Speedy Ride With Kessa

Kessa is an exercise machine and often wants to go on a bike ride or workout, which we often do together. But today her quads were sore, and she wanted to go on a less intense ride, so she encouraged me to ride my Flansberrium geared uni.

end of ride photo tradition

So she biked and I unicycled from home through Chiyoda and the Bird Sanctuary trail to North Ponds and back. We also added The Meadows neighborhood trail before heading home. My shifting was nearly flawless, so I'm very happy with that. One thing that is great with having Kessa with me, is that she'll check any roads for cars before I am quite there to give me the go ahead. I still slow down and prepare to stop, but in many places there's no way to look both way until you're right at the road's edge, so stopping would normally be required.

We stopped both on the way and back at the pull-up bars off the path behind the rec center. Kessa's a beast and cranked out her personal best of 8. Bring it!

7.8 miles, average speed 7.6 mph

Muni Season

rest at the end of Whiting green

This has been a very hot summer, but the temperatures have finally dropped and it's feeling more and more like muni season.

My weekend obligations got in the way so I took a few hours off from work on Monday afternoon to ride muni at Webster Park and Whiting. Nothing too crazy to mention. Good weather, good exercise, good to get out and ride.

I rode my 24" KH muni, as it's my go-to ride for dry challenging trails.

7.14 miles

4th of July Ride

I rode at Webster Park and Whiting Road Nature Preserve today just like the good old days.

It was a good ride. Everything is mostly the same but I saw some changes.

One thing I noticed were the "Grand Tour" signs in Webster Park. I'm pretty sure they're new to me, though the signs looked weathered, so I assume they've been there for years now. It seemed to be just the main trail. The trail itself isn't new.

There were also a few places where erosion over time had changes the trail a bit. Usually there was just more of a gully in the trail.

On one trail I know to be rooty, it was still rooty, but just different than I remembered. I think between erosion and roots growing, it just changed.

The last section of it had an incredibly difficult surface I wouldn't even try to attempt. It was practically a ladder of roots.

In Whiting I rode the Green trail out to the end where there is a bench, and then back.

I rode 6 miles.

Going For Speed

For whatever reason I had the thought of riding the neighboring neighborhood trail loop and doing laps to see if I could improve my speed. I wear my phone on my Camelbak strap and use MapMyRide to report my times and split speed at each mile.

Since I started on the road to get there, I would only consider miles that started and ended on the trail.

And even then, the miles would span different sections of the trail, which does have some elevation changes, so some miles probably would be inherently faster. But who cares, this is just for fun. 

Here are the results:

Mile	26er	Geared 27.5	% Increase
2	7.74	9.14	+18.1%
3	7.90	9.12	+15.4%
4	7.95	9.12	+14.7%
5	8.30	9.86	+18.8%

I think I have potential to increase my speed on the geared uni, but it's harder to control and feel confident on.

16th Unicycle Anniversary

 Kessa joined the tradition!

Kessa Learns to Ride

For the past month I have continued to ride here and there, but not any solo muni rides. I've been riding while Kessa runs, and we've biked together as well.

But the more exciting news is that Kessa got the itch to learn to ride a unicycle! After several evenings of practicing, she is now able to ride around the neighborhood! I've ridden a number of times side by side with her. Usually that's just under a mile and half. Pretty good for a new rider!

She needs to learn to free mount though, so she likes having me or Amy with her, for a shoulder to lean on.

Sydney also took a ride around the block. She hadn't ridden in years, but I guess it's like riding a bike!

High Speed Hojack

 With my newfound shifting skills, and finally some dry weather, I rode the Hojack again. Kessa joined me on her bike. This time I was hoping to be able to shift successfully whenever I needed. And for the most part, I did!  Very nice.

However, I had an incident at one point, about 1

/3 into the round trip. If I recall the circumstances, at a road crossing I had dismounted and when I went to remount, I was in the middle of the road and I failed and fell. It was a very quiet road and no cars were in sight. I dinged my knee on the road, but it wasn't too bad. When I went to try again, I found my Schlumpf hub was in a freewheeling mode. Turning the cranks just turned the cranks, not the wheel! That's not normal and not good. Shifting the button up and down did nothing. I tried like a dozen times, and bounced the tire and kicked the cranks hoping to dislodge whatever mechanism was getting hung up inside the hub. It made no difference. There was a wooden post nearby and I bumped the unicycle into it with some additional force, hitting the crank. It didn't seem to immediately help, but after pushing the buttons a few more times, the cranks were now engaging the hub. Although then as I turned it by hand it seemed to me it wasn't shifting out of high gear. After another dozen button pushes and questioning what to do, I realized it was in fact shifting properly again.

Although I was a bit on edge from that point on, I was able to ride and shift without incident. I'll have to check with people on the forums and see if there are any thoughts on this.

Overall, my ability to shift with near 100% success made the ride a lot more enjoyable.

My lower back muscles got fatigued and I need to keep working on my posture, I guess.

Over 12 miles.