My wife and I sure enjoyed your video. Hopefully the dismount effects are way less than the video would lead us to think. Your video makes us both remember one of our experiences with my giraffe upds. She took one look at the damages and began insisting on a trip to the emergency ward. I did managed to talk her out of the trip to the hospital.
We were on vacation at the “Beach House” in Moclips. I had been riding my giraffe all week. Some how, with no warning to speak of, I found myself entangled with my leg through the chain, chain ring, cog and frame shortly after mounting and attempting to riding away over some cobbles. So there I lay threaded through the chain and bent/twisted frame in the same spot as the last scene in the John Wayne movie “McQ”. The scar on my calf and shin has just recently, after several years, given up the black color embedded in my flesh from the chain lube. It looked like a huge tattoo for years. It wasn’t until just recently we noticed it was almost back to normal skin color.
Unlike I would expect, I landed directly on top of and tangled in the giraffe. After a hour or two of work and straightening the giraffe was again touring the beach and roads of Moclips. But I decided it might be best to avoid the cobbles.
This is turning into a “Things not to do on giraffes” thread.
Wow, a real-life chainring tattoo! Usually they’re just something you wash off.
I recall some similar dismounts from my old Schwinn Giraffe, but nothing that serious. It was in my first year of riding that my friend and I decided to stop playing (what we now call) Sumo on six-footers…
I’ve now got 2 stories worthy of adding to this thread…
So I’ve been borrowing a 7 footer from Tom Miller (The Unicycle Factory) and having a good time with it. The first 4 rides were easy and uneventful. I would start and finish from a chain fence. One fence was in a tennis court and the other was behind home plate for a baseball diamond.
Ride #4 was very fun because I took my iPhone out while riding and took some video. Awesome!
Ride #5 didn’t go so well. It started out fine at the baseball diamond with a couple of kids enthused about the unicycle. I took off and one of the kids followed me as I rode. He asked, “How do you turn?” I replied “Like this…” He asked right as I was at an opportunity to turn so I answered his question by turning down a different section of road in the park. “Do you ever ride that in the grass?” “No, I need it pretty smooth to ride these tall ones…”
Immediately after saying that I rode into crumbled up pavement that I obviously didn’t realize was there. Oh the irony! The wheel stopped dead and down I went so fast I had zero time to think about the best way to land. I landed with all my weight on my heels but mostly on my right heel. The pain was intense enough I found myself breathing deep breaths weather I wanted to or not. My feet hurt very badly and six days later I’m only about 30% to 40% improved. I guess I’m lucky I didn’t do anything other than suffer very bad bruising. I could have broken my heal, sprained an ankle, broken whatever… Another weird fact is that my right foot has discoloration on the side of it but none on the bottom. Like I told the kid, I need it to be pretty smooth! I will ride the 7 footer again but I will monitor the road smoothness like a hawk!
And now for story #2…
I called Tom Miller 5 days after the fall to tell him the story and ask if I could borrow the 7 footer for a while longer (I’m a diehard). He then told me in detail about a fall he took around 20 years ago. Apparently he used to ride a 12 footer (that he made of course) regularly and intentionally dismount by falling off. He said he could do that without incident, which blows my mind. So one day he was riding it and hit something rough. He had been distracted by something and momentarily quit monitoring the road smoothness ahead of him. He went down and broke his heel. Without insurance, he received a cast and was sent on his way. He’s had foot pain to tolerate every day since then.
But crazy Tommy still rides. I’ve done 2 parades with him where he rode a 10 footer from start to finish with no incidents or dismounts. A spectator asked him if he’d ever fallen from that height. He said “Yes, one time. I learned to never ever fall from that height again.”
Oh my, that is funny and scary at the same time!
Got a 5ft Torker giraffe, which I’ve been practicing off and on.
Of all the uni I have, the giraffe is one I fear the most.
I’d rather UPD from my Coker on a mountain then have a bad fall on a giraffe.
Thanks for the funny vid!
