Just curious how feasable of an idea a unicycle would be for me as regular transportation. I can skateboard just fine while wearing a daypack with 30 lbs of stuff in it, but I pretty much stick to particular roads. If I rode a unicycle I could ride on more varied surfaces, but would I be able to do it while wearing my regular heavily loaded daypack?
You can (I have), but the more weight pressing down on the seat, the more likely your groin will hurt from the pressure.
What excatly do you have that makes it weigh 30 lbs?? In any case try to balance the weight of your bag with your own if that makes sense :p. Unless you get one of these. It looks cool plus it matches a unicycle with a skateboard which you said you could do very well. Hoped that help. 
http://www.unicycle.uk.com/shop/shopdisplayproduct.asp?catalogid=758
Take care and welcome to unicyclist.com my friend. 
Hazmat
A messenger bag works great for uni-commuting. You have to use the stabilizer chest strap.
I prefer a backpack w/ chest and waist straps.
I rode once w/ 30-35 lbs. and it was exhausting. Now I usually keep it under 15 but try to keep it under 10, that way I can still ride really challenging terrain.
Once you get used to riding enough you will be able to ride with anything you can walk with.
Over the summer I went riding about 10 km with a Hockey bag full of tools and clothes and stuff. It doesn’t sound to bad but because I had also kept my unicycle in it on the trip there, then everything was all out of wack and I had to ride with it half over my shoulder so that it wouldn’t rub my tire or the ground or get in the way of me pedaling.
During high school I used to ride with a full backpack full of books aswell, and I have generaly ridden a fair amount of times with other odd pack arrangements, just ride alot and you will get used to it.
I would commute about 6 miles on my 26" w/ a small daypack, carrying wallet, water, snacks, jacket, bikelock…I don’t think it weighed more then 15 lbs.
One day I wore my large backback and loaded it with 50+ lbs of groceries and rode home about 1-2 miles… it was bloody hard and totally wore me out.
I think it’s important to have compression straps on whatever bag you use, as a loose swinging bag makes the riding harder, esp. if it’s a heavier bag.
Also, I’ve ridden hugging a full 5-gallon water container, large bag of laundry, and given someone a piggyback ride (not all at the same time).
5 pounds hangin’ is 10 pounds a’swingin’
Usually, if the pack is full, I’ll ride with it around my front to keep the weight centered. Otherwise it’s not hard to wear it proper, but you have to compensate for the displacement.
Do you know of any other RVA ride thread and I’m in the area sometimes, visiting family, but not very often. If you’re interested in a Northern VA Muni ride, definitely post and we can work out some details.
It’s possible to ride with a pack, but you absolutely need one with a chest and waist strap, otherwise the pack’s bouncing will really hurt your hopping, and the swaying of the pack can throw you off balance. I ride a lot with a small pack for water, tools etc, but I don’t normally go up to the 30 lb range. It would probably be fine for road or XC type riding, but 30lbs is defintily to much for anything technical.
Wearing any sort of backpack while unicycling is completely impossible.
I ride with my huge Camelbak (HOG I think it is), just fine. It weighs quite a bit, but If you strap it on tight its OK. If I see a spot I want to do some trials I take it off, then put it back on and keep movin down the trail.
Great! It’s good to know that I can keep active during daily routines even if my life changes to where I can’t depend on nice pavement. Thanks for the helpful replies.
(skate-cycle: thumbsdown)
Hmmmm. With bikes, that problem happens to people who have their seat either straight or sloping forwards. The solution in that situation is to angle the seat so that it’s sloping at least slightly backwards. I wonder if that could solve the problem when it happens to a unicycler. If you couldn’t tell before, I don’t yet have a unicycle, so I don’t yet know where one’s weight has to be. But if it can be toward the back of the seat, it might relieve that particular discomfort.
I know that there are some on these forums, but I, myself, havena broken free of the extra wheel(s), yet. I probably wouldn’t be ready for MUni for quite some time. Thanks for the info, though.
