Swiss freerider, Manuel Scheidegger, set a new World Record on Saturday for the longest distance wheelied on a bicycle in 1 hour. On Saturday night he smashed the previous record of 25.86km (16.06 miles) to set a new mark at 30.95km (19.23 miles), an increase of over 6km.
The attempt has to be completed in one wheelie and if the front wheel drops, the rider has to start again. Manuel set the record on a 400 metre running track in Gümligen, Switzerland and completed more than 77 laps in the 60 minute time limit.
It took Manuel 2 attempts to set the record. His first attempt on Friday night lasted 45 minutes and he was on track to beat the record but a mechanical issue meant he had to drop the front wheel. The whole team met again early on Saturday morning and the conditions seemed optimal but Maunel was struggling after only getting 2 hours sleep. He apparently said, "I only came here because you are here".
After a few warm-up rounds, Manuel decided to try for another attempt and despite some wobbles made it around the track for the whole hour and set the new record at nearly 31km.
A super-steep seat angle keeps Manuel in a comfortable position when the front wheel is raised.
Manuel set the record in support of
wheels4nepal. With the collected money, a bicycle workshop including rooms and tools will be built for young people in Nepal, so that they can train as bicycle mechanics. This is Manuel's second record of the summer after he set the
first wheelied Everest in June.
youtu.be/lvjLKvJW2p8
@pimpin-gimp: I do commute with my XC , slammed roadbike stem and some 45mm wide slicks to work. If it is flat I could make 30 easy, if there is no wind. The magical barrier for me is at 35, I could hold that for maybe half an hour and then drop back to 30.
Either way, this one is slightly quicker than the unicycle one hour record:
www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/farthest-distance-travelled-on-a-unicycle-in-one-hour
Not sure what type of unicycle it was, but a 36" wheeled road unicycle without gears can easily go that quick.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Fair enough most of us have access to bikes. Funny hough as unicycles don't need maintenance nor do they have components that wear much (unless you tend to idle a lot, in which case some parts of the tire will wear quicker) they can easily be shared between friends, borrowed and sold without much worry about damage or loss of value.
But would say that learning to unicycle is harder than learning to wheelie if your already a bike rider.
See how he's seated directly aligned with his rear cassette while sitting straight up - He basically turned his bike into a recumbent unicycle. It's the same sweet spot as wheelie-ing a wheel chair. Pretty cool and a ton of fun. You also look like a badass to all the neighborhood kids.
@Molesdigmyjumps: Cool you picked up something new during that time!
I also got to try out an electric uni at the interbike demo. In 10 minutes I was proficient enough to go in big circles!
The thing that does take more conscious practice is to freemount. Initially I was happy to just hold on to something, ride away and ride as far as I could until I came off and had to find a new spot to hold onto. But at some point it got annoying because when out on the trail, the spots where I could mount were near a tree which implied that I immediately had to cross a couple of roots. Which I wasn't able to. The standard mounting techniques didn't work for me (that is, I didn't manage to master them) until I saw some video instructions of Megan Rouch on youtube. She just grabs the tire when she mounts the muni. Even though it is uncommon, it worked for me so that's how I still mount. I'm not one of those who wants to learn every single freemount (unassisted mount) out there, I just want to ride trails. The smaller wheels are probably easier to mount, but for riding trails you need at least 24". Kris Holm used this for racing the BCBR too, though he was using his (pretty expensive) geared hub. Nowadays 27.5" and 29" are also being used for trail riding (and 36" for the smoother fast stuff) but I don't know of anyone who used those sizes to learn. 26" is slowly being phased out as 24" and 27.5" will continue to exist. To give you an idea of how quick 24" is, I once rode a trail in the dunes while a trailrunner (who claimed to be pretty fit) ran it. On the first climb he was ahead of me, but on the first descend I overtook him and has been ahead of him since then. I had to carry my muni on the steeper loose sand stuff and then still, I finished a few minutes in front of him (on a 12km trail in the dunes). I'd say this is probably a good speed for most of us. Imagine how quick you'd be when you switch to overdrive (1.5x on the geared hub).
Oops, got carried away. Long story short, if you want to learn to ride a unicycle, try it on a unicycle. Easiest is to start on 20". If you want to go straight to 24" because that's the smallest for riding trails, you'll learn it too but it will just be slightly harder. I don't know of anyone who started out riding on the bigger sizes. It should work eventually but the process may be a bit more frustrating until you've finally learned to freemount.
Wait, what I supposed to be doing?
"Ken Looi (New Zealand) covered 29.99 km (18.63 miles) on a unicycle in a 1 hour"
Which would be harder?