Experiences!

General
1

Hi folks,

I enjoy reading about other’s experiences and happenings while riding out
in public, i.e., Danny’s Coker commutes, so I thought I’d share one or two
of ours. We are relatively new to the sport (just last year) but are
having a great time learning and riding. We recently received a 5’ giraffe
through an internet auction and are putting it to good use. Yesterday
afternoon, my boys and I went on a ride, Brad (age 8) on his 18" wheel, me
(age ??) on my 24 ", and Ben (age 11) on the giraffe. We headed for the
tee-ball fields at the local school and rode the walking path trail around
the fields. There were several tee-ball games in progress and many parents
had their video cameras out to film their kids playing ball. For some
reason, the boys and I were video taped quite a bit as we rode around the
games. Purely accidental of course, we weren’t trying to show off or
anything you know. We received many comments such as, “That’s totally
cool!” to my favorite…the kids who start singing the circus theme music
as they follow along. I even once received the ‘ol, “Hey you’re missing a
wheel!” comment from one parent to which I promptly responded, “It’ll be
along in a minute”. From the tee-ball fields, we headed for the little
league fields and all the activity there. The ump at one field actually
stopped one game for a brief moment to watch as we rode by. Ben made it
quite a sight on his high one! It was a lot of fun. Everywhere we go, kids
flock around and want to try the unicycles. Even when we got back to our
driveway, we had 7 or 8 kids who had followed us back so we spent another
hour in the driveway helping them try to ride. One of the kids from down
the street tried to ride for the first time in our driveway last Monday.
Last night, he was able to stay on top half the length of the driveway
(about 40’). Wow!

To cap it all off, last night was also newspaper delivery night. A
photographer from the paper came out to the house to take a picture
(several actually) of us riding our unicycles to deliver papers as a human
interest story. Should be in this Sunday’s paper. Tonight, Ben has an
end-of-the-year lock in at the school. He has permission to take the
giraffe and put on a small performance for the rest of the kids. Should be
fun for him.

All this must be just the start of a long and fun summer! Bruce Edwards
http://move.to/daup

2

Bruce Edwards wrote:
> Yesterday afternoon, my boys and I went on a ride, Brad (age 8) on his
> 18" wheel, me (age ??) on my 24 "…

Poor kid. Surely it’d be fairer if you rode an 18" as well :wink:

> There were several tee-ball games in progress

Which leaves me with the burning question, what is tee-ball?

There was a post recently on rec.juggling asking if tetherball is purely
an American thing, and it occurred to me that tee-ball could be an
abbreviation of tetherball. Even if it is, that poster didn’t actually
explain what tetherball is, so I’m still not much the wiser.

I did a Google search and found that tetherball seems to be a cross
between Swingball, volleyball and Maypole dancing. Sound about right?

> Everywhere we go, kids flock around and want to try the unicycles.

I almost collapsed in giggles yesterday when a kid of about 12 asked if he
could have a go on my Coker.

> One of the kids from down the street tried to ride for the first time in
> our driveway last Monday. Last night, he was able to stay on top half
> the length of the driveway (about 40’). Wow!

I think that’s one advantage of having kids of your own who ride. There’s
at least on kid in my road who’d like to learn, but I think it’ll be 7 or
8 years before he’s tall enough to try my 20" and I’m not planning to buy
a smaller unicycle until I’ve got kids of my own.

> All this must be just the start of a long and fun summer!

Remember to keep a scrap book of all your unicycling newspaper
appearances. They’re fun to look back on.

–
Danny Colyer (remove your.mind to reply)
http://www.speedy5.freeserve.co.uk/danny/danny.html “The secret of life is
honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made” -
Groucho Marx

3

> Which leaves me with the burning question, what is tee-ball?

tee ball is a kids sport like baseball, but they get to hit the
ball off of a rubber pole. the reason is probably because the kids
are not coordinated enough to hit a moving ball yet. other than
they get to hit the ball from a stationary point, i think it is
just about the same.

-Max A. Dingemans
4

dingeman wrote:
> tee ball is a kids sport like baseball, but they get to hit the ball
off of
> a rubber pole.

Thanks. That’ll be why I’ve never heard of it. Baseball (or rounders as it
was called when I was at school) is nowhere near as big in the UK as it is
across the pond (it’s quite rare for anyone over the age of 10 to play it
at all). Certainly not the sort of thing that many kids would have special
equipment to practice with.

–
Danny Colyer (remove your.mind to reply)
http://www.speedy5.freeserve.co.uk/danny/danny.html “The secret of life is
honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made” -
Groucho Marx

5

> I almost collapsed in giggles yesterday when a kid of about 12 asked if
> he could have a go on my Coker.
>
I let this kid who was probably about 10 or 11 ride mine, with a couple of
his mates holding him up. With the seat right down the lowest point (the
middle length seatpost I think) he managed to ride off from them and a
couple of metres along after a couple of tries. For some people it seems
easier to keep the coker going once they’ve started than a normal unicycle
with all the momentum it has.

Then maybe it was just one of those annoying people who pick it up
instantly!

6

I was out on my Pashley Muni the other day, and a young girl quite seriously said " Did you break your bike?". That was a new one on me, beats the normal " You forgot your other wheel", do people really think we have never heard that one before?

Innes

7

Danny Colyer wrote:

> Bruce Edwards wrote:
> > Yesterday afternoon, my boys and I went on a ride, Brad (age 8) on his
> > 18" wheel, me (age ??) on my 24 "…
>
> Poor kid. Surely it’d be fairer if you rode an 18" as well

I do tend to ride slowly when riding with the boys. Good balance
practice for
me.

Bruce