Hi,
I’ve just returned from a weekend camping at a place called Shell Island.
I took my Onza because it is a place of many grassy fields and the odd gentle hill.
I rode round the island on the grassy slopes and along the track (which was a bit of a pain cos I had to get off and stand at the side every time a car came). It was a bit windy and the sea around the island was the colour of welsh slate but I managed to ride every day.
And not one person asked me where my other wheel was - not one. Last week, on an hour’s ride, I had seven such questions. On three rides during camping, noone said it. Bliss! And even more - one young lad said “is that a unicycle? my sister’s got one”. And I was talking to a guy (about age 50) who had a unicycle at home but wasn’t riding at the moment because of a work-related injury. He said he was going to persuade his wife to let him buy a unicycle more like mine.
I guess you just find a more relaxed class of people camping.
Shell Island, called Mochras by the locals? (Not sure of the spelling, could be Mocras.) Small island connected by a causeway accessible at low tide, somewhere on the Welsh coast? If so, I had many family camping holdiays there as a child.
Yeah. Right place, but didn’t find any red spade. Sorry. Also didn’t find my son’s tooth - which was the first of his ever to fall out. Never mind the tooth fairy came anyway.
Small world.
Did you enjoy your camping holidays at Mochras? I could do without the smelly toilets, rain and wind myself but it’s part of our marital ‘contract’. Jim comes to juggling/unicycle conventions with me and I go camping/abroad with him. It works most of the time. As long as I can take a unicycle along.
And wonder of wonders - I also did my usual 7 miles along the prom with no other wheel comments. People were very positive and friendly. Must be something in the air this weekend.
Shell Island isn’t abroad. Accept nothing less than Paris. You know you’re worth it!
We had great holidays on Shell Island. It was before I became a vegetarian, and my dad and I used to collect winkles at low tide, then cook them for supper. I remember a stormy weekend there when we had to tie the frame tent to the car with the tow rope. When I was just getting into snorkelling (I later became a very keen scuba diver) I spent many hours in the murky waters of Mochras, and saw my first wild fish. I was so startled that I stood up. (It was only shallow - I was even shorter then!)
We’re going camping this weekend, Im taking my muni of course, but it will be wayyyy back in the backcountry, im sure there’s noone for miles and miles away. Real wildernessy. Only about two hours away from my house.
We do quite a bit of camping over the summer at a local campground and always take our trailer full of unicycles. The campground kids love to try them and some of the kids actually learn to ride by the end of the weekend. Over the years, we’ve seen many kids come back with their own unicycles. Just happened again this past weekend.
We weren’t camping but I had to lead the music for the church service at the campground yesterday so we were there. One boy who learned on our unicycles last month was back camping again sporting a brand new 24" uni. He had become pretty proficient and was tooling around the grounds to the pleasure of his parents. I was pretty proud of him as well.
Will Turkey do? We’re going on Sunday. And yes, I am taking my uni, the 20" will just about fit into my suitcase!
Yoopers, that must feel great. So far I have only lured one person into unicycling - my husband. Mind you, there are a few on the way at the circus club.
I was thinking about how small you could pack down a unicycle for traveling, and I found these folding pedals: Folding pedals
They are very expensive, but there could be some others out there that are cheaper. It would be a good way to pack up a unicycle, and reassemble it with out any tools. You could use a quick release for the seat post, and fold the pedals, and it wouldn’t take up that much room.
I guess I don’t understand the “no tools” part. It’s very easy to pack a small assortment of tools in suitcases, they really don’t take up a lot of room. So instead of spending gadzillions on folding pedals for each uni, one of these is about $20 and one tool can be used for different unicycles. I have one. It’s a worthy investment.
We need to be careful here. A unicycle tyre contains a combustible substance under pressure. A spanner can give someone quite a nasty bruise. Whilst it would be comparatively easy to sneak a suitcase full of hard drugs and a pair of explosive shoes into the Whitehouse or the Palace of Westminster, security may balk at allowing a unicycle onto a plane!
Joking apart, Cathwood, make sure you let the air out of your tyre. The aircraft hold will be at low pressure. It’s only about 5 - 10 psi difference, but quite sudden, and you don’t want any nasty banging noises as you take off. Don’t try to carry tools or a pump etc. in your hand luggage as they will be stopped and confiscated by security. Baggage handlers do NOT treat baggage with tender concern as if it were their own, so pack the unicycle carefully.
Lastly, we all demand photos of you unicycling in Turkey, complete with yashmak, cheap carpet, and cup of incredibly strong sweet coffee. Extra bonus points if you’re carrying a Greek flag.
I was thinking about being able to pack a unicycle in my car or my van at work, where it wouldn’t take up much room, and it would be very quick to set up, I know you can take on and off pedals with a spanner, I think you missed the point a bit.
I took my trials uni on a plane a while back and in my naive ignorance of the great danger of plane hijacking I took a big heavy socket wrench in my backpack. I think they found it funny that I even attempted to take it with me onto the plane.
Have to disagree on the deflateing the trye for air travel issue. most unis a`re only a low pressure tyre and most people have no more than 60psi in them. An inflated trye protects the rim better than a flat one. If its in a suitcase its not an issue and you can do what you like, no one will know how much air is in the trye.
Ah, one of the things I love about this forum is if one person thinks one thing, then the next person will thing the opposite. I guess the thing is that there are few absolute certainties in unicycling. You can just do whatever you want.
