The regulars in the Vancouver uni club were in for an unexpected treat yesterday when they meet at the parking lot in Steveston for a regular club ride. We were delighted by the unexpected presence of Kris Holm who was in town for a few weeks and had been trying to join us on a club ride for some time now.
The day was perfect with sunny patches and a pleasant off shore wind blowing. We rode an easy hour or so on the dike along the ocean seagrass. It was a pleasant time of converstation (lots of uni talk, of course) and a chance to try swapping uni’s around for a little taste of 20’s, 24’s, a 26 and even Luke’s new Coker.
Back at the parking lot Kris switched to his trials uni and Luke to his 24 inch, Bryon still on his TUni, Mike on his 26 and Sheila and I on our Bedford MUnis. Off to the driftwood on the nearby beach where Kris mesmerized us with his magical uni skills. There wasn’t much on the beach that any of us could tackle nor did we really want to when we had a rare and special opportunity to watch Kris create fluid lines riding across driftwood logs and stumps. Kris happily and kindly shared tips and techniques with us and in his generous way invited interested passer-bys to have a try riding a uni.
Finally it was down to the wharfs where we viewed the huge salmon on sale right off the fishboats that had caught them just days before. But fresh prawns ended up being the purchase of the day and it was an amusing sight to see Kris complete his amazing trials tricks with bagged prawns in hand!
All in all, it was a fabulous day of riding, learning and being inspired. Not only is Kris Holm an awesome unicyclist, he is a lovely kind and gentle man. Oh, how lucky we are to have him as our ambassador of unicycling!
it really sucks though . because i live in shawnigan lake near victoria( like 20 mins away ) but it would be nice to get down to vancouver and do some riding up there sometime
But if the vancouver uni-club ever comes down my way then e-mail ahead of time cause i know about 5 other unicyclists that would love to go on a ride .
I had quite an IM session with Andrew last night. Sounds like a great time. Put us Seattle folk on your e-mail list and we’ll make a run for the border some weekend. Of course let us know if any of you come South, planning on coming to the Cascade Jugglers’ Seattle International Juggling Festival this June?
Andrew says the seat on Kris’s trials uni is much more comfy than his viscount.
unibrow, can you spell Tswassen? Vancouver isn’t that hard to find. I’d like to ride Victoria sometime, a coker ride on the Galloping Goose Trail could be a lot of fun.
Thanks for your comments Steve and let me apologize for failing to mention that Andrew had joined us on this week’s ride, at least for the first bit. It was great to see him out and good that he could have a go on Kris’s uni, enjoying the wider tire and more comfortable seat. I’m sure Andrew was inspired like the rest of us.
Yes, Steve we have added you to our club e-mail list so you will be apprised of our upcoming rides and activities.
As for the Cascade Juggler’s Festival, for sure some of us will be down for it again this year. Two years ago, there were only a couple of us at the festival, last year 6 or 9 Vancouver jugglers and this year, who knows how many!
And yes, for the southern Vancouver Island crowd it would have been an easy skip over the water to Tswassen and then just up the road to Steveston for Saturday’s ride. If there are five or so riders over there you might be able to car pool and join us some time soon on a club ride… just a thought.
You’re so lucky! I think it’s really good that Kris and all these other unicycling greats really interact a lot with ‘normal’ unicyclists. That sort of thing doesn’t happen in a lot of other sports.
Uh, I knew that…:o I was just going by the numerous hits I got on a MSN search to confirm the spelling. Isn’t everything you read on the internet true ?
You got a great name, I’ll bring my Andrea and my Abby too. We’ll reach some type of critical mass of people whose names begin with A.
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