Fifteen year old, Samuel Farmer, from Scotland has just ridden from Lands End to John O’Groats on a unicycle - he is the youngest to do so. He did it in just 12.5 days.  Sam broke a Guinness World Record and raised money for the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at Southampton Hospital, Hampshire and The Peanut Ward at the Queen Victoria Hospital in East Grinstead. You can read about the ride at:

End to end

'Teenager completes unicycle End to End challenge in 12 days'

'Unicycling teen on course for Lands End to John O'Groats record' 

Jaryd Harris, who took out the Uninats 2009 Junior Champion award, has made headlines in the South West Rocks newspaper (see 28 July 2009).

Here are the results of competitions held at Uninats 2009

Winners of each event are the current Uninats Champions, and current Australian Champions if they are resident in Australia.

Standard skills

Sydney Unicycle Hockey caught the attention of local news recently. You can read about the team in The Glebe newspaper online, 'New in Newtown: hockey on one wheel' (although not very new, they have been playing for ten years!), and check out the awesome photos and video!

Cycling across this country is a big enough challenge for anyone but doing it on a unicycle takes real determination and hardy bike shorts. Twenty-four year old, Sid Rajan, is planning to do an Australian first by unicycling from Perth to Sydney, to raise funds for Australia's Humour Foundation Clown Doctors and an Indian Art of Living Foundation project. 

This amazing ride will be done in stages to accommodate Sid's university studies. The first stage from Perth to Adelaide will run over June and July, and he'll complete the second stage from Adelaide through Melbourne and Canberra to Sydney in November. Sid will start out with a support crew (big thanks to his mum and dad!) and then finish the ride on his own.

If you want to help out, come to the fundraiser in Melbourne on 7 August. The main event will be the live music of Better Than The Wizards.

Keep up with Sid on his blog: www.3oceansunicycletour.com

Some of the media coverage he's received so far:

The Morning Show on Channel 7

The Today Show on Channel 9

The Age

Last month, 7 unicyclists spent 12 days riding through northern India; we had a fantastic time. Since then, we've worked on assembling photos, newspaper articles etc and I'd like to share some of these with everyone.

First up, here is a listing of the participants, showing showing the tour's elevation profile, and a table of links to GPS data that Nathan Hoover assembled, with links to view each segment in GoogleEarth and GoogleMaps.

From the rider's point of view, this tour consisted of 7 riders (plus Jason Williams of Grasshopper Adventures on bike, 2 support vehicle drivers, and a local guide).

Here is Nathan Hoover's journal, which he wrote during the tour. Day 5 (3rd riding day) was the "money day", with a 40km climb that ascended a full 2000m. We got some great photos that day and it was incredible riding. We started that morning in the hot lowlands and finished in the afternoon in the Himalyas in a little town that could've easily been high in Nepal.

Ken Looi organised the tour and has more information available at the official website.

Ken Looi would like to extend a warm invitation to all AUS members to attend Unicon XV, The 15th Unicycle World Championships and Convention. It takes place in Wellington, New Zealand, from 27th December 2009 to 7 January 2010.

UNICON is the biggest event in Unicycling, with hundreds of unicyclists attending from up to 30 different countries. This is the first ever Southern Hemisphere UNICON, and the first UNICON held over New Year. Come and celebrate with other unicyclists, ride in spectacular scenery, duel it out on the hockey court, or just meet other unicyclists from around the world. It's a great opportunity to represent Australia in your sport, or enjoy the many unicycling activities so close to home.

Registrations are now open on the Unicon website: www.uniconxv.co.nz

Enter early and save with a reduced entry fee before 1 Sept 2009.

For more questions, email: unicon15@gmail.com

See you later this year!

Ken Looi
UNICON XV
Organising Committee

Emma sent in the first group shot from Uninats 2009. Click on the image for the full size version.

Image (C) 2009 Emma F

Tasmanian Unitour

After Uninats, Tony Melton and Tynan Rollo have headed straight to Tasmania  to join Aubin Gill and a few other keen Australian riders in a ride from Launceston to Hobart via the scenic route. You can follow their progress at the 2nd Tasmanian Unitour website.

India Unitour

Geoffrey Huntley from Sydney is with Ken Looi and 5 other big wheel riders in the last few days of their 12 day, 500km ride across north-eastern India. Internet access has been rare, but you can see some photos and follow their adventures on the Induni blog.

If you were awarded any ribbons or the Uninats medal and were not able to collect it at one of the presentations, we'll be posting it out to you at the address recorded for your membership. Make sure you let us know ASAP if you've moved and haven't updated your details.

For some reason we managed to run out of 2nd place ribbons, so we'll be ordering some more, which means it will be a few weeks before we can send those out - this will affect 2nd place winners in Trials, Street and Muni.

Cheers,
Cris