Day two on Uni.5 began with challenge, thrill and excitement and ended with an undeniable feeling of awe. It was a hair-raising ride and definitely lived up to all that I thought it might be.
While, by some stroke of luck, I was able to mount the beast on my first try, I did find a couple of immediate challenges. The first being that mounting and riding Uni.5 is kind of like riding a bicycle left in high gear from a complete standstill. The movement is sluggish and difficult to get used to.
After learning to deal with a small amount of backlash, the only other immediate challenge that I faced was in making quick compensations, especially slowing or coming to a sudden stop. Like it has been said before, though, this is something that would probably be remedied with a different wheel/crank combination.
Once accustomed to Uni.5’s obvious differences, I think the vast majority of unicyclists will find the ride to be incredibly fun, lively and white-knuckles fast. I couldn’t help but smile every time I got on it and I can only imagine what this technology will mean for the future of our sport. It’s almost frightening.
