Hey,

Just a short post to tell you that I am still alive. I thought the beginning of my semester in architecture would be quite relax, but not at all ! It has only been three days, and I already have a 1:100 model of a house to show tomorrow, and a couple of long-term works in different classes.

The only connexion I have had with unicycling in the last week has been the organization of Unicon 17, which is going well. I hope to be able to ride more next week though, probably with Ed before he begins his next semester.

Before I let you go and to make you dream of Spain with me, here is a picture of that residence I am currently studying :

House in Corrubedo, David Chipperfield

Hugo

Hey,

I am back in Montreal, after one month being out of the country.

Like you know, I was at Unicon XV in New-Zealand for 10 days, in Wellington. After that, I travelled in all the country for 2 other weeks. Then, I spent 2 days in Los Angeles while transiting from Auckland to Montreal. I really enjoyed my trip, but it feels good to be back home. Plus, I missed one week of school and did not want to miss more.

As soon as I get some time, I will edit the footage I got from Unicon and post-Unicon. I do not have a lot, since I was often competing or riding, and after the championships, I was tired all the time. I found it hard to get some motivation to go out and film. Still, I hope you will enjoy it.

That’s all for now folks.

Hugo

Hey,

After one month in Europe, I am now back in Québec. It was an amazing trip, during Unicon as well as before and after with my girlfriend. It was so great to meet with every one once again after a year (people from NAUCC 2011) or even more. I ended up competing only in trials, street, high jump and long jump and muni obstacles, because I sprained some of my toes on my left foot during trials, my first competition. I prefered to take it easy for the rest of the week, to be in good shape for street at the end of Unicon.

Talking about street, I finished 7th over all in the expert category. My detailed results were 6th in manny pads, 14th in stairs and 5th in grinds. I am way happy with my result, as I was hopping for top 10, but I should have done better in the stairs. This is usually were I am the best, but I started in this zone without being really warmed up with my 20″, and messed up on my first few tricks. It got me a bit discouraged I think, but I still managed to land a few nice tricks, such as a shifty 9-2 (90 degrees to one side, 270 to the other side, landing backward) down the 5 set and a bluntslide on the 7 set. For my last trick, I landed a 540 down the 5 set, signature trick.

For my last trick in the grind zone, I landed on my second try a doubleflip out of a grind, a trick I had not tried for atleast a year. In the manny pads zone, I tried a hick triple backflip once on my heavy unicycle, then switched for my two other attempts for Eli Brill’s lightweight unicycle. I got very close on my last attempt, both feet on the pedals, but could not hop out of it.

I loved my experience in the street competition. All the riders were all so kind and respectful as usual, the only thing that had changed from NAUCC’s or last Unicon was the level of riding, which was so, so high. I have so much respect for all these guys (and girls ! I was judge for that part, and was really impressed too), putting in a lot of effort to reach that level of perfection in their own particular and unique style. Right after the finalists were announced, I was kind of dissappointed to not have made it, but thinking about it, I realize that these 6 guys deserved it a lot more than I did, and was very happy for them.

My other major event was long jump, not that I trained much for it though. During the prelims, I was jumping with Anton Juncher, Laust Juncher, Jonas Joergensen and Adrien Delecroix and managed to break my personal record with a hop of 360cm. I stopped at this point as I was the only one left, even though I had still 2 attempts left. This was probably due to the fact that we “only” had 25m of run up during the prelims, making it hard for Jonas to accelerate with his 26″ with 110mm cranks. For the finals, we talked to the event director and we had pretty much unlimited distance for our run up, but unfortunatly I only got 355cm, while Jonas kept going and ended up with 380cm, a new world record ! I am pretty sure that he could have gotten more, but since he is not practicing long jump either, I feel that he is not that consistant with his hops, sometimes over hopping, other times being very short. Anyhow, this guy is a real beast ! The podium was thus Jonas in 1st, myself in 2nd and Adrien in 3rd. Unfortunatly, Anton sprained his wrist a couple of minutes before the finals (and almost landing a 340cm hop !) and could not compete.

I think that for my next competition, I will try a similar set up to his, 24″ with 110mm cranks just to see how much I can get. And my next competition turns out to be the CMQ, the annual Québec competition in Montréal, which will be happening from the 24th to the 26th of August. I would love to see all of you guys there, for more details you can visit the website at www.cmq.monotreal.ca or our forum at www.monotreal.com .

Finally, if you did not already know, Monotréal was pleased to learn that we were chosen to host Unicon 17, in 2014. Benoit and I, with the help of many people forming a great organizing team, will be taking care of every step of the process for the next two years. There will be more details to come, as well the presentation we showed during the IUF meeting at Unicon 16.

Hope to see you next week end at the CMQ,

Hugo