Here’s a silghtly trimmed excerpt from Antarctica, an excellent novel
by Kim Stanley Robinson, in which a democratic Senator from California
recounts his unicycling dream:
“You don’t remember what you were dreaming about?”
“Well, let’s see. Let me think. No, I guess it’s gone. Wait,
something about bicycling. No, it was a unicycle. I was riding a
unicycle down the Capitol steps, that was it–no, the Lincoln Memorial,
because I could see the Capitol down the Mall. People were there like I
was actually giving a speech, a big crowd, giant, but actually I wasn’t
giving a speech, I was unicycling up and down the steps, making the hops
in both directions and getting a lot of applause. It was great. No one
could figure out how I was hopping back up the steps, and I couldn’t
either. It was mystifying, but fun. All the Republicans I like were
there going Shit, Phil, how are we gonna beat that when you can hop up
steps on a unicycle. Then all the republicans I hate were down there
getting tossed in the reflecting pools. I was planning to ride the
unicycle right across their backs once they were all in, keeping my
balance no matter what they did. Then you woke me up, bummer, that was
going to be fun.”
>While we are on the subject, what interesting places have people ridden
>their unicycles? (ie country/mountain/volcano/the moon etc)
During my summer before college (1978) I occassionally rode my unicycle in the
newsroom of the New York Times. (The NY Daily News security staff would not
permit it). I was a photo messenger for the Associated Press. At the time given
the environment around Times Square I did not make much of an impression on the
street. But up in the offices they were quite impressed.
*Baldwin Street (worlds steepest st)
*Middle earth (The Lord of the Rings was filmed around here: Frodo and friends being chased around my local park by the Ringwraiths).
*Also heading to Nepal and Iceland in a 1 1/2 months
New Zealand is a cool place - I spent 10 months there a while back, but didn’t unicycle at that time.
I played my tuba in a Navy sonar research lab when I was in college. They all wanted to hear the Close Encounters theme because the movie was out at the time.
Ken,
According www.unicycling.org some guy unicycled around the world.
Actually he rode around the ceremonial South Pole. I think the picture
was in a National Geographic but I could be wrong. I have dreamed for
about a year of riding my unicycle from the Ross Ice Shelf to the South
Pole. Anyone want to join me!
Jeff T.
On Fri, 5 Apr 2002 17:01:59 -0600 Ken Looi
<Ken.Looi.2nt2y@timelimit.unicyclist.com> writes:
>
> I wonder if anyone has actually ridden their unicycle in Antarctica?
> (I
> know it has been done on mountainbikes)
>
> While we are on the subject, what interesting places have people
> ridden
> their unicycles? (ie country/mountain/volcano/the moon etc)
>
>
>
> –
> Ken Looi
>
GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO!
Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less!
Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/web/.
I’d like to get into adventure/expedition Municycling too! A unicycle has to be the ultimate way of challenging yourself without that “oh no, not another mountainbike expedition across the North Pole” kind of thing.
The South pole would be great but I might go for something less ambitious first. Good luck!
A couple weeks ago, I posted a quote from Antarctica, a book by
Kim Stanley Robinson, in which a character dreams about hopping up
and down steps on a unicycle. Last night I went to a talk given by
the author, and I asked him afterwards about the dream in the book.
He lives in Davis, so I thought it was likely that he’d seen some of us
riding around on stairs. It turns out that he hadn’t seen anyone do it,
and that the dream in the book was based on a dream he had himself. In
fact, when he had that dream, he laughed so hard at the whole thing that
he woke himself up.
He was curious about it how it would work, so I explained the technique.
I couldn’t demonstrate for him though; my vehicle last night had one
wheel too many. Maybe someone who lives in Davis could look him up
and offer to give him a demo.
> He was curious about it how it would work, so I explained the technique.
> I couldn’t demonstrate for him though; my vehicle last night had one
> wheel too many. Maybe someone who lives in Davis could look him up
> and offer to give him a demo.
Perhaps you could invite him to the Cyclebration event, coming up on May 19
(Sunday). I’ll be doing a show, and there will be many other unicyclists
there. Hopefully we will do an obstacle course/Trials event like we have the
past couple of years. www.cyclebration.com
