Summer Wheeln'

In-between the spring storms we're finally getting some warm sunny days. I haven't been mountainbiking or beach-riding in weeks but have enjoyed commuting to work as usual and pootling around town with The Midget Assassin in tow. 

I took one of these girls home from the park 

(hope I got the right one)

The school unicycle club got invited to three Santa parades this year. The boys and I weren't able to go to any of them last year so we made the most of it this time and attended two. The first was a low-key community affair up in Orewa. Thing-Two and I did that one and it was a good introduction to parade riding. Only a few thousand people so we were more excited than nervous and the route was nice and flat for the dad who doesn't practice. The second was the Farmer's Santa Parade in downtown Auckland. This was a much bigger deal with 250,000 spectators and some really professional looking floats. We wear blue club t-shirts and big red cowboy hats so we don't look as spectacular as some of the fancy costumes but the crowd doesn't seem to mind. Children just love to see other children riding unicycles and clap and cheer like mad, it's a real buzz. Some of the smaller riders were pretty tired by the end but everyone had a ball and the lanky forty-three year old can't wait to go back next year either!

Waiting for the rest of the group before the start

Our local council held a Family Bike Fest in Sunnynook Park only a few miles from home. I dragged my boys kicking and screaming away from the Xbox and we rode over the hill to see what was happening. Well, what a well-run event, it turned out to be a lot of fun. Lots of activities based around bike-handling and safety and unicycle.co.nz had many and varied contraptions there for people to try out. My boys always get a kick out of being the only ones able to ride them, although a few children had a go on the custom made penny-farthing. 

Our family almost cleaned-up in the slow-races. Thing-Two won his age-group, Thing-One just put a foot down before the finish to claim second place and I won the dad's race. It was very hard to actually keep moving and not just do a track-stand. Every time the commentator would remind us we were not moving I momentarily released the front brake so my wheel would move an inch or two. So we rode away after a couple of entertaining hours with $40 in bike-shop vouchers, candy, stickers, a flouro-vest each (yay) and a nice cycling shirt. 

Thing-Two gettn' jiggy on the penny

This contraption was just weird

Thing-One on the giraffe

On Sunday I got a couple of hours to myself to get out on the Cross-Check. I'm loving the speed of the thing but still need to tweak my cockpit a little, especially for riding off-road. I'm going to rotate the bars a little more and move the brakes to get a flatter area behind the hoods for my palms to rest and an extra layer of bar-wrap is also on the agenda. The other problem I'm having is the axle sliding forward on the drive-side so my wheel ends-up crooked and the brakes start rubbing. This has happened twice - both times after tearing down the side of Mount Victoria on the singletrack. It's quite bumpy on 35mm road tyres and my watch was hurting my wrist as it jumped around with the impacts. I have the quick-release done up pretty damn tight so I'm not sure how to remedy this problem. It may come right as the powdercoat wears off the drop-out face and the quick-release gets some steel to bite into. I must remember to wipe any grease off the dropouts before I go out again. The Lycra-Cowboys were all off drinking Babycham somewhere so I had the road to myself. It was a great ride.

Facing west on top of Mount Victoria in Devonport. Time to head home before the sun gets much lower.

29 inches, 36 Spokes... That's how I roll!

unless...

I'm riding 26 inch/36 spokes

or the 16 inch/28 spoke - 14 inch/20 spoke combo

and not forgetting the 6 inch/spokeless monstrosity.

Blog Superstardom again!

One of my recent photos of Thing-Two has been picked up by the excellent Change your life, ride a bike! blog for their "Photo-of-the-week". We made this robot suit for a school book week parade and I wanted to get some fun photos of it for posterity.

The original photo

Robot-free at unicycle club. The Midget Assassin having cone-avoidance-difficulties in the background.

CBS Cyclones T-Shirt

I've been working on a t-shirt design for the School unicycling club. 

They liked the original concept and the CBS Cyclones name but I had to modify it so it prints as black and white on a light blue t-shirt (school's colour). Parts of the blue shirt show through adding a bit more colour.

Not as much impact as the version for white backgrounds but I think it looks OK.

Unicycle Clubbers

I'm a bit late with this post but below are a few pictures from the final meeting of our local school's unicycle club for the year. 

I thought The Campbells Bay School Unicycle Club was a bit of a mouthful so I suggested they re-brand as the CBS Cyclones and whipped up a logo. We'll see if they run with it this year when the new term begins, but the response was very good.

This club is wholly due to the enthusiasm of Mark, a keen unicycling parent who started it all and managed to secured Sports-Trust funding to purchase dozens of loan unicycles. They are available free for the children to learn on at club meetings and take home to practice their newfound skills. Ten or more new kids join each year and the school-leaver's uni's are passed on down to the new recruits. 

The School thinks it's wonderful as the club represents CBS at local parades and a large bunch of unicycling kids sporting blue school shirts and red stetsons makes quite an impact in the community. Good PR never goes amiss! 

The more accomplished riders trying out some moves

Mark hands out certificates (and ice-blocks)

Relay racing

Feeling unco

Arriving home from "official" unicycle club after school. My D.I.Y. trailer extension is a bit overloaded here and tends to push up on the hitch when I have this much weight in it. Really needs the axles moved further back.

Not much has been happening on the cycling front this month apart from the usual trips to the park with Carla and commuting to work.

The unicycling obsession has continued though and despite horrific injuries to the backs of my legs, my groin and my pride, I have persevered and am finally making some progress. It's not like me to stick at something I'm not enjoying but I am determined to give it a good shot while we have the use of loaner "bikes". We are not in a position to buy any at the moment, but if the kids really get into it I might keep an eye out for second-hand ones at the right price.

I have managed to stay on for 80 - 100 metres on a few occasions and tonight rode for a very wobbly 60 seconds. I'll take that as progress even though I don't feel confident at all and zig and zag all over the place.

Laugh if you must! I'm going to need crutches sooner or later anyway. An hour of this got me traveling further without constant restarts and I'm riding unassisted now.

Riding through our local park on the way to school for a unicycle practice. The school is great as it has large areas of flat asphalt and lots of handrails to grab onto when you are first learning.

Hunter and Finn have not put as much time into practicing as I, but are coming along great. Finn has ridden 40 metres or so and Hunter about 10. It seems to be a mind-over-matter thing as some days you can't ride more than a few feet and start to get angry with yourself, and other times you can ride a considerable distance with relative ease. 

It has been hard on my body though! The backs of my legs are covered in scrapes and pedal-bites from the inevitable wipe-outs. I usually land on my feet but sometimes the uni gets stuck underneath you and you fall on top of it. The other problem is the "jumping off to save myself routine" really aggravates my bad ankle. Its been a year since the operation and I'm sitting here typing this with my foot in a bucket of ice-water to bring the swelling down. That's after only an hour of practice, but once I get the hang of it I think the ankle will cope. I don't get much pain cycling anymore until after a long ride.

Hunter makes the "gap".