1st Annual Yonkers Race

Today was a first for me: a unicycle race with a cash prize.

Organized by the friend of one of our club members, the race was meant to draw some needed attention to the beautified (and beautiful) downtown area of Yonkers. A guy named John contacted me to ask if I could summon as many unicyclists as possible to participate in the race. I was skeptical -- it's one thing to get people to meet at Grant's Tomb, but Yonkers is a bit out of the way, and the time (10 am) didn't help either. We managed to get there -- in my case, this involved an extra hour's drive to avoid the Tappan Zee bridge only to run into a delay at the GWB -- and by 11 am, the races were over, prizes distributed, and photos taken. Again I hit traffic getting home, but I did manage to get Emmett to his inaugural soccer game in time.

The race was meant to be similar in length to a 10K, about 6.2 miles. John measured the track and found it to be just over three-quarters of a mile. We decided to make the race 2 laps for kids (under-14s) and 6 laps for the rest of us. We ran the kids' race first in order to lessen the chances of a collision since the track was fairly narrow at points. Emmett did fine, winning $20 while riding for the first time on his new 20" uni -- I accompanied him thruout the ride -- and Fiona did well enough to come in 2nd of 5 girls, good for a $40 prize. Because the route wound thru a garden at one point and had a few other twists, my speedy guni was a poor match for the conditions, but I'm not sure I could have done as well as my brother -- he finished first by a wide marge. He and I discussed later how the kid in charge of the laps seems to have made a mistake that caused all of us to ride one less time around, so in the end it appears that my brother's winning time of 16 minutes was for a course a bit less than 4 miles long. He came away with a $50 cash prize and a $75 gift certif for a restaurant nearby.

I was happy that we got so many riders, mostly from our club...twenty in all. We all got medallions, courtesy of the organizer, and more than half of the participants (including all of the kids) got cash prizes from a fund of over $400. The day was gorgeous, too. The only thing I was disappointed by was the almost non-existent public turnout, including a lack of press coverage. Ah well...next time.