I saw someone doing some trials riding on the UC santa barbara campus and was really intrigued. I then went to youtube and all the tricks and types of riding I saw blew my mind. Then I got one for christmas and went from there. Hooray
I got in uni by simply wanting something to do. To this day, I have no idea where ‘unicycle’ came into the equation, but it did. I’ve never really seen anyone ride one (even in the circus), and didn’t know about this website. I got on eBay and ordered a 24" Gravity. I went on base and drove over to the basketball court. The backboard pole had two suporting it, just enough room for me to sit in. I would push myself off and ride as far as I could for about an hour a day. Many people would drive past and stare, some even came to me to talk about it. Once I managed to get to the other side of the court, I moved over to the tennis court. From there, I learned how to free mount, and ride even longer. Once I rode from the tennis court, to the golf shack and back (.75 miles roughly), I moved on to the running track and the roads around base. I went home and showed my friend, who was curious about riding. I lent him my gravity, since I then had my Nimbus II, and he started practicing. I have yet to go home to see how he’s doing, but from his wife, he is progressing nicely.
Now, I have a 4th 24" and a 29er I ride. I’ve been riding over a year, but can’t do much besides ride off a curb, and occasionaly hop up on one. But I plan on fixing that soon. Been riding ever since. I don’t even bat an eye to bicycles anymore. And riding distance is what I do mainly.
Sounds like maybe it was that Master of Champions show on ABC? That was Dan Heaton and Zack Baldwin with some major primetime coverage!
As for me, my story of getting into unicycling is in one of the previous threads Harper linked to.
it was “welcome back kotter” that planted the seed for me and was fertilised by KH in a mountain bike film.
I went out to skate and pedrotejada went with his unicycle, I was really impressed with it and I tried to learn I couldnt learn in the first day.
After 15 days I went out in the street agai and pedro lent me a 26er and we spend sometime riding together, when I arrived home I practiced and finally learn to unicycle in a week or less.
Thanks pedro this sport is awesome
First time
I was a diver on the University of Florida’s swim team in 1964 and was fooling around in the gym doing full twisting back flips on the mat when I spotted a unicycle. I recall the seat was covered in several layers of adhesive tape. My first attempt resulted in a few complete revolutions before I went down. The next went a little farther and I got progressively better. That was my only foray into one-wheeling until I competed at the National Sky Diving championships in Marana, AZ in 1969. Someone had a uni there and I discovered I hadn’t lost the ability to ride. I don’t think I rode again until ten years ago when, on a whim, I bought an entry level CyclePro 20". I’ve been riding that and an inexpensive 28" Sun on and off ever since.
That was a big part of it for me, too, and I think you know that I met the guy, right? His name’s Tom Pennell.
And I was also lucky enough to be growing up in Manhattan, where I had an annual dose of the circus (sometimes two circuses) and got to see the King Charles Troupe and occ’ly other uni’ists.
After my bro and I learned, we’d ride our unis across town to the Metropolitan Museum, where street performers used to be allowed to earn a living. There was a regular named Chuckster who inspired us to learn a few tricks, tho we quickly surpassed him (tho not in juggling, his forte).
Yup. It’s amazing that a little exposure like that in the credits to a sit-com can inspire so many people to learn to ride. It’s just seeing someone normal riding rather than a professional performer. Makes it look so much more accessible.
Now the kids have Youtube clips to discover and get inspired by. Lots of unicycling clips on Youtube. Strangely I cannot find the closing credits to Welcome Back Kotter on Youtube. Just the opening credits.