Posts by: Thomas Gossmann

  • January 11, 2015
    IUF

    IUF Trixionary

    I’m glad to announce the Trixionary is online and available to all unicyclists. The Trixionary is an online catalog to structure skills. Along with a trick many properties are saved, that describe each trick and also it’s relationship to other tricks. These relationships are very interessting and the graph is definitely a highlight of the Trixionary. Multimedia is supported through pictures and videos. Youtube and Vimeo are integrated out of the box and videos can also be uploaded manually. These videos can either demonstrate a trick or contain a tutorial to help visitors with learning instructions.

    Here are some examples that showcase the Trixionary very well:

    • Spin – This is the most complete example of almost all properties that are archiveable per trick at the moment.
    • Hickflip – Ever wondered of which parts all these Urban tricks are composed of? The Trixionary takes care of this.
    • Unispin – A trick with multiples? No problem.
    • Crankflip – Video and tutorial from Youtube.

    Please remember, this is an early version of the Trixionary, with also limited features. That means, at the moment there is only limited access for people who are able to edit the contents in the Trixionary. Though we are working on this and unicyclists who participated in the last two unicons will become access to the Trixionary later the year.
    For some features I was unsure how to correctly implement them. E.g. transitions are not shown in the graph at the moment. Transitions are tricks where the start and end position are different, here are some examples: Riding to 1ft riding, 90° Unispin, Backspin, 1ft Wheel Walk to Standwalk, … Though some of them are considered to more a transition than others in regards to different understandings. As such some transitions can be shown immediately when the graph loads others when you select a trick in the graph and then there may still be some more types of transitions. How to determine which of these transitions can be shown and how can this work? These are for sure sport scientific questions yet most of the functionality in the Trixionary is available because prior questions like these have been answered.

    Feedback is heartly welcomed. Please head over to the contact formular and send your inquiry.

    Benefits of the Trixionary

    At the IUF we have more plans on what we want to use the Trixionary for.

    • A place to collect and structure tricks, where interessted people can easily get the information they are looking for.
    • Help people learn unicycling by building a huge resource.
    • Education! This is a highly requested and wanted topic within the IUF. The Trixionary will become an important role here. Expect more plans on this later the year.
    • Science. The Trixionary is also a science tool. With all the properties saved, this allows certain operations to be handled with the Trixionary. Ever wondered about the difficulty of a trick? This question is unanswered, though with the Trixionary we have a chance to come closer to an answer.

    History of the Trixionary

    I would like to talk a little bit about the history of the Trixionary because it’s a long journey to where it is now. The first Trixionary was published in 2006 in german on einradfahren.de with a bigger update in 2010 after I become a unicycle freestyle coach and discovered some properties that tricks shared and connected them. The technical backend on einradfahren.de is outdated and had no future for further development. The IUF Trixionary is completely written from scratch on a new plattform called keeko. Also more research happened since 2010 which resulted in a write-up about structures in unicycling skills (german) in 2012. The IUF Trixionary is able to save all these new properties. More about the Trixionary can be read on my personal website (german) and an older blog post I wrote about the Trixionary (side-fact: the blog post from august 2012 mentions the re-release of the Trixionary at the IUF).

    I am proud and happy to release the Trixionary, the power it offers, the ways we plan to use it at the IUF and of course a place for unicyclists to get information about tricks.

    gossi

    » Read on
  • July 22, 2014
    IUF

    IUF related Workshops at Unicon 17

    Hey guys,

    David Weichenberger and me have prepared Workshops for Unicon 17 that are related to IUF topics and we would like to invite you to come and join us. The IUF meeting is too short to cover all what we want to talk about, so we created several workshops for certain topics. This is also an opportunity to have face-to-face discussion about rulebook topics (such as agegroups), that will save us a lot of time reading and writing afterwards.

    Unicon 17 Workshops are available on lanyrd: http://lanyrd.com/2014/unicon17/

    The Workshops may change in time and date, so please follow each link below to get the time, date and place.

    Grow the IUF

    I am IUF.

    You are IUF.

    We are IUF.

    Make the IUF to become dynamic and supported by all Unicyclist. All together we move towards our IUF-goals of a better unicycling sport.

    Join us for a discussion on how to change the IUF. Please provide ideas and worries you have about the IUF. Your Feedback is heard!

    Link to the Workshop: http://lanyrd.com/2014/unicon17/sdcdzr/

    Unicycling Spirit & Olympics

    You all know the unicycling spirit and this is for sure one of the reasons to visit Unicon. With Olympics in mind, where there can only one discipline become olympic – will this be a good idea? What are better alternatives.

    David has something to say about this. We bet you too! Join us and share your thoughts with other unicyclists.

    Link to the Workshop: http://lanyrd.com/2014/unicon17/sdcdzt/

    New Freestyle Judging System (Prototype ready!)

    After a couple of years of research and understanding freestyle, gossi created a new prototype for a freestyle judging system. It’s been written from scratch to really honour the sport achievement of freestylers.

