RoShamBo : Unique Competitions, Extraordinary Events: Recent Episodes
RoShamBo / Kim Drobes and Ted Ladue
Unique Competitions, Extraordinary Events and other Amazing Adventures. We aim for weird and wonderful, and we share the stories of champions and organizers from some of the world's most obscure events. From Heavy Metal Knitting to Barstool ski racing, to the search for the World's Ugliest Dog - we hope our listeners will add these events to their bucket lists and start seeking the odd and unusual in life.
Happy anniversary to us! Thank you for 5 fun and funny years! In this episode, we recap some of our favorite competitions plus we visit with Chef Chris Hall of Roshamo Diner in Atlanta, Georgia. Yes, It's true! There's a new restaurant in our hometown named Roshambo, and Chef Hall shares his story and connection to our namesake: Rock, Paper, Scissors.
How do you take your tea? Maybe with a smidgen of sugar or a splash of milk? Or perhaps you prefer your tea to be delivered to you on top of a racecar? Well, the creators of Splendid Teapot Racing have you covered. Head over to RoShamBoPodcast.com for pictures and more!
Although we just found out California's Kinetic Grand Championship is officially canceled for 2021, you can still hear all about this amazing race, lovingly called THE TRIATHLON OF THE ART WORLD. This is a crazy 50-mile race of Kinetic Sculptures with all-terrain human-powered art vehicles, engineered to race over road, water, mud, and sand. It’s for real and it's nuts! You can learn more about the race, plans for a virtual 2021 event, and get excited about 2022 here.
Music for RoShamBo is provided by the amazing Cadillac Jones.
If you enjoy the episode, please consider leaving us a review on your favorite podcast provider. And while you're there, check out our sister podcast, Helpful Humans. Helpful Humans shares stories about people who are creating good in our world by helping and empowering others. These are quick hits of positivity and hope, with episodes that are inspiring, heartwarming, and always interesting.
Ho ho ho-boy is this the most magical time of the year? Yes. Yes, it is. And if one Santa is good, a bunch of Santas doing Santa things is gooder, right?
Travel back to pre-Covid days with RoShamBo as we revisit the World's Ugliest Dog Competition. By far one of the most heartwarming episodes in the RoShamBo catalog, and a classic example of community and quirky coming together.
RoShamBo welcomes back Kriston Rucker, the co-founder of the US Air Guitar Championship to give us the scoop on the 2020 online championship. Watch for free on July 25th on Twitch ( https://www.twitch.tv/usairguitar ) and head over to https://www.usairguitar.com/ to learn more!
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As with so many extraordinary events in these strange pandemic days, the folks from the Kinetic Grand Championship knew that they couldn’t gather like normal this Memorial Day Weekend. So... they decided to come up with an online alternative. Introducing… The 2020 Kinetic Sculpture in Place!
RoShamBo was joined by Queen Professor President of the Kinetic Universe Board Kati Texas to find out all about this online Memorial Day Weekend event.
Check it out at http://kineticgrandchampionship.com/
“The CHIditarod is a race like none other. It’s a food drive, a race for charity, a beauty pageant, a bar crawl, spontaneous street theater, and not for the faint of heart. It’s fast, furious, cold, creative, exciting, and very, very fun.” This episode originally aired back in 2018, but contains an update from the 2020 race that happened last weekend. 2020 marked the 15th anniversary of the Chiditarod and you can still check out pictures and links on the Chiditarod's original show page on RoShamBoPodcast.com
Oh how RoShamBo loves Finland... Home of the World Wife Carrying Championship, Mobile Phone Throwing World Championships and The World Air Guitar Championships... and now - adding to their RoShamBo ranks, we are thrilled to tell you the story of The Heavy Metal Knitting World Championship. This past July, the town of Joensuu hosted the first ever inaugural event and RoShamBo caught up with USA's (Lansing, Michigan) team - 9" Needles.
Mentioned in this episode:
Heavy Metal Knitting World Championship
Eagle Monk Brewery
A quirky little Colorado mountain town. A dead Norwegian grandfather on ice. A coffin race. All of this and more at Frozen Dead Guy Days. This year's festival is happening March 13-15 2020 - start planning your adventure today!
