>Some guy just saw my unicycle while I bought a sandwich, and struck
>up a conversation with me. He claimed he had "not so long ago" seen a
>successful world record attempt on television.
>
>"About 1500" (!) unicyclists holding onto each other, all staying up
>at the same time, crossed a road.
>
>Can anyone give me any more details about this? When? How many
>unicycles? What lucky locality could manage to get 1500 unicyclists
>(not to mention their unicycles) together at the same time? I have my
>bags packed, and I am ready to move!
Has nobody responded to this post? If not, my response is below.
COOL! Someone in Australia saw the piece that Amazing Games did on
unicycling! This is an ESPN show that features unusual sports, and treats
them with respect. A crew from this show came to UNICON VI in Quebec, Canada
in 1992. They stayed for the first few days, but were unable to stay for any
artistic events or the final basketball games. This means that they only saw
half of what we do. However, they did a wonderful 10 minutes or so on
unicycle track and field, and on some of the other events there, including
the big group ride through Old Quebec.
Now for the 1500 riders. Put this in the 20' unicycle category. When most
people see a 6' unicycle, they tell people they saw a 10' unicycle. If they
see a 10' unicycle, they report that it was a 20 footer. We did a unicycle
chain at UNICON VI, based on the ones previously done by Sammy Hellwig in
Germany. His chains consisted of riders going separately through a small
gate, to count the number of unicyclists present at an event. In Quebec it
was decided to make it a "real" chain, and have all riders hold hands with
each other. Frankly, I didn't think it would work.
At the time, the total was not known to the camera crew. Bob Chandler said
that there were about 250 riders assembled for the chain. The actual number
was 191. The chain was over 100 meters long. It was so big, I ran as far
away from it as I could to get a picture of the whole thing, and I still
couldn't fit it all into my camera, and had to take two pictures. you can
see them on the cover of the UNICYCLING Quarterly issue that covered UNICON
VI. It took two tries, but the 191 unicyclists rode from one side of the
road to the other, and set a "hand holding" chain record that has not been
broken. Sammy Hellwig had 196 riders in one of his chains in Germany, but
they were not holding hands.
Stay on Top!
John Foss, the Uni-Cyclone
unicycle@aol.com