Merrylees to 'Ride the Lobster'
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Bill Merrylees of East Montpelier rides around the gym at the Montpelier Recreation Center on a large unicycle with a 36-inch diameter wheel, the kind Merrylees will use this June on the 480-mile Ride the Lobster trans-Nova Scotia unicycle race. Stefan Hard/Times Argus |
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By Susan Allen Times Argus Editor - Published: January 7, 2008
MONTPELIER – In June, Bill Merrylees and two teammates will head to Nova Scotia for one wild ride – the first-ever, five-day, 500-mile Ride the Lobster unicycle race across Nova Scotia.
Merrylees of East Montpelier will be joined by teammate Mark Premo of Winooski and a friend from Rhode Island to tackle the course. Premo's girlfriend, Dawn DiCecco of Shelburne, will serve as the support person to help the unicyclists complete the remarkable race.
Likened in the unicycle community to bicycling's famed Tour de France, the three team members (another Vermonter, Geoff Elder, is competing with another team) are among only 100 allowed to enter. The teams are coming from 17 countries across the globe.
Each had to qualify for the unusual event by unicycling 90 miles. For Merrylees' team, that meant a one-day trip from Montpelier to Elmore and back; the next day to Richmond through Waterbury, over Harwood Hill and back to Montpelier – while perched on single-wheeled unicycle.
Riders will use a unicycle with a 36" wheel, about the size of a wagon wheel, Merrylees said. That size moves faster than the smaller-sized wheels, he notes.
"To train you have to ride a lot and you ride hard," he said. The team has competed in some of bicycling's "hill climb" races that essentially take competitors straight up steep mountain sides.
"The people who are biking think it's wild. They give us a lot of praise as they go by," he said, noting that most bicyclists pass the unicyclists on the climbs. Most, but not all. Premo, who came in second among the unicyclists in the White Mountain hill climb beat 21 bicyclists – and another unicyclist finished ahead of him and certainly left even more bicyclists in the dust, he notes.
Merrylees said unicycling differs from bicycling in that there are no gears, so riders cannot coast down hill, and there are no brakes. The pedals are attached to the wheel, requiring riders to pedal downhill and slow their pedaling to stop the unicycle.
"Muscles show the wheel down," he said.
The Ride the Lobster race is expected to start in Annapolis on June 16 and end in Cape Breton on June 20.