves the Unatics and say they are New York City’s only unicycle club, meet at Grant’s Tomb in Riverside Park to ride, learn new tricks and bond with others who share their love of balancing on top of one wheel. The club, which was founded in 2001, has more than a hundred members.

On this particular Sunday, about 30 unicyclists rode along the concrete entrance to Grant’s Tomb. Club members arranged metal barricades into three rows, so that beginners could find their balance with handholds.

James Sui, 14, impressed other riders by hopping down a set of four stairs at once and remaining upright. Ted Piltzecker, a jazz musician and professor, traced lazy circles while juggling three balls. And Shane Hope, an artist who lives in Brooklyn, glided by on what he called a BC wheel, which is essentially a unicycle without a seat or pedals.

For club members, these Sundays are one of the few chances to feel as if their hobby is a mainstream sport. “This is a friendly world,” Mr. Stone said, adding that riders often know one another’s names and share stories. He said that asking to borrow someone else’s unicycle was understood and encouraged.

But those who don’t ride unicycles also orbit this one-wheeled community. So, Mr. Stone said, unicyclists must sometimes curtail their space when tour groups descend on Grant’s Tomb, where it is generally frowned upon to ride on the monument.

Throughout the afternoon, two rangers from the National Park Service stood at the door to Grant’s Tomb and watched the Unatics. “I thought they were part of the circus the first time I saw them here,” said one ranger, who did not give his name because he said he was not allowed to speak with reporters. “I think they should go down to the trapeze school on the West Side and put a hat out and make a mint.”

Club members have often offered to teach the ranger how to ride a unicycle, he said, but to no avail. “I would break my head open,” he said.

Unicycle Count

2007-06-29T09:05:00.000-04:00

Unicycles, like lovers, are mostly memorable, but after you reach ten or twelve, you lose count. I'm at a point in my life (let's hope it's for the rest of my life) where the number of lovers isn't going to increase any more. My unicycle count, however, has changed recently. It's time for a recount.

I sold one of my Super Trick Cycles to a kid in my club. Now I only have two of them! These are such rare items that none of them have surfaced for sale on eBay in the past year.

I bought a muni last year -- the most recent uni I've purchased, and I fixed up my trials uni (correction: Mike the Bike fixed it for me here in New Paltz). The trials was on loan for about six months and was pretty beaten up after that, but now it's sweet.

My kids haven't gotten any new unis, but I'll count theirs separately from now on because they're pretty serious riders. In other words, I no longer own their unicycles, really.

So here are the 16 cycles in my uni collection, in order of how often I ride them:

29" Schlumpf guni...
24" Freeride mountain unicycle (Kris Holm) with 3" Gazzalotti tire...
20" freestyle (United frame, carbon fiber Miyata seat)...
20" trials...
20" impossible wheel...
26" ultimate wheel, nylon sewn on the tire (courtesy of David Bagley) to reduce friction...
20" "Spin-Cycle" that has a rotating frame...
46" Godzilla (built by the same man as the Spin-Cycle)...
20" Schwinn 6' giraffe...
36" Coker -- poor thing, I used to ride it all the time! Now it languishes in the basement...
24" Torker...
Super Trick Cycle...
Another Super Trick Cycle...
24" racing uni (Qu-Ax). This one is actually meeting me at the 2007 NAUCC, having been forgotten (and picked up) at the 2006 NAUCC...
29" Semcycle (in a state of disrepair)...
24" ultimate wheel

Those are the odds. Here are the ends:

ENDS (missing something)
26" Semcycle (minus pedals, inner tube, seat post, and seat)
36" Coker, minus the frame

Interestingly, while I was writing this list, I suddenly had to run an errand that involved uni'ing back from town, 3.5 miles away. My wife had taken my car, and with it my guni, so I was forced to think fast -- and I grabbed that neglected Coker. A few puffs from a bike pump, and it was ready to go. It's always great to have a spare unicycle or two (or 15).

