Plateform long jump (Closed for comments)
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Started
This is probably one of the most controversial competition at Unicon. Since its introduction at Unicon XVIII in 2016 in Spain, it's been a weird competition. Originally it was supposed to be a static gap competition, but then so many pallets got added we now had the exact same competition twice, one on the ground, one on 2 pallets high. Last Rulebook Committee we were able to reduce the number of pallets for the run up, but it is still a long jump competition, but 2 pallets high.
I sincerely believe we should just get rid of this competition for a few reason. Nobody seems to be competition in platform high jump very seriously, Unicon host have more competitions ro organize every year and it's very time consuming, it's currently a very dangerous competition for the unicycles but also riders.
That being said, if most people would like to keep it. I believe it should become what it was originally intended to be... a static gap competition. Just like how you have to be precise in high jump on platform and land onto it, I think it should be the same with long jump on platform.
The set up should consist of 1 PALLET as a TAKEOFF platform and 1 PALLET as a LANDING platform. I think it should be 2 or 3 pallets high at least. To make sure the 1 pallet platform takeoff and landing do not move, the platform can be screwed in this manner (very shitty representation, but you get the idea) https://i.imgur.com/SCPGHDm.jpg
By doing so we don't have twice the same competition, now everybody has to do a static gap, no rolling, no pre-hop. It is much less dangerous and you actually have to be in control when you land.
What are you thoughts?
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I 100% agree and have been saying the WHOLE TIME it should be 1 pallet to one 1 pallet. We did that at the UK trials nationals and it transformed it into a pure trials competition with a completely different set of skills required to compete.
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I totally agree with you guys!
I also did it that way at the Austrian National Champs and this way its definitely a pure Trials Comp. And great fun too! And less dangerous than the street style Longjump.
We just need to set a fixed height for the Takeoff and landing. One pallet is definitely not enough. In my opinion it should be two or three.
2: positive: Less dangerous. Negative: will slip if it's not screwed to the takeoff.
3: positive: looks better for pictures, will probably not slip negative: a bit more dangerous, harder to go on your limit because it's a bit more scary
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I think the height should remain the same, 3 pallets high.
We screwed a piece of plywood to the face of the landing and had the pallets screwed together and it seemed fine. The biggest problem we had was the riders tyres skidding on the landing.
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I absolutely agree, Emile!
As Chris H. said somewhere, we should do more urban competitions once we got the material and builds done, but these comps should vary. So yes, make platform long jump different enough from normal long jump by forcing a static jump.
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100% in its current form platform long jump makes no sense. No prehops or rolling hops should be allowed
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Totally agree. If it becomes a static gap competition from 1 pallet stack to another, it will also speed up the event flow.
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I assume with change in format we would "reset" the World Records?
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Something would indeed need to be there, as it's not the same competition and nobody would ever reach the same distance... in a near future at least.
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I am definitely in favor of this proposal.
I think as Steven says it we should reset the World Records made at events with the run up setup. It's going to be hard beating that with a static gap.
There's just one thing. Even though it would be nice to have the jump completely static without prehops being allowed, I don't think that would work in practice. I just don't see any way of defining prehop without having to enforce some crazy rule about someone counting the amount of time where the rider stays completely static before the jump.
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Just for your information, EUR or E-PAL pallet is the standard used in Europe and found throughout the world world. The pallets are 100cm x 80cm x 14.5cm
Oh, I don't think there should be a rule prohibiting pre hops. We're just restraining it by reducing the size of the starting platform. You can still make a pre-hop from on an 80cm pallet, but it will most probably not give you more energy than direct.
Another possibility would be to put only a piece of plywood covering only the last 40cm of the starting pallet. But I'm not sure this would really be necessary.
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*120cm x 80cm x 14,5cm
I also think we don't need to require riders to attempt a static hop - but the size of the take-off surface would not be quite enough for a pre-hop. Just as Emile said, riders would have to jump from one pallet to another, with the pallets put parallel to each other among their longer sides - so that 80cm take-off surface wouldn't give quite enough space for a big pre-hop.
If we proceed like this, we also have to make it clear that it is not allowed to have a run-up before the pallet, jump up to it and then using your momentum from the run-up for the actual jump. So pretty much that a pre-hop with a run-up on the ground and take-off from the pallet is not allowed. This could simply be prevented if we require riders to start their attempt mounting on the top of the pallet.
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Good one with the momentum. We need a line in there defining that somehow. And thanks for the pallet dimension fix.
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Australia doesn't use Euro pallets, so rare are they that in 30 years I have never seen them used at an Australian business. The pallet suppliers that rent pallets for competitions the Australian standard pallet which is 116cm x 116cm.
If we are using the euro standard Will we make it that pallets outside of the 800x1200 dimensions must have ply wood (or draw a line) over the top to show which part of the pallet cannot be used? Any other suggestions?
Dimensions
(W × L) millimetresDimensions
(W × L) inchesWasted floor, ISO containerRegion most used in1016 × 121940.00 × 48.003.7% (20 pallets in 40 ft ISO)North America1000 × 120039.37 × 47.246.7%Europe, Asia; similar to 40" × 48".1165 × 116545.9 × 45.98.1%Australia1067 × 106742.00 × 42.0011.5%North America, Europe, Asia1100 × 110043.30 × 43.3014%Asia800 × 120031.50 × 47.2415.2%Europe; fits many doorways
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Totally agree with one pallet as the take of pallet and three pallets high. If we want to restrict the pre hop, we can put the take off pallet up side down.
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If anyone wants to make a proposal, it seems that we're pretty unanimous on this.
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To address Steves input (I guess there are other areas without EURO Pallets). Would a plywood cover 100x80cm be a good size or maybe a 100x100cm one?