Another two years have gone by, and another Unicon has come around. This time, it was held in the town of Steyr, Austria during July/August 2026.
Having attended every Unicon since Unicon 12 in Tokyo in 2004, this would be number 11 for me. That makes me somewhat of a veteran, but every Unicon is different, so I was looking forward to seeing what this one would bring.
It would also be the first Unicon I attended with my kids. I decided to bring Gryffin (7), Anthea (5) and Rupert (2), along with my wife Anna. The last Unicon she attended was in 2016, in San Sebastián. She seems to have a habit of being pregnant during Unicon!
Living so far away from most other unicyclists, Unicon is my one chance every two years to race against the best in the world. I was entered in the criterium, the 10 km and the standard road marathon. It was going to be very competitive, with most of the top European riders attending, so I trained as much as I could through the depths of the New Zealand winter.
My main focus this year was the 10 km standard class. I’ve generally done well in this event, finishing second at Unicon 21 in 2024, but this time there were five or six other riders I knew were capable of taking the win.
Arriving in Austria
It was the middle of the European heatwave, with temperatures well into the high 30s. Luckily, things cooled down during our first week in Austria.
Steyr is a beautiful historic town, with the old centre sitting at the confluence of two rivers. We stayed in a house owned by Irene Göd, a friend of unicyclist Tony Melton, who generously allowed our family to stay there.
We arrived in time to help out with registration, check out the Unicon race courses and get settled in. The traditional Unicon Parade of Nations took us through the city before finishing in the main square. Gryffin led the NZ contingent and carried the big NZ flag. It was good to catch up with many old friends from previous Unicons and unicycle tours.
Unfortunately, we didn’t realise there was an opening function in the hall, so we missed the official ceremony, as did a number of other unicyclists. Anyway, it was a good opportunity for ice cream instead!
10 km
My first race would be the 10 km. This is the biggest event at Unicon, with a standard (24″/125mm wheel) and unlimited class (any gearing/wheel/crank). I had switched from racing unlimited to standard class about 12yrs ago, but it was a fiercely competitive event, with about 250 riders taking part in the standard race.
The schedule had swapped the criterium and the 10 km around, so I didn’t have much time to get over the jet lag or properly check out the course. Luckily, we had arrived a day early.
The 10 km course started at the main Unicon venues, climbed sharply, then dropped gradually into some back streets around the river. It was a fun, twisty course.
I’m going to like this!
I did a comfortable lap at an average of 20.4 km/h, so I thought I was in with a chance of a top-three finish.
Race day turned out quite differently.
We would start with a loop around the stadium, with most of the top riders lined up on the front row. I’m generally a slow starter, but at least the track would be wide. I was in the front row, but with more than 80 riders in each start wave, it was going to be frantic.
Beep, beep, beep, beep, beeeeeep!
We were off.
I was immediately passed by some very excited and rather sketchy riders as they sprinted around the track. If I could just get out onto the road safely, I should be able to pull them all back.
Unfortunately, there was a big crash just 100 metres from the start, and I came off trying to avoid riding over someone.
Not great.
I remounted and found myself at the back of the entire field.
Argh. Not what I needed.
The top riders were already motoring off the front, but I started making my way through the field, passing perhaps 50 or 60 riders. I had the lead group in sight by the time we reached the short, sharp road climb, but I’d used a lot of my reserve just getting there.
There were still at least 15 riders ahead of me, but I found myself riding with Luis Albers (Germany), who had beaten me to gold at Unicon 21, and Fabián Reyes Toledo (Chile), who had finished just behind me in third.
OK, it might just be a rematch from 2024!
Fabian had also been caught up in the crash at the start.
As expected, a group of very fast French and Belgian riders were in the lead pack, along with a couple of Japanese riders. Christoph Hartmann (Germany), who has held the 10 km world record since 2016, came past me at that point, although he hadn’t been racing for some time.
I rode with him as we slowly picked off riders who had started too quickly.
By the second lap, I was still struggling to find my rhythm and came off twice on relatively easy turns. Luis and Fabián passed me, while the lead group was already too far ahead to chase down.
I slowed my pace to avoid making any more mistakes and gradually managed to get ahead of Luis and Fabian over the ensuing laps. By the fourth lap, I was pretty much riding by myself, so all I had to do was maintain my position.
The final turn into the stadium proved that I still wasn’t completely focussed, as I hit a bump and came off again!
Luckily, I had enough of a buffer over Fabián to make the final loop around the track and maintain my position.
Ninth overall, and first in the 40–49 age group.
My time was 31:03, well outside my target of 29:00–29:30.
Oh well!
Criterium
Next up was the criterium. I’m not much of a sprinter or a cornerer, so this was more of a fun event than one I took particularly seriously.
Again, it was run in waves. We had to finish in the top 10 in our heat to progress to the final. Our heat times would be used to rank us for the age-group awards, while our placing in the final would determine the overall Expert results.