    This talk will include:
    – Explaining freestyle – the way it really is
    – A short analysis on the current freestyle judging system and what it actually judges (hint: decorations)
    – Introduce the prototype
    – How to develop and improve the prototype after unicon
    – Discussion round afterwards

    Link to the Workshop: http://lanyrd.com/2014/unicon17/sdbxdx/

    Unicycling Rules & Development

    Developing Rules is a complex and endurance process with a high risk to get something wrong very easily. Unicycling rules never shined in their development, yet we are testing our rules at world championships. There is a high need to change that process, to deliver stable, reliable and tested rules for unicyclists.

    Join in to learn what’s necessary for developing rules and discuss with all attendees ideas on how to develop next generation unicycling rules.

    Link to the Workshop: http://lanyrd.com/2014/unicon17/sdcdzw/

    Age Groups Redesign & Kids Oriented Unicycling

    Why would the IUF prescribe age groups? Is it to distribute the available awards evenly across the age spectrum of participants? Or is it to honour/acknowledge the inherent differences in physical capabilities that depend upon age? Or perhaps a bit of both? Either way, have age group boundaries been based on scientific analysis? Also, would we want to extend the age groups to the “older” age brackets? If so, how? And should age group boundaries perhaps be the same from event to event, and/or between disciplines?

    The IUF Board have requested Klaas Bil and Benoit Gonneville Damme to organise this workshop at Unicon to establish an “Age Group Redesign” committee. This committee should work together remotely during the remainder of 2014 to fundamentally address all age group issues, and hopefully report their conclusions and recommendations to the IUF Board early 2015. We seek interested participants!

    But wait, there is more. David works himself into a very interessting and uprising topic, which is kids oriented sports. Originally developed for athletics in germany and because of its succcess instantly adopted by soccer, wrestling, gymnastics and more are joining in. The revolutionary, remarkable and brilliant concept behind this idea, is to create events for kids which support their natural growth by setting up relevant competitions, giving them a proper education. It’s also time for unicyclists to jump on that train and work out competitions that work for young unicyclists instead of working against them, hindering their education. Of course, as you might already guessed, this also has a huge impact on age groups as well.

    Links to the Workshop: http://lanyrd.com/2014/unicon17/sdcdzx/

    IUF Meeting

     The biannual IUF meeting at Unicon with news and updates.

    Link to the Workshop: http://lanyrd.com/2014/unicon17/sdcfgw/

     

    That’s it. We are heavily excited about Unicon, to meet interessting people and watch high quality unicycling. See you in Montreal!

    gossi

    » Read on
  • February 17, 2014

    Unicon 16 Freestyle Videos


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    Dear Unicyclists,

    It’s been a long time since Unicon 16 and Unicon 17 comes into sight. In Brixen the guys from unicycle.tv recorded tons of footage from all disciplines, the whole footage has a size of incredible 700 GB and has a very good video quality (1080p @ 25fps with 35-40 MBps). Jess Riegel made an exceptional documentary with that material. However, I realized a big pile of footage was untouched. In september 2013 I decided to look into it, because I (as a freestyler) was interessted in the routines from Unicon 16. The raw videos are great and it is a pity nobody breathed life into it. I m always looking forward to great freestyle videos and started editing right away. …

    » Read on
  • December 29, 2013
    IUF

    Unicon 17 “Early Bird” Registration Periods ends

    Hello fellow unicyclists,

    It is with excitement that we would like to remind you that the first registration period for Unicon 17 is ending in less than 2 days. We urge you to go register and to pay your registration fees before December 31st if you are planning on attending the event. After this date, registration prices will go up.

    Unicon 17 currently has a little more than 800 unicyclists registered to take part in this incredible event, sharing a passion for one wheel. Come and join them to discover next summer our beautiful city of Montréal!

    You can register online here: http://unicon17.ca/en/registration

    What else? In early 2014, you can expect more venues announcement, accommodation updates, country limitations adjustments and much more.

    We would like to wish you all happy holidays!

    » Read on
  • August 1, 2013
    IUF

    Redesign of the IUF Website


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    Unicycle star designer Tamás Kiss redesigned the IUF website and he did an amazing job. The new color scheme breathes freshness into the new website and creates a more vital experience. With the new typeface, we stop the boredom that didn’t distinct the IUF website from others.

    » Read on
  • New Freestyle Competition: X-Style


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    X-Style

    Got a cool Trick? Show it!

    Felix and gossi are developing a new competition for freestylers. It’s all about skills, neither dismounts nor presentation are judged. This creates space for new, unfinished, risky and unsafe skills, which are just too fresh to show in a freestyle competition. Other riders should get inspired instantly. This new discipline finally allows to show off those skills in competition. …

    » Read on
  • September 4, 2011

    Skill Level Prototypes, Final Sprint


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    Hey guys,

    we got another lot of Feedback and are about to release the next prototypes. If there is not much negative feedback on them, we consider them as final versions.

    Here they are: …

    » Read on
  • Skill Level Prototypes, Lap 5


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    Hey everybody,

    the Skill Level Development Committee has taken a break over the last month but we are back and happy to continue with our work towards new Skill Levels. We will continue with releasing prototypes.

    We love your Feedback …

    » Read on