Mentioned in this episode:
Frozen Dead Guy Days Festival
RoShamBo's Frozen Dead Guy Days episode page
Mike the Headless Chicken
RoShamBo Episode that gives more info on the town where Ted moved
In RoShamBo’s world, Ian Stewart lands somewhere between Unique and Amazing. He’s a 6 time Guinness World Record holder who also happens to be a hypnotist, a comedian and a magician. You know, just your average Canadian daredevil.
Links mentioned in this episode:
Ian's Website
The Plantation on Crystal River Manatee Tour
The World Sign Spinning Championship (episode page)
Baltimore’s Small Foods Party (episode page)
Small Foods Party (event page)
In the movie "To Have and Have Not", Lauren Bacall infamously said, “You know how to whistle, don’t you Steve? You just put your lips together, and blow”. And you know what, according to World Champion Whistler Carole Anne Kaufman, she’s not wrong.
Master’s of Musical Whistling Festival and Competition
The Diva’s website
The World Whistlers Convention and Competition in Japan
Straight from the mighty Yukon territory of Canada - this is what happens when cold hair meets hot pools.
Links mentioned in episode:
https://www.surfertoday.com/surfing/the-best-river-surfing-waves-in-the-world
http://takhinihotpools.com/
https://www.roshambopodcast.com/episodes/2018/10/5/episode-011-world-beard-and-moustache-championships
https://www.roshambopodcast.com/episodes/2018/5/21/s1e4-gurning
Get your Imperials, your Handlebars and your Alaskan Whalers ready - it's the National Beard and Mustache Championships!
Learn more: https://www.nationalbeardchampionships.com/
During our coverage of Dragon Con 2019 we discovered a subculture - within the subculture of Dragon Con. People that spend their time at the Con helping others in need. They are Cosplay Medics and they're the hero's HEROES.
Sure they're great for hauling things - but did you know that you can race 'em and use 'em for crazy tricks? Well you can. And it is awesome.
Extreme Bird Watching is for real, and The World Series of Birding is the largest and most prestigious birding competition around.
Cheese Rolling! The crazy thing with the cheese wheel flying down the hill with a bunch of crazy people chasing it. That one.
We all know someone with that spectacular laugh. The one that makes you crack up just hearing it, or the one that helps you find your friend in a crowd. Welcome to the World’s Best Laugh Competition- put on by yours truly, RoShamBo!
Ted went back to Scotland for the 2019 World Stone Skimming Championships. Along the way there, there was adventure to be had.
This episode has it all: bar stools, ski slopes and bad ideas.
Learn more at http://www.cabinfeverdays.com
Golden Eagles, Stick Wrestling ,Gilgamesh, goats, and possibly minotaurs. This is the World Nomad Games!
Using the wrong tool for the right job can be a lot of fun. Exhibit A: This (mostly) off-road race for non-off-road cars. Perfection.
Remember the game tiddlywinks you played as a kid? There’s way more to it than you ever imagined. It’s not just child play!
Want to get naked and run around with other naked people and do other sporty things naked? We thought so.
The Official name is “Suwa Taisha Shikinen Zouei Onbashira Taisai“ or Onbashira but we called it Log Riding because that is the part you want to know about!
Do you like all things Tiki? Do you like bartenders? THIS IS THE THING FOR YOU! The Iron Tikitender is the quest to find the world’s best tiki bartender.
“The CHIditarod is a race like none other. It’s a food drive, a race for charity, a beauty pageant, a bar crawl, spontaneous street theater, and not for the faint of heart. It’s fast, furious, cold, creative, exciting, and very, very fun.”
Dogs are magical, special creatures. It’s hard to believe that there are any truly ugly dogs, but these guys and gals push the bound of conventional beauty!
On December 23rd 2009 George Trosset called up his son and said “ I need you and your wife to be at the beach house tomorrow morning, in Elf outfits… I’m gonna be Santa and your gonna be Elves, and we’re going SURFING.”
