NAUCC 2005 - MUni and Trials Information

NAUCC 2005
MUni and Trials Information

There are not a lot of mountain unicyclists in northwestern Ohio. And our convention hosts, the Wood One Wheelers, have little or no experience with MUni or Trials, so they were reluctant to offer any of those events. Fortunately Wendy Grzych of the Redford Township Unicycle Club, a former Freestyle world champion, stepped up and offered to put together a day of MUni and Trials fun.

This turned out to be pretty difficult. After much research, Wendy and friends concluded that northwestern Ohio has very little to offer in terms of mountain biking. Finding a park that would allow organized unicycle competitions took a long time, and a lot of legwork on her part. Thanks, Wendy!

Location:
White Star Park, about 20 minutes northeast of Bowling Green, easy to get to.

Events:
Anticipated start time is 1:00pm, with a finish around dinnertime. Currently there are no schedule details beyond that. This is what has been planned:

- Cross Country Race: Wendy says, "There are no hills, so when I say 'cross-country,' I really mean a flat ride through grass/dirt! One little miniscule part of the trail actually is like a mountain bike trail with a little hill (woo-hoo!). The course will be about a mile, with a shorter version for 0-10 riders."

- Uphill and Downhill competitions: There is a sledding hill which will hopefully provide the challenge. It's made of sand and pebbles that's been experiencing some erosion from rain. It's not very steep but the terrain should make it interesting.

- Trials: This event will be focused more on beginner/intermediate Trials riders this year, as there is lack of experienced riders and equipment to set up obstacles. This was what Wendy said initially. More recently, she sent me the pictures below. I think we're going to be pleasantly surprised!

Please note, all information is subject to change, and may be updated here even during the convention.

Notes:
Bring bug repellent! The park contains a water-filled quarry, and apparently is popular with mosquitoes.

From Wendy: "We've rented the barn there for the day. It has seating for about 200 people with electricity and a grill that we may choose to use to make a hot dog-type dinner.

"In the portion of White Star Park that we're using, there's no cement, only a gravel driveway and a gravel parking area. The rest is all grass. There's a couple volleyball courts and a couple horseshoe pits. Across the road and around the corner there's lake for swimmers and a playground and stuff like that. But, the location is kinda cool because it's on the way to Cedar Point, where many of us are planning on going on Monday. Some people may want to move to a hotel closer to Cedar Point for Sunday night.

"We tried to set up a couple fun muni rides during other days of the events, but hit dead ends on every turn. There's a rock quarry not too far from Bowling Green, but we were informed that we'd have to stay on the boring part of it (the level dirt trail) and we not allowed to deviate from the trail in any way. We also tried to get a BMX track to ride on (RTUC rode on one last summer - it was a blast!), but they wouldn't let us on even for a few hours! We have some way cool rides here in Michigan, but the closest to Bowling Green is over an hours drive, so we didn't think there'd be enough interest to drive that far."

Group MUni rides during the convention:
From the above, you can see that there isn't much around. Much research has determined that the nearest known "good" trails are in the northeastern suburbs of Detroit; the closest of which is probably about an hour and a half away. If people are really interested in making a road trip. we can probably provide them with the necessary information and possibly a rider familiar with the area.

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NAUCC 2005 MUni and Trials Information

NAUCC 2005
MUni and Trials Information