| Idiots On Unicycles |
 Challenge 13th/14th June 1998: |
|
| Background:
What is the 'Polaris' ? The Polaris is best described as a Mountain Biking orienteering event. The basics are as follows: there are a series of check points worth differing amount of points, the check points are spread over a large area, such that its near impossible to visit all of them in the allocated time. It's a two day event, 7 hours on the Saturday, and 5 hours on the Sunday. Heavy time penalties are imposed for turning up late. Before the start, you get the grid references of all the check points, but only on the start will you find out which check points are 'open' - so you can't plan precisely your action plan until the start, whilst the clock is ticking…. There are at present 3 such events per year: spring, summer, and autumn. The spring and autumn events require you to take a minimum of kit (tent, cooking stuff, sleeping bag etc) such that you spend the Saturday night at a campsite location only revealed to you at the start. This makes the summer event easier going as you return to the same start spot, and you don't have to carry 20Kg of stuff….
Why do it ?
Because its fun. Many different people do the Polaris, it's not like a race because of the orienteering element - navigational errors often cost people a lot. It's a challenge.. Why do it on a Unicycle ?
One year ago, I did the Polaris on a Bike. I enjoyed it very much. But cycling across the moors, we saw a Unicyclist - I thought it was so surreal; this man in the middle of nowhere on a unicycle, I thought to myself I want to do that. Bagged together with the fact that Unicycling is something I always wanted to have a go at, it was destiny. So here we are 1 year later a passing thought becomes reality. Why should you do it on a Unicycle: Maybe you think you're an MTB god, done it all, the best. Well make your life harder ! Try to beat other MTB'ers on a Unicycle ! My "raison d'être" is that I'm never going to be any good on an MTB, so I might as well excel at something else. Besides it's a real laugh, there's a lot of fun to be had unicycling. |
| 
|
| How did we do ?
Originally there we were supposed to be 2 teams, but Vern broke his collar bone a few weeks back, so that left three. A team of two, myself and Ross (no.350), and a solo team: Paul (no.372). We planned our whole route such that if things went wrong we could complete our trip at a fast walking pace. One the first day we collected 50 points - about half what I would have got on a 'bike'. We did spend a lot of time walking along the real rough stuff - mind so did a lot of MTB'ers - of course we have an advantage here, pushing a Uni isn't very hard going. We got back with an hour to spare. My legs were like steel, I really didn't think we'd do a lot on the Sunday, but we went out and did it all over again to collect a limp 30 points, with 40 minutes to spare. Paul however went for glory and collected 40 points and came back with 15 mins to spare. We're not alone ! In total there were 4 Unicycle teams. Leo and Dave completed the Unicycle/Bicycle team - which we thought a bit of a cheat, but hey, at the end of day a unicycle had to cover the same distance, needless to say they did better than us, I think they bagged around 130 points in total. Not forgetting Paul and Sarah, a storming team who, well, erm, beat us too, and our excuse of 'this is our first Polaris on Unicycles' didn't wash with them as it was their first too. To our astonishment Roger Davies didn't make an appearance, apparently he entered too late, and since the team numbers are limited…… This is just as well, as he would have certainly put us to shame anyway. Since there were only 4 unicycle teams, there wasn't a separate category, so I have formulated one: Results: |
| Team Members | Team No. | Results | Total Time |
| Leo & Dave | 227 | 120 | 09:49 |
| Paul Selwood & Sarah Miller | 368 | 110 | 09:56 |
| Paul Richards | 372 | 90 | 09:10 |
| Simon Greenway & Ross Staton | 350 | 80 | 09:34 |
| To see how we did realistically you, can compare our performance against every one else here.
DMATU performance: After I put the great knobbly tyre on it, the what I thought was 'good clearance' turned out to be little over 15mm between tyre and frame. This worried me a little, as I thought it would get clogged up, but it didn't. On the first day I found the spokes a little loose, as they creaked a little, but as there are 48 of them it didn't worry me (to give DM credit, he did say he built it 4 times to get it perfectly true). Later on in the evening after a few beers I let Leo loose with his spoke key, which did the trick (He assured me he'd built his own wheel). Other than that it was great. The Vredestein tyre is amazing on gravel, Paul and Sarah liked my Pedals, which grip even in slippy mud. I suffered a little saddle sore, but after 20-30Km on the saddle - doesn't everyone ? Will we do it Again ? Erm, after the rain, the mud, legs which are broken, erm, YES ! |
| Fancy The Polaris ? Madness on one wheel, time to go back.. |