Unlike a bicycle criterium, which usually involves racing around a city block, unicycle criteriums have much tighter turns, often around obstacles. This one was set up around the stadium using barriers that we had to weave through.
It was a really fun race, despite not being something I specialise in.
I had a front-row start, with all the other fast riders sprinting away and leaving me somewhere in the middle of the pack as we entered the stadium. From there, I gradually picked my way through the field until I was comfortably in the top four or five.
There was no need to push any harder. We would all progress to the final, and my age-group rivals were all behind me.
My kids had even managed to get out of bed for the early start and were cheering me on from the sidelines.
The final was intense, with all the fast kids disappearing up the road on the first lap. I cruised along in the middle of the pack, picked off a couple of riders near the end, and sprinted for a tenth-equal finish.
Not bad for an event I wasn’t particularly good at!
Exploring Steyr and Linz
There was a long break between the criterium and the marathon, so we spent some time exploring Steyr before heading to Linz for some sightseeing.
We took the kids to Grottenbahn, a little fairyland inside a mountain, and visited various museums.
I was entered for the mountain-unicycling, but thought I’d save my legs for the Marathon, so we headed to the venue at Wintergarten as volunteers instead. Turns out they had more marshals than they needed, so we explored the town and did some archery at the archery course on the mountain instead.
We also caught up with Josef Hager, a local unicyclist who had ridden with us in Cambodia. We spent the day lazing around in his garden and swimming in his pool. It was Rupert’s 2nd birthday, so he made an awesome Eton’s mess birthday cake for him! A great way to spend a very hot day!
Aside from sightseeing, we did watch some of the other events at Unicon, including the unicycle trials and freestyle events. I caught up with my fellow unitouring and unipacking enthusiasts, and we hosted a Unicon workshop on unipacking. Round-the-world unicyclist Norm Joe had made it to Unicon, and it was great catching up with him and his adventures. Unfortunately, it had to be cut short after being hit by a car.
Marathon
The marathon course was initially planned to start at the Unicon venue, head out onto back roads and then loop back. There was a fair amount of gravel riding, so I decided to use a Continental Speed King tyre.
It’s an older tyre that is no longer made, but it’s still the fastest-rolling and lightest cross-country mountain-bike tyre I’ve ever ridden.
I pumped it up and went out for a training ride.
Five metres later, it exploded.
I came off and rubbed myself along the road.
I had used the same setup at the last Unicon, but the bead must have stretched or been damaged. Combined with the hookless rim and the 50 psi I had pumped it to, it was clearly a bad combination.
Luckily, I’d brought along a Continental Terra Hardpack 700 × 50 tyre. It had a similar tread, although with a lower volume. It was also tubeless-ready, so it was a much tighter fit on the rim.
That should work.
I checked out the course. It was very pretty, but with the gravel section and narrow trails, it was going to be quite technical.
Then, a couple of days before the race, we found out that the course was being changed because of safety concerns. We had to pre-ride a different course.
Then there was another change the day before the race.
Argh!
I rode out to find the new start, but it was dark by the time I got there, so there would be no pre-ride for me.
As it turned out, it didn’t matter. The final course was one of the nicest road courses I’ve ridden at a Unicon.
There was no gravel section. Instead, we had wide, sweeping roads, no traffic, some gradual inclines and a couple of technical turns. We would do six laps of the 7 km course.
The start was, once again, fast and furious.
A lead group of four riders got away pretty quickly. Then it was me, Sylvain Gobron and Léo Fischer-Kintz in the chase group.
Not that we were doing much chasing.
More following, really.
Sylvain and Léo were both really strong, and I did my best to hang on to them for the first three or four laps, trying not to get dropped. I was already thinking about how I would get past them in a sprint finish when, suddenly, Sylvain dropped off our group.
OK. One less to contend with.
Léo was dropping me on the descents, but I would chase back on. With about two laps to go, I pushed hard on a climb and suddenly found myself alone.
OK. Didn’t expect that!
I kept pushing, trying to hold my position, and rode most of the final lap on my own.
I could hear Anna and the kids yelling from the sidelines as I sped past, although I was too focussed to see them.
The lead group of four finished 10–12 minutes ahead, but I was the best of the rest, crossing the line in fifth place in 1:42:42.
Interestingly, my marathon times have remained almost unchanged over the last 12 years, and that time would have been good enough for a top-three finish until fairly recently.
I’m not going slower.
The fastest riders are just getting faster.
24-hour World Record
After the marathon, I had a few days to rest before my final act of Unicon: an attempt at the 24-hour standard world record.
I’d been planning it for several months, and Unicon seemed like the perfect place to attempt it, with plenty of unicyclists around to provide support.
I’ll cover that separately, as it deserves its own blog post.
Homeward bound
After Unicon, we spent a day in Vienna before heading to Taiwan for a couple of days on the way back to New Zealand.
It was a long trip, but a very satisfying Unicon.
I’ve always wanted to take the kids to Unicon, so hopefully this experience inspires them to chase their own passions — wherever they might take them.