Many people who find unicycle seats uncomfortable also angle their seat’s fronts upwards, using a bicycle-type seatpost and a rails adapter to tilt the seat. Most unicycle seatposts have the seat at a set angle and cannot be easily changed.
Load up your day pack and go!
Don’t let others fool you. Carrying a day pack is not a big deal. I have commuted regularly (200+ days this year) with day packs on my unicycles. For part of August and September I commuted regularly on my 5 foot giraffe and carried my gear in an old cheep day pack for a few weeks. Up until November I never used a pack which had chest or waist straps. Some times with thirty or more pounds for a load. Even a couple of days the wind gust have been 50+ mph (makes for a tough work out but a fun challenge to try). Once you get use to riding with a pack it becomes no big deal. The biggest problem is during the summer getting rid of the heat and sweat buildup under the pack and straps.
I now use a new commuter pack from Banjo Brothers that work great.
http://penncycle.com/itemdetails.cfm?catalogId=39&id=12563
It does have chest and waist straps and they come in handy. But I got tired of trying to keep things dry and upgraded to the Banjo Brothers pack. I have used it for about two months and really like it. The liner is removable if you want to cut down on weight when it’s dry out. At this time of the year all my commute is in the dark. This pack has places to hang flashing lights and a couple of good reflective strips. Make one highly visible to others.
Got mine at:
http://www.corvalliscyclery.com
Thirty pounds is a lot of weight…do you really carry that around in a DAY pack? I can spend a full week in the Utah wilderness with a pack that weighs 40 pounds, and that includes shelter, warmth, food, and booze.
Keep your packing under control, and you should be able to ride no problem. The heaviest pack I’ve ever had on a uni was probably for one of the Moab munifests, where I had a camelbak with a full bladder, plus a couple of bottles of gatorade, food for the day, emergency tools and tube, etc. With all that stuff, I doubt it was more than 15 pounds.
Paded under shorts are good for that 
I missed this thread earlier when I was replying to the ‘trailer’ one, so sorry for repeating myself.
Anyway, yes, it’s possible to ride with a full daypack. I commute with one that varies between empty-ish to bulging-at-the-seams, and that’s fine.
Last week, however, I treated myself to a nice big new ruck sack. This one. I’m gutted now that I’ve just looked for it, as they’ve dropped the price by a fiver since I bought mine! Grrr! But that’s great - loads of pockets and stuff, and even a compartment for a camel bak bladder. Well, on xmas day I rode with half a crate of beer and a load of other gear, and it was great. The handling was better than I expected (although the terrain wasn’t exactly challenging).
STM
Just got a Christmas card from Jock Young & family (Cle Elum, WA), fixtures at the early MUni Weekends. This summer Jock rode 900 miles in six weeks, on what looks like it was a 26" MUni, from San Diego to Hatch, New Mexico. He had a 50-pound pack!
As for me, I prefer to keep my pack minimized, and carry as much as possible where it’s not going to bear down on my crotch. My Camelback is mostly made up of water weight, but there are a few other things in there. I also usually ride with a butt-bag, containing camera, tools, phone, etc.
When Pietro Biondo did a 12,000 mile trek around North America in the early 1980s, he used a 5’ giraffe with panniers on either side of the wheel. He also carried a spare tire, which rested on its side on top of the panniers. That seems like a good way to carry cargo on a self-supported uni tour.
That doesn’t bode well. These high price uni seats at least need to join the real world. Not that unicycling isn’t real, just that they could at least build on tech standards that have already proven themselves with bikes.
That’s one way to carry a bunch of stuff. Not for me, though, because one of the advantages I see of the unicycle over the bike is that it takes up less room when you bring it inside with you, but the girraffe nulls that.
esp. if it’s a heavier object that is swinging.
It’d sure be an interesting thing to try 
.