Last Post of 2019

“We're leaving together, but still it's farewell."

These were the lyrics on our mind as my mom, dad, sister and I made our way onto Delta Flight 1277 bound for the great Pacific Northwest. It was the day after Christmas, and we hardly had time to digest the sensory overload of this major holiday. The plan was to spend a few quality days of rest and relaxation before parting ways for the next few months.

But before the departure we were hard at work. Pushing up against Christmas day itself, we did our best to make our arrangements, assemble my gear, and prepare for a year away from home. A year away from home. Hmm, a year away from home. That’s some heavy stuff. I was keenly aware of the slew of “lasts.” The last night in my bed for a year, the last time in my car, the last time snuggling my dogs, the last time hanging with my grandparents and extended family, the last time in my hometown. I’m about to know the true meaning of a year’s length.

But clashing with this sentimentality and sadness was another feeling, vaguely familiar and recently supressed. It’s a feeling of exhilaration, of travel and the unknown. This spark of freedom was having a profound effect at a dire time. A firestorm of possibility was opening the gates to my future, which have increasingly felt more and more sealed. After getting out of school, I’ve had this sensation of forboding, like reaching the tapering end of a cave system and knowing that my fate was defined and decided. The future was becoming more and more of a sentence and less of a gift. But out of the peripheies appeared this vision: the promise of potential.

So, with these thoughts in mind, I set about assembling the essentials. First and foremost was the need to modify the unicycle a tad to carry a bit of gear (and also to provide an answer for the ubiquitous “where will you put your gear” question). After an unecessarily long snafu involving a damaged shipment from Unicycle.com, I finally recieved a functioning t-bar touring handle set that my dad and I could transform into a long-distance luggage rack. My dad, with this enviable sense of mechanics and creativity, decided that mounting a small board on the back bar would be the best solution. Our materials? An old skim board, some bolts, a saw, and a drill. Here’s how it went down:

Surfin’ USA

Yin and Yang

Zen and the Art of Unicycle Maintenance

Final Measurements

And when we put it together, it looked a little something like this:

Who needs another wheel?

So now we had our machine. For those nerdy enough to be curious, here are the specs of my uni, The Battlestar:

-36” Nimbus Nightrider Tires
-Nimbus Stealth Wheel
-Kris Holm Moment Cranks
-Odyssey Pedals
-Magura tomac caliper break
-Nimbus Stadium Saddle
-Nimbus Shadow Handleset

The rig is a bit of a frankenstein, and I bought it used, so I am unsure about the source of the fork/frame and hub.

And here comes the obligatory gear list:

Equipment

-Osprey Exos 48 liter pack with waterproof Osprey cover
-Two Dry Bags
-Bontrager Solstice MIPS helmet in a visual assault neon yellow
-Padded Scope Case (waterproofed with Scotchguard)
-Vortex Viper 15-45X65 Angled Spotting Scope
-Vortex Summit SS-P lightweight tripod
-Phoneskope adapter
-Nikon Monarch 5 8X42 Binoculars with harness
-Crosstour 1080p action camera with several mounts
-iPad Mini with case
-iPhone X
-Geyes foldable bluetooth keyboard (which I am using now)
-Two pairs of headphones
-Two Apple charging cables with blocks
-Two Micro USB charging cables
-Spot Gen3 GPS Tracker
-Three liter Camelbak water bladder with cleaning tabs
-Iodine water tablets
-Black Diamond Revolt Headlamp
-Two Bontrager rechargeable daytime bike lights
-Bike Flashlight
-NEBO rechargeable flashlight
-Ink Pen
-Tiny Pink Pencil
-Rite in the Rain Birder’s Journal
-ABA Trip List
-Wallet
-Two tubes of chapstick
-Aleve
-Lightweight Medical Kit
-Bungee Cords
-Mitre Lightweight Pump
-Two 36’’ tubes
-Patch Kit
-Two Park Tool Alan Wrench sets
-Park Tool Tire Remover Tools
-Glucose Gel
-Microfiber Cloth
-Lens Pen
-Spare nuts, washers, and bolts
-Extra Velcro
-DIY mirror wristband
-Toiletry Bag with Assorted Toiletries
-One rock that my sister wanted me to take

Clothing

-One Pair of Boots
-One Pair of Crocs
-One snap-back hat
-One beanie
-One pair of pajama pants
-Two pairs of underwear
-Two pairs of compression shorts
-Longjohns
-Two pairs of Columbia socks
-One pair of Sealskinz All-weather gloves
-Ear-warmers
-One Bandana
-Three T-shirts
-Two long-sleeved shirts (one a turtleneck)
-Two pairs of lightweight shorts
-One pair of workout shorts
-One pair of lightweight pants
-One pair of heavy pants
-One cycling bib
-Two cycling leg sleeves
-One lightweight jacket
-One midweight jacket
-One heavy jacket
-One lined raincoat
-One rain shell

It’s really not as much stuff as it sounds like. In fact, it’s all that I need to survive, apart from shelter, food, water, and, most importantly, BIRDS.

In terms of spending, I really lucked out. I’ll keep a running expense list going to be totaled at the end of the year. I think that my backpack will be my new best friend. My buddy John Mark conveniently works for an outfitters store, and he got me a killer deal on that thing, so thanks, John Mark!

Also, you may have seen that in my before photo I was wearing my cycling outfit. Before this gig, I have never worn a cycling bib, and I do not tend to wear tight clothes in general. It is such an odd sensation! I’m not sure if it prepares me as much to ride a unicycle as it would prepare me to take a high dive or play polo.

