Lets have a go at history of t he unicycle. I start of by giving one fact about the history of it and then you reply with one fact each lets see how it goes.
The unicycle is closely related to the penny-farthing…
sucka’s started figurin’ out how t’ride on one wheel on deir penny fardin’s
Actually, if you post a unicycling thread in a non-unicycling forum, we have a go at you instead.
If you search through Rec.Sport.Unicycling (where unicycling threads live) you’ll find plenty of history.
it is a unicycling website so what the point not talking bout unicycling lol rippped out son
[fingers over eyes]I can’t look.[/fingers over eyes]
I kind of understood that. The point is found in the other threads on the page.
To stay on the topic:
Many early unicycles had handlebars…but not seats.
Unicycling in antiquity is found in the writings about Rota Fortunae.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rota_Fortunae
The next time you have self pity because of a UPD keep in mind how others throughout history have been cast down by the goddess’ spin.
Following the Wikipedia links to Roman writings about “Rota Fortunae”, I am now of the opinion that the unicycle did NOT evolve from the penny farthing. Rather, it came from the lesser known “denarius-sestertius”! They were probably issued to all the Roman legions around the empire. Obviously, with no made up roads, they’d have been “Munius”.
Actually, I was on a Roman road near Cambridge yesterday with my Muni, so I can sympathise! I didn’t have to have full battle gear on, thankfully.
Jerry
Just looked up Muni on an online Latin dictionary. Results for query “muni”:
munia : tributes, gifts, payments.
munificator : bestower of gifts.
munimen : fortification.
munimentum : fortification, protection, defenses.
munio : to fortify, defend, protect /build a road.
So…
Munis were given as “munia” by a “munificator”
Muni riders - munimen
When you can’t stop, you have “munimentum”
Jerry
On Google, a search on “muni” still gets you
San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency.
That’s the first two links. The third still points to the MUni page on my own website. I should probably give it some updates… :o
History of ‘the SPORT’
Stay tuned for my documentary–I’m having a complete segment dedicated to the history of the unicycle as a sport and the device itself. I’ve been doing a lot of research and I’m working to put together a historical “timeline” of the development of the sport over the past 30 years. There are a few things I need clarified and confirmed, though:
According to Uni magazine (issue 1) and many other folks, George Peck “is credited with giving birth to the sport of MUni.” Anyone know of anymore resources expanding on this and providing dates with evidence?
According to Dan Heaton, interviewed by Kris Holm (in Uni issue 1), as far as I understand, Dan Heaton started the “street” style of riding. Also, Dan states “Kris Holm really brought the trials unicycling to the unicycling community.” For both these styles, does anyone know of anymore resources expanding on this and providing dates with evidence?
Essentially, I’m trying to show who started what and when but I need verification otherwise the facts in my doc will be wrong and I want the truth.
I do not believe anyone who claims they started MUni or Street, and I doubt George Peck claims to have invented MUni- it would be other people who had not seen MUni done before that saw him and made that claim. Since unicycles were conceived they must have been used on rough terrain so any recent memories of people “inventing” MUni would be lacking the full picture of unrecorded historical unicyclists.
Plenty of people invented MUni for themselves without seeing George Peck but that doesn’t really mean they invented it- basicly mountainbikes invented mountain unicycling, we just copied and did similar on one wheel, same with other evolving styles that follow bike trends (Street, lol). Mountain unicycling has definitely evolved with the gear but essentially it is just riding one wheel offroad.
Also Pashley invented MUni the trademark. It has evolved into MU now, but it hasn’t totally caught on as MU even though it is a more efficient acronym.
Good luck in finding truth in recorded history.
It would be more accurate to say that George Peck was a Pioneer at Rough Terrain Unicycling than inventor of MUni.
Hey thanks for the reply Rowan! I completely understand and agree with what you are saying, but even though people like George Peck do not personally “claim” to have started it, they definitely had a major role in getting it started–George Peck’s videos sparked the interest in MUni among the community, even if people were already tapping into it. I’m sure the same can be said for Kris Holm, but more importantly, he “popularized it” much in the same way as did Tony Hawk with the sport of skateboarding. TH didn’t start it, but he contributed greatly to the sport’s growth.
So I’m not looking for any major precise labels, but I would like to know WHO contributed and WHEN for each extreme riding style. Or at least, can anyone tell me what years did each style (freestyle, street, trials, muni, etc.) start to really take hold in the uni community? I need some kind of factual structure to form my timeline on the growth of the sport…
reductio ad absurdum
You forgot to ask if we thought it was true. I consider it true enough, insofar as any activity can be “invented”. Obviously people were riding unicycles offroad before George came along; he didn’t learn to ride until 1983 or so. But his major contribution is his video Rough Terrain Unicycling, from 1991(?). Everybody who saw that immediately wanted to go out and ride on some dirt, rocks, ice or other rough stuff somewhere. George always insisted it shouldn’t be called “mountain unicycling” because it wasn’t about mountains, and he was right about that. We kept calling it mountain unicycling/MUni because the name was catchy, and had worked so well for bikes in the 1980s.
I am an earlier “MUni pioneer” but my contributions were smaller. I did an article for the USA’s On One Wheel (it was still called Newsletter then) about offroad riding in 1981. That exposed the idea directly to the USA members of that time. In 1988 I talked Alberto Ruiz into adding the first dirt (UMX) race to his Unicon IV in Puerto Rico. In 1989 I also encouraged having the first one at a USA convention, in Mobile, Alabama. In 1996 I organized the first all-MUni unicycle convention, the California Mountain Unicycle Weekend. That idea has spread around the world very nicely!
But if someone should be called the “grandfather of mountain unicycling” I would put that hat on George Peck. Since he’s probably not wearing a helmet it will fit nicely. 
I agree with that assessment, though to learn more about it, it would be interesting to talk to Dan about how he got the idea(s) to develop that riding style. Again, Street was popularized by a video, and Dan made really nice ones. To my knowledge, the concept of “Street” unicycling did not exist before Universe 1 came out.
Kris is responsible for turning Trials into a competition event. There were others doing Trials-type riding around that time, most noably Bruce Bundy and David Poznanter. They were the first I’m aware of to use the 3" downhill tires for off-roading. But Kris developed all the rules we’ve been using for Trials competition since day 1.
Pashley “borrowed” the word “Muni” (lowercase u) from Duncan Castling, the guy who is credited with coming up with that word. I was the one that started using the uppercase U, to the frustration of many a spellchecker…
Origin / History of the Unicycle
Here is an excerpt from my documentary film on the sport of unicycling (“In Unison”) on the origins of the unicycle:
It has? I guess I missed the memo. Only more “efficient” depending on how you think of efficiency. Either way, it seems like a dumb idea. Is there a thread about this somewhere?
People are still going to call it MUni no matter what…just like how people are still going to call the BC Wheel an “impossible wheel” even though this is a misnomer.
Thanks to all those who took part
yep…
never heard of MU. i always thought it was muni…lol