If you saw my recent post regarding an article in the Houston paper, this is almost a continuation of it. Jim Baccus read the article and traked me down. He lives in the same area and used to have a significant club here. His boys rode 12’ unis and he had as many as 30 kids ride in parades. He even attended a few conventions in Ohio. I was invited over to see his uni collection and pictures. He had a photo of some youg guy riding a BC wheel in a parade and told me it was Sem Abrahms. He recalled some ‘youg kid’ with a decorated uni with bells and horns -named John Fost. (Sorry John, I think 63 years isn’t too long to confuse Fost with Foss.)
He has a shed full of mostly Schwinns -none have been ridden for at least 20 years when the club fell apart. Anyway, he “loaned” me a stacked 2-wheeled uni and I spent all day getting it ready to ride. I changed tires and tubes and cleaned rust off the chrome rims of the '83 ‘unicycle factory’ cycle and repacked the bearings.
I spent about 1/2 hour trying to hang onto a wall and get on it. I managed to mount it, and clinging onto the wall with enough force to have cement under my nails, I made it about 20 feet. What’s the trick to riding this thing, aside from doing everything backwards.
…Oh, and I’ll add a picture of everyone waiting around the table, like any good family weekend.
My club has the same type of uni from the unicycle factory, but with 3 wheels. I don’t have any advise to offer but but those look fun and hard, maby I’ll get one some day.
A two-wheeler is high on my wish list. It looks like a lot of fun.
Here are some photos of Gilby riding his two-wheeler. Hopefully he can give you some advice. http://www.gilby.com/unicycling/photos/2wheeler/
I’ve seen Gilby riding his double wheeler, and the pictures are great. But, the commentary is mostly concerned with tricks (that I can’t do on a regular unicycle) and not much about actually learning to ride it.
If you’ve never tried one, you should.
Hanging on the wall and trying to mount, I knew I looked exactly like everyone I see trying to learn to ride a unicycle, that never tried before. It’s like starting all over.
On Sat, 27 Nov 2004 17:38:37 -0600, “jerryg” wrote:
>What’s the trick to
>riding this thing, aside from doing everything backwards.
When we still went to a unicycle club, my then 13-y.o. daughter could
ride one in a big circle in the gym. She learned by riding endlessly
between a set-out wall rack and the gym wall, so she had support from
two sides. Then from two spotters in the open, then from one spotter,
then only ‘mental’ support from someone (me, mostly) walking next to
her. So basically the same as learning a regular uni, it’s like
learning all over and takes about as much time too.
I’ve seen Sem Abrahams freemounting one, wildly looking, faking that
he couldn’t ride and in the process doing all kind of tricks.
Hilarious.
Klaas Bil - Newsgroup Addict
“Deflating pi does not reduce calories, it just concentrates them. - billham”
The other two wheeled cycles (Penny Farthings) are fine. I’m still amazed that they are more of a crowd pleaser than a unicycle. --Excpet off-road, but that’s because a muni gets respect on a trail instantly. Everytime I’m on the PF people come around and talk and say nice things and want to try, etc etc, but the uni mostly attracts gawkers and distant comments. Maybe it’s because I have 2, and generally ride the PFs with another person, and on the uni, I’m generally alone. -People may be more afraid of a ‘loner’ on a wierd ‘bike’.
The stacked uni really is like learning all over. I was laughing at myself trying to mount the beast.
A nice railing at the right height helps a lot when you’re learning. I used a chicken wire fence beside a tennis court, which was less than ideal. It is like learning to ride again, however it won’t take you as long as you’ll have a better sense of when you’re doing it right than a complete beginner (on a standard unicycle) would have. It took me about 2 or 3 hours to learn to ride Steve Pavarno’s two-wheeler.
A good free mount is the side mount, which gets the pedals out of the ‘dead zone’ and also starts them moving in the right direction.
