I basically disagree with everything you said. I get a better workout on a uni than on a bike no matter what. If it’s flat, push harder. I’m also able to pedal and keep my balance on a uni when I can’t even stand on my own two feet. And I’ve only been unicycling for 4 months total. So, the answer to the OP is, HELL YES! The answer to you, try harder.
Just because you’re pedaling all the time on a unicycle doesn’t mean there is a lot more energy required. A lot of that time can be spent pedaling with very little resistance. You’re basically in granny gear on a bike. That’s not necessarily using a lot of energy even though your legs are moving.
It may not be using a lot of force, but it’s certainly using a lot of energy. There is no question in my mind that bicycling and unicycling the same distance requires more work on the unicycle, regardless of the terrain or type of unicycle. I also believe that in general, unicycling for a specified period of time over a specified type of terrain is more fatiguing than bicycling for the same period of time over the same terrain. When I’m in shape, I can come back from a seven-hour, 100-mile bike ride and not be particularly fatigued; if I spend seven hours on a unicycle, I am wiped out, and I can’t even contemplate riding 100 miles on a unicycle.
There is one way that bicycling can be a better workout than unicycling; if your goal is to get your heart rate to a certain level and keep it there, bicycling will work better than unicycling, because you can adjust your gearing to control the amount of work you’re doing at any given time, while on a unicycle you’ll have peaks and valleys based on the terrain.
Re: Does Muni provide exercise at all?
AscenXion <AscenXion@NoEmail.Message.Poster.at.Unicyclist.com> writes:
> I basically disagree with everything you said. I get a better workout
> on a uni than on a bike no matter what. If it’s flat, push harder. I’m
> also able to pedal and keep my balance on a uni when I can’t even stand
> on my own two feet. And I’ve only been unicycling for 4 months total.
> So, the answer to the OP is, HELL YES! The answer to you, try harder.
You sure like to argue, but you ain’t got the knack to pick up ideas
any too quick. One newbie just wrote in asking why he is so tired
(after 9 days fo practice). It looks to me like 4 months just might
not be enough for you…
Oh, yeah. It is more than a little amusing to see a newbie advising
JC to try harder. Thanks for the amusement.
Ken
If you have a Guni you can expand the terrain possibilities and still keep your heart rate up. You may only have two gears, but that is better than the one granny gear of most unicycles (the exception being a Corker w/ 125 mm cranks).
I agree with everything John said, and was going to post something similar but then had to go away and he posted what I was going to say in the meantime.
I’ve been a MTBker, Roadbiker and Unicyclist, and I feel far more tired after riding the equivalent amount of time on a bike than I do on a unicycle. Of course, it’s terrain dependent, so I won’t repeat what John said.
There’s a local 50km bike race I’ve done about 8 or 9 times. The last three which I did on a MUNI were by far the easiest (although slightly slower), and I was far less knackered at the end. I didn’t cramp up either, which I always seem to do when I ride my bike on this particular race.
Also I’ve done a couple of 12hr MTB races (on both MUni and MTB)- I feel much more hammered after doing it on a bike. And the 320km roadbike race I did last year (taking about 11hrs), was much more tiring than any of the 12hr+/24hr rides I’ve done on a Unicycle.
When you first learn to ride, then that would probably be the only time that it’s more tiring to ride a unicycle, because you’re expending a lot of energy trying to keep your balance.
Ken
From experience of riding 100miles a couple of times on a unicycle, I didn’t feel too bad at the finish, could probably have ridden further. After an equivalent 8hr’s or so spent on a bike over same terrain (second lap of the above 320km bike race), I felt really terrible and almost had to pull out, except I was miles from anywhere. And when I finally got to the finish I coughed up blood.
I think for the first couple of years of uni riding it’s more effort everywhere. Nowadays I feel it’s a bit more effort off road, but less on road.
I’ve done 50 miles on a road bike as fast as I can god that hurt compared to riding 50 miles on the coker. I can average about twice as fast on the bike over that distance. Obviously if I chilled out and rode at coker speed it’d be different, but if I was gonna do that I’d have taken the coker anyway.
Muni riding though, rides involving a lot of downhilling in particular are still way way more tiring for me than on a bike. I’ve gone on easy 25 mile rides with groups of bike riders, and hardly been able to walk afterwards cos it was so much effort trying to keep up and racing them up the hills.
Joe
I think this phenomenon (and the one Ken mentions) is that it’s not possible to go “as fast as you can go” on a unicycle; your speed is limited by mechanics, not by VO2max. So if you’re putting out 100% effort on a bike, it will be more strenuous than a unicycle.
But, you can put out 80-90% effort on a bike and still be both way faster than a unicycle and use less energy.
I think the effort spent depends alot on the terrain. I’m an avid road biker and Muni rider. I can blaze away on the road bike and keep my heart rate way up there, and burn my legs to ashes on climbs. But so car as total body workout goes, trying to clean those long steep rocky sections on the trails up in Santa Barbara, and places like it–that thrashes me more than anything I’ve ever exprienced on a bike. Even my shoes are soaked through after an hour, and all that back presuring makes it supercardio as well. And having to keep all that core body tension really works the whole corpus something fierce.
JL
Muni can be very tiring and good excersise. but if you want a thighburner, coker up steep hills over and over again.
I appreciate that English doesn’t appear to be your first language. But, if you’re going to attempt to argue a point, perhaps you should use the translation button a little better.
Then perhaps you really are Gizmo Duck. 
I believe that is the point that you few are missing. If you get more tired on a bike than on a uni, it’s only because you are pushing yourselves WAY harder on the bike than on the uni. You THINK that uniing is less tiresome, but you don’t realize that it’s only cuz you’re not pushing yourselves. Which is why I said that John needs to push himself more.
The point we’re making is that It’s not possible to push yourself that hard on a road unicycle once you’re actually good at riding it, whereas on a bike it’s pretty straightforward.
Joe
And I have been known to push myself pretty hard on a unicycle 
Re: Does Muni provide exercise at all?
AscenXion <AscenXion@NoEmail.Message.Poster.at.Unicyclist.com> writes:
> cline wrote:
>> you ain’t got the knack to pick up ideas any too quick.
>
> I appreciate that English doesn’t appear to be your first language.
> But, if you’re going to attempt to argue a point, perhaps you should
> use the translation button a little better.
Someone who actually talks that way would certainly be a native
(American) English speaker. But of course, you couldn’t come up with
a better response.
Since you are too dense to pick up on sarcasm, I was insulting you by
using crude language to mockingly suggest that you might unable to
understand proper language. In case you can’t tell, I also insulted
you again by stating my mock belief that you are too stupid to infer
the nationality of the natural speaker of that phrase.
Despite the insults, Ascenxion, I harbor no resentment for you. How
about joining in the discussion in a way that shows a little respect
for participants that actually know a lot more about the subject than
you do? That’s not an unreasonable request, is it?
Ken