Well yea that was the thought. And when I said athlete I meant mainstream athlete. Are skaters considered mainstream?
e39m5
There’s a regular contributor to these fora who’s written many rock climbing books and wrote (maybe still does?) a column in “Climbing” magazine.
It’s not me, but I’m not sure if I should “out” him here. KH and Nathan know, I think.
I know of a place in Western Australia which uses unicycles to teach people to ride horses. The instructor, Sam, does some rad horse trick riding. Not exactly mainstream, though. heres a link
I’d agree with you there, mostly…it’s not that they’re not into new things, it’s just that to be the best in a certain area, you need to spend a loooot of time training. so there’s not much room to get into any other activities, unless, of course, you use those other activities as X-training like many people have pointed out here.
That would be John Long. He’s a great muni rider who started about 1.2 years ago. My first climbing book was “How to rock climb”, by, John Long.
–corbin
Well, jeez.
I guess the cat’s out of the bag now, Corbin!
John PM’ed me a while ago that he didn’t mind, anyway. “How to Rock Climb” was also my first climbing book, and I still use it as a reference.
Someone also mentioned Andrew McLean a while back. He’s a top-notch ski mountaineer from SLC, UT and Munis for x-training.
He’s done many first ski descents around the planet and wrote a book “The Chuting Gallery” listing and rating back country Utah chutes. He introduced a ski descent rating system similar to the Yosemite system of climb ratings. He mentioned in his book what a kick it is to ski down a route and pass ice-climbers with ice-axes and crampons on their way up.
There was just a report in Newsweek stating there are 7.6 million active climbers, so perhaps I did come from a “main stream” sport. But I believe Chris was asking about big time media athletes like ball players and tennis stars.
Truth be told, I got into Muni because it was a comparatively new adventure sport, and everyone doing it on a serious level is something of a pioneer. On about a quarter of the trails I go down (excepting those in Santa Barbara) it’s a first descent on a Muni, and that’s as good as it gets in adventure sports.
On the other hand, many rock climbing venues have gotten very crowded over the last decade, so I’m more than pleased to basically have the whole Muni shebang to myself and a few friends like Eyal, Hans, Jim, Phil, and on occassion, Corbin, Nathan, Beau and so on.
Great guys and one hell of a sport.
John Long (JL)
And occassional poster here.
MUni riding and skiing have a lot in common - quite upper body, balance, concentration, challenge, mountains, etc… The seasons also compliment each other perfectly. When you can’t ride, you can ski and visa versa.
Louie Dawson (son of Lou Dawson, Colorