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You won't believe which wheel won the EUC Grand Prix!


who_the

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Or, maybe you will...

Sorry not sorry for the clickbait subject line.

HINT: It wasn't a Gotway.

Lots more on this SUPER fun and 100-percent safe event to come, including a flood of video. :)

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Good guess! But no.

The champion of the 2019 Electric Unicycle Grand Prix held in Oakland, Calif. on Saturday is Freeman Murray, riding with unmatched skill and speed on a Kingsong 18L. Freeman was able to consistently carry the most speed through the slalom and was the fastest rider all day. We ran heats of five laps around the course, expertly and generously organized by @Kai Sosceles, to whom we all owe a debt of gratitude. Freeman ran a 2:57.76 in the five-racer final to take home the title and a $250 cash prize.

Little old me had to push my MSuperX as far as I could to finish less than three seconds behind Freeman in second place with a time of 3:00.65. It was a pleasure to buy a post-race round for some of my fellow racers with the $150 I took home for second. Third place (a Kingsong 18XL) got $100 and was just two seconds behind me, so I needed every bit of everything I had.

The winning and prizes was very cool, but the most important part of Saturday was 1) it was 100-percent safe, with zero injuries or serious crashes and 2) amazing fun for all. All riders rode within the capabilities of themselves and their equipment, and everybody shared a special moment highlighting all the best things about our weird little hobby.

I'll put up a few videos here, I'm sure there will be more to come as everyone processes their work.

But I'll share my favorite quick story from the whole event: About 90 minutes in, during a break in the racing, an East Bay Municipal Park District police officer pulls into the parking lot. Walks up to us, friendly but serious. Kai explains what we were up to, and then the officer tells us that electric vehicles are not allowed on part of our course (the back stretch, a shared bike path). He told us he was going to check some regulations in his car, so we waited. As we wait, another officer pulls up, and we're thinking we're shut down for sure.

After a few minutes of discussion, the officer walks back over. He tells us:

"So, we had some busybody, umm, citizen, call in and report you guys, because they weren't having as much fun as you were. And, we're going to leave now."

And they did! He smiled, went back to his car, and they drove off. We finished the final heats after the tacit approval of some very cool cops!

Final heat, raw 360-degree video:

 

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Cannot wait to do this again! Was so great to meet all of you and ride together! Congratulations on the 2nd place prize, Jesse and thanks for the welcoming vibes & commeridery! Best part of it all for me is that my daughter is now fired up to learn! Thanks to Ron and CJ for helping her and my wife out! And another big thanks to Kai for including my daughter in the squirt gun mayhem. 😊

IMG_20190413_144607490.jpg

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21 minutes ago, D3m0nzz said:

This is amazing and inspirational! Will start looking into setting up my own event in Boston...

@D3m0nzz I've got a friend in Phoenix who wants to set one up too. It'd be amazing if more happened and we all teamed up on an organizational level to do stuff like regional -> national -> international races. Please contact me with any questions you have and I'll do my best to help out from the experience I had setting this one up. 

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14 minutes ago, Kai Sosceles said:

 I've got a friend in Phoenix who wants to set one up too. It'd be amazing if more happened and we all teamed up on an organizational level to do stuff like regional -> national -> international races. Please contact me with any questions you have and I'll do my best to help out from the experience I had setting this one up.  

We've already got some folks interested in sponsoring this too which can help bear the burden for future events. Check out the comment from RevRides in the video comments. Many more sponsors are needed, but it's already working!

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5 minutes ago, Alien Rides said:

We've already got some folks interested in sponsoring this too which can help bear the burden for future events. Check out the comment from RevRides in the video comments. Many more sponsors are needed, but it's already working!

Nice. :-) Putting them in my back pocket. Thanks for making the connection. 👍

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On 4/14/2019 at 10:13 AM, who_the said:

Or, maybe you will...

Sorry not sorry for the clickbait subject line.

HINT: It wasn't a Gotway.

Lots more on this SUPER fun and 100-percent safe event to come, including a flood of video. :)

It's not your equipment that matters, it's how you use it. At least, that's what I'm always told. :efee8319ab:

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On 4/14/2019 at 1:13 PM, who_the said:

HINT: It was a GotWay 

......................  s SUPER fun .............

I Got Way too Super excited and misread your post. I had tunnel vision and only saw what I wanted to see. :innocent1:  

 

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