I also knew that our main one wheel competition had been scuppered by Jez Western having a tooth abscess and was unable to ride. It was just as well that he did not have to use his hands for the next 2 days. This was not to our advantage, not only do 3 people travel slower than 2, but we didn't have a 3 man tent, we had to carry 2 tents between 3 of us. Disadvantaged or not, we thought it was only fair for Duncan to join our team. This worried me as the next night we would be potentially camping on the side of some undetermined mountain.
British legislation prohibits unicycles using bridleways, but does allow bicycles.
So at the start we had to have a special inspection by the officials to check that our unicycles had an extra wheel attached so turning them into pseudo bicycles. A good selection of controls and the rout is one of the ways that unicycles can beat mountain bikes. Competitiveness is gained by selecting controls that are high scoring due to their difficulty either in map reading terms or because they are along a route where you could not ride. It is also essential to know your limits in distance, because if you arrive late at the overnight site points are deducted. The rout we selected was about 30 miles with an option at about the three quarter point to added another 15 points and 5 miles if all was going well.