Just as any programming goes, there is always a time for advertisements. I recently added another charity to my charity page. It’s called People for Bikes, and it’s an organization that promotes biking infrastructure in the US. I realized that my design for a Big Year really ought to highlight the need for safe biking space, and these guys are the foremost experts on that kind of thing:

https://charity.gofundme.com/o/en/campaign/2020-the-vision-biking

Here’s a cool anecdote to conclude this post. I became so enchanted by Ed Pratt’s unicycling across the USA series that I paid up and became a patron. This enabled me to see an episode in advance, and, more importantly, reach out to Ed personally. You know fate is trying to tell you something when your inbox looks like mine did on December 20th.

I hope that everyone had a wonderful and safe Christmas season, and I look forward to reuniting with Augusta and all of its special inhabitants next Christmas! Happy Joe Stevenson Day Augustans!

Christmas in the Rearview

On my next post I’ll glaze over my first few days in Washington and share my feelings as this rocket prepares to launch.

I hope that everyone has a Happy New Year and may 2020 be a special and blessed year for you! If you have been touched in some way by my undertaking, please do consider giving to one of my charities. It may change someone’s life!

Preparations: November and December

Man it's getting close to the departure day. I feel a strange mix of angst to begin and hesitance to commence. It's so easy to feel overwhelmed when I am confronted with the immensity of the project, but I have to quickly remind myself that when viewed on a day-by-day basis, this Big Year will be a manageable reality. But still, I cannot help but feel the onset of nerves when I see a dealer tag on a new car with a January 2020 date. While that person is ripping their hair out at a DMV to avoid getting pulled over for a DIY "tag applied for" placeholder, I'll be making huge strategic moves or even undertaking this thing. Am I ready??

This pendulum of emotions is easier to neutralize when I am conscious. Sleeping is another story. With each passing December day, hours of sleep come less easily. Night after night I find myself in a dream state, only to be jolted to reality by the sudden awareness of some piece of equipment that I have yet to secure. Curse you phonescope adapters and fingernail clippers. Just let me sleep in peace!

Alright alright. Let's get back to the reality of the moment with an announcement about dollas. I have finally arranged for donations to be made to either the Nature Conservancy or the American Birding Association (or both if you're feeling really generous in this season of giving). I'm posting links below to both of these options but have also added a portal through a tab on the blog.

https://charity.gofundme.com/o/en/campaign/2020-the-vision-conservation

https://charity.gofundme.com/o/en/campaign/2020-the-vision-birding

So give your hearts out. These are two seriously legit organizations. The Nature Conservancy promotes the conservation of healthy natural systems through protection and wise management, and the American Birding Association represents the face of birding the the United States. Both are worthy of whatever money you can spare, and I honestly appreciate donations to both equally. In their essence, both groups are nature-centric, and they want to see the appreciation of nature encouraged and popularized.

So what am I getting down to in crunch time? Making arrangements, making purchases, and making memories. I'm scrambling to get all of my gear. Oh, I also got some cards made to be especially official. I've also discovered that Ed Platt, that British cat that just unicycled around the world, is releasing video episodes of his travels through the United States. This guy is quickly becoming a personal hero. I mean just check out his travel through the Mojave:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLgKfYPlN08

What a cool series. I'm amazed that it is self-shot.

In my next blog, I will post photos of my final rig and my full equipment spread (with an accompanying list). Catch you then.

Me Before a 500+ Species Year (Photo by Traci Moss)

Preparations: September and October

This one will be short and sweet! September and October were pretty slow months in terms of preparation. The single greatest action taken for the Big Year was purchasing tickets to fly out to Seattle the day after Christmas. I am so lucky to have my mom, dad, and sister joining me on the way out. They are sacrificing their post-Christmas decompression time and opting for stress-inducing air travel to be with me for a few more days of togetherness before my official start.

So if you thought that I was just dreaming out loud all of this time, think again. It's real, it's official, and it's set in stone. I look forward to what this year brings, and I hope that you do too.

Getting my sea legs (Photo by Traci Moss)

In the meantime, check out this sweet video that I was lucky to be a part of. It helps to explain one of modern life's greatest mysteries: what exactly is birding?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luJ49BwQ2u4


Whenever the subject of my adventure comes up in conversation, one of the main questions that I get is will I set a world record for unicycling. I could never answer this question accurately because I had never taken the time to look it up. Record-breaking just isn't one of my motivations. In fact, I had hardly looked up distance unicycling in general, partly because I was afraid that it would somehow dissuade me from my dream. I was grasping to faith in the idea through ignorance, but I eventually did break down to do some skimming on the subject.

So glad that I'm not looking for counseling on this subject

In all fairness, I cannot truly be surprised that the top hit is long-distance relationships and not long-distance unicycling. Still not sure how long-distance lamps rank above long-distance unicycling or really even what that is, but maybe, just maybe, this whole thing will shift Googles engines to favor one-wheeled nonsense. 

But back to what I really set out to find. It turns out that the Guinness Book of World Records website lists Lars Clausen's 2002 transcontinental American journey as the record holder. He traveled 9,125 miles over the course of eightish months. 

Still, this seems like an outdated record. According to Cary Gray's blog, his unicycle journey of 9,126 miles through North and Central America broke the Guinness World Record in 2014.

But wait, from 2015 to 2018 a British youngster named Ed Pratt circumnavigated the Earth on his 36-inch touring unicycle. I'm no mathematician, but a route circling the Earth must have exceeded 10,000 miles. Surely he owns the title that Guinness has the power to bestow.

So as you can see, I am in good company. I'm comforted by the fact that others have pedaled before me and that my own undertaking is nowhere near as daunting as theirs temporally, spatially, and conceptually. Yeah, I like unicycling, but I also like the prospect of returning home in good time. 

See you on the next post.