This is hopefully in a different vein than Wormington’s “Almost got beat up on uni” thread.
Since I live on a small, remote island, there are quite a few people here who have never seen nor even heard of a unicycle. I haven’t been riding that long, so I’m still freaking people out in the neighboring villages. Last Saturday, I heard a little kid say to his sister as I rode past on my uni with my girlfriend on her bike; “Faapea ua leaga lana uila.” which means; “I think his bike is broken.” The funny thing, he wasn’t poking fun, he was serious!
What other funny comments have you garnered while riding?
“Call the police. Someone stole half this guy’s bike!!”
“Can I have a ride?”
“Is that hard?”
“FREAK!!”
(someone singing the “Circus Polka” out the window of their car while my buddy and I were out riding)
“Nice.”
“Do you ever fall?”
“Go back to the circus, you sideshow freak!”
“Dude, your bike’s missing, like, a lot of stuff man.”
“That’s so cool.”
“I would SSSSOO fall on my a**!” (I’ve gotten that one 3 times so far.)
I was out riding in a local state park this past Satuday when a man and his son rode by on mountain B***s. The father said to his son.
“See that’s what happens when you forget to lock up your bicycle”
one on one: I like the way you censored bikers. ( I know I said the “B” word. dont report me for foul language! )
I have gotten a few like, “Doesnt that hurt your balls?” I respond to that with, it used to, but then I got castrated, so its all good."
Another good one is, “Can you actually ride that thing!?” (this is shortly after they see me hop off of a picnic table I just hopped onto, and dismounted gracefully!)
One of my all-time favorites would have to be, "Why did you take your bike apart? (this coming from a guy who was being COMPLETELY and UTTERLY serious!)
there have been a few, and Im sure as I get into town to ride some street, they will get more common, and infinitely more stupid. but what can you expect from a community that is completely unfamiliar with our chosen sport?
I get, like I’m sure everyone else does, “DON’T FALL!” I respond to that by turnig around and riding really fast towards them, turn, dismount, ask “off what?” get back on, and go really fast back where I was going.
the general public are actualy an army of psycological, if not pysical clones, mainly due to there entire experience of life coming from telivision.
as such they are only capable of a small number of responses to any given stilmuls,
its quite funny realy,
i’m glad i’m not one of them.
Unless you never try to be clever or funny or make any kind of comment you probably are one of them. I was reading Douglas adam’s book (The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul) and there was a thing that made me think about the where’s your other wheel comment. It was where the lead character meets someone and tells her he is a detective and she says something like what do people say to that, and he asks what do you mean, and she says she has a friend who plays a double bass and when ever people see him strugling to get through a door or something they always say, “I bet you wish you played a piccilo”. I think that most of the time people are just trying to be friendly, or a bit clever, having no idea how repetitive their remark is to someone who hears it all the time. That’s why I try to respond with something that may be no more clever but at least friendly.
Many people watch too much television, myself included. But I’m not so smug, in this respect at least ( ), to think that the members of the so called “general public” don’t engage in a vast array of activities which are unusual, fascinating, requiring of skill, concentration, and intellect, and which are not unicycling. And as implied by gkmac’s post, nor is it the case that we, despite being unicyclists don’t sometimes react to these other activities in manners similar to how we are reacted to when out on the street.
Yeh that stupidist one was the “Can you actually ride that thing?” when they obviusly can see u riding it while there saying it, what are these people stupid?
Over several years of riding many hours per week, I can only recall two genuinely amusing comments, though many, many others have tried with comments that they thought were funny, but which in fact were nothing of the kind
The first was from a young black guy looking very laid back, draped on a bus stop bench. Seeing me approach he lazily pulled his legs out of the way- ‘Hey, man. Why make things hard for yourself?’
The second was on a beautiful summer evening as I rode into town and passed a small group of young ladies- ‘lovely evening for it’ one of them quipped as I rode by.
But were more to do with context and timing than content, but they were a real refreshing change from the usual ‘your wheels missing’, car horn pipping etc.
“PS i bet if you do it just right you can ride a B*ke as if it were a giraffe.”
yes, you can ride a bike like it is a giraffe. It is a flatland BMX trick. I used to know the name. but I forgot it. I moved on to another sport (hint, hint). but yes, you sit on the headtube and pedal, eiterh forwards, or backwards, depending on of you are holding the handlebar grips, or the front pegs. its complicated, but VERY possible.
i was riding in the park the other day and i saw two little kids (they must have been about 7 or 8) playing on some swings. on of them saw me and called out “look at thats guys bcycle" and the other said "but its not a whole bcycle, it must be an Icycle”
I wonder what the countless numbers of people who crack a pathetic joke, or ask a stupid question would say if they knew that there is an internet unicycling community laughing at them, and making fun of them…Probably another stupid comment no doubt.
I ride a pretty sweet GB4 Muni here in Omaha and I was visiting Central Park last week. Riding past a playground I heard a nanny say to the little kid
“No honey, his bicycle’s not broken. That’s called a unicycle”
I also saw this woman in Central Park and was trying to decide which was the bigger freak…a guy on a MUNI or a woman in a pink tutu check it out http://gallery.unicyclist.com/albuv08/DSCF0137
Then there is the usual:
hey where’s your other wheel
you’re missing something
do you actually ride that?
is that hard?
whoa, can i try that?
you are gonna kill yourself
does that hurt when you rack yourself?
can you do a wheelie?
cooooool!
oh my gosh, that looks really fun but dangerous
A friend told me that in order to avoid these comments you need to be dumber than the other guy…so when you see somebody you need to say “have you seen my other wheel? I…I…I just cant seem to find it”
)
), to think that the members of the so called “general public” don’t engage in a vast array of activities which are unusual, fascinating, requiring of skill, concentration, and intellect, and which are not unicycling. And as implied by gkmac’s post, nor is it the case that we, despite being unicyclists don’t sometimes react to these other activities in manners similar to how we are reacted to when out on the street.