Getting in Gear, Again

2007-06-19T21:55:00.000-04:00

MUNIs: Slow Ridin'
For much of this 'school year,' I brought my new muni on the bus to NYC and then rode the 2 miles to my mom's place (my office). Initially I'd used my guni, but when it jammed back in the fall, I discovered the joys of muni'ing in Manhattan. It took months for Florian to get my geared unicycle hub back to me ... and a few more weeks before the local bicycle mechanic (Mike the Bike) could put the wheel together for me. In the meantime, I discovered that munis are great for navigating the busy sidewalks of NYC. The only problem is that the ride is rather poky.

A few weeks ago, two things happened to change my routine. Most importantly, I finally had the guni back in action. I rode it around a parking lot her in the Noop and discovered that changing gears was as easy as ever. That is one amazing machine. At the same time, a second factor weighed in: I was in a rush. The muni is a 24" uni with huge cranks. It's not meant for speed. [It's great for going up huge curbs, tho!] Looking at my schedule one day, I realized that I only had 20 minutes from my last student until the bus departure. I decided to try the guni instead. It's a speed machine [not so great on curbs, tho].

I have this cool GPS watch from Gorman that has been languishing in my backpack for months. I wasn't even sure it was charged. The watch relies on satellite links, and if you're among tall buildings, it can take a long time to find the proper signal. Once it does, tho, it's very accurate, and even without the satellite hook-up, you can always just use it as a stopwatch. I decided to see how fast I could make my ride. From 81st and CPW to 41st and 8th Ave (almost exactly 2 miles), my time was under 13 minutes. The ride in the opposite direction was even faster, since I wasn't going against traffic the whole time. I think I made it in about 9 or 10 minutes.

I also found that the ride from my house to the New Paltz bus station was much quicker with the guni than without. The few times I rode there on the muni, the ride was a tiring 20 minutes or a boring 25. Today I made it home from the station in 16 minutes. In fact, the 3 miles until my dirt road clocked in at 12 minutes, meaning that I was averaging 15 mph+. I rode most of my dirt road in high gear, but near the end it gets pretty hilly (pretty up-hilly!), so I switched down and cruised at regular mode. The road is really pitted about now, so the geared-up setting is really difficult because it's very hard to go over the big bumps with so much less torque.

I'm also going to keep the guni going for now because it'll help me with the 10k race this summer at the NAUCC in Michigan. I'm hoping to win that race not only for my age division but over all. We'll see!

LONG Rides Down Memory Lane

2007-05-11T09:52:00.000-04:00

After dropping my wife's car at the dealership, I unicycled to my mother's apartment. Here's the rub: They're about 20 miles apart.

The dealership (Plaza Auto Mall) is in the southern part of Brooklyn, on Nostrand Ave and Avenue M. We bought the car just before moving to New Paltz, so when we realized that there was a problem with the DVD player, it was too late to fix it because we were no longer anywhere near Plaza. It took 8 months to find a good day for me to take the car in, and that day finally came this past Wednesday.

I wasn't planning to ride all the way to my mom's place, but I left open that possibility. I rode to my old school (where I taught for the previous 7 years), said hi to friends, did an errand, and then decided to cross the Brooklyn Bridge for old time's sake. Once across, I realized I had time to ride up the West Side Bike Path, a lovely trail of flat road that is generally uncrowded during work hours. I could have ridden to my mom's directly, but I rode a bit further (to 89th St), then headed to my mom's place a half-mile back. In total, I rode about 20 miles. I was happy to find that not only was I free from soreness, but I wasn't even very thirsty (despite forgetting to drink anything during the ride -- oops).

The only downside to the ride was that one of the buttons fell off my geared uni -- again. I've lost at least 5 buttons, and it's annoying because it means that I can't switch to low gear on the fly. Instead, I have to push a piece in with a ball-point pen in order to get back into low gear. But when I did have that button in place, the gear switched beautifully. I think I have one replacement button left. I'll have to order a few more, and this time, I'll really try to get the next one on tightly.

Hernia? Followup Note

2007-03-20T22:17:00.000-04:00

Nah, it wasn't a hernia. I have apparently developed a hydrocele or some similar thing. Whatever it is, it's not harmful or even painful (anymore -- tho it was for a few days). I have been unicycling again since a couple days after my scare, and that's been fine. I'll just have to keep an eye on this lump I have to make sure it doesn't change. Maybe one day I'll have it removed. For now it's not causing a problem.