Making gingerbread houses for the holidays is a tradition. At the Euclid Avenue Yacht Club in Atlanta, they took that tradition and added some southern charm and is now the Gingerbread Trailer Park Contest.
Ho ho ho-boy is this the most magical time of the year? Yes. Yes it is. And if one Santa is good, a bunch of Santas doing Santa things is gooder, right?
What is mountainboarding, exactly? Well it’s a gravity based sport that allows you to ride a board with air tires, over almost any terrain. Grass, dirt, gravel, cobblestones, skateparks - all good. Snow, not so good.
It's the year 2018 and robots are still controlled by humans. The humans make them fight. They consider the carnage and destruction of the robots entertainment. The humans call it Robot Battles and it happens every year at DragonCon.
Puns. Some love them. Some hate them. We definitely love them as you would know if you listened to any of our shows. And we are not alone! Each year punsters gather in Austin, Texas for the wordy cause known as the O. Henry Pun-Off World Championship.
Sign Spinning, like many great pursuits, began as a way to relieve boredom. One guy with a sign decided he’d start flipping it around. Soon another saw it and started doing it too. And as it goes, competition broke out and a sport was born.
The sport of bearding and mustaching is, at it’s essence, presenting the most magnificent example of facial hair as it fits in one of 17 or so categories. The World Beard and Mustache Championships have been held every two years since the early 2000’s and has been hosted all over Europe as well as in the United States.
DragonCon takes place in Atlanta every Labor Day weekend - it's a costume lover's dream so of couse Ted and Kim had to check it out.
For 18 years Bo Schaffer lugged blocks of ice up the hills of Nederland Colorado to ensure their most famous resident stayed frozen.
Stone Skipping, or Stone Skimming as they say in Scotland, is another hobby we probably all grew up doing. All you need is a body of water and a flat stone and you can make that sucker fly.
In the States we generally try to see how many skips we can make the stone do. In Scotland, it's a distance game. To that end, the World Stone Skimming Championships are held every September on beautiful Easdale Island.
We all grew up thumb wrestling, right? Did you ever consider wrestling with your second strongest digit - the big toe? Yes! It’s a thing! And on this episode we cover both these amazing competitions.
If you’ve ever longed to go for a run with your wife on your shoulders but thought better of it, we have JUST the event for you! The North American Wife Carrying Championship goes down every fall at Sunday River in Maine.
Welcome to our Christmas in July spectacular featuring the National Gingerbread House Competition! If you’re looking for a sweet summer treat, this episode really takes the cake.
The 24 Hours of Lemons is an endurance roadracing series for cars that cost $500 or less. The name is a play off of the historic 24 hours of LaMans race, but as 84 time racer Anton Lovett put it, "Lemons isn't racing just for rich idiots, it's for all idiots".
Bonus Episode - RoShamBo Recap
Please listen to to the full episode (#3) about the race first. We promise it will make this bonus episode more enjoyable
The Kinetic Grand Championship crowned their winner over Memorial Day weekend. Congratulations to Team TriloBike and their amazing machine, the Trilobike Diner. Listen in as we talk to Steve McHaney about what it's takes to win this most grueling yet joyful race. (Photo Credit - Andrew Goff and Lost Coast Outpost)
Frozen Dead Guy Days is held every March in Nederland, CO. The festival celebrates it’s most famous resident (the ever frozen Grandpa Bredo) by holding a bunch of fun activities, including a good old fashion coffin race! Hear the story behind the legend and meet the race competitors that embrace this fantastically unique tradition.
What is Gurning, you ask? Gurning is a competition based on what some people call Grimacing - or “pulling a face”. The goal is to try and make your face look as ugly or ridiculous as possible.
Come along with us on this episode we travel back in time and across the ocean to England to meet some modern-day competitors of this medieval sport.
Imagine a 50-mile race of Kinetic Sculptures. Sculptures are all-terrain human-powered art vehicles, engineered to race over road, water, mud, and sand. It’s for real and it's nuts! Listen in as we go Art over Elbows at The Kinetic Grand Championship!
Formerly known as the UK Rock Paper Scissors Championship, this competition has been going on for over a decade in London England. It's a total mind game that anyone can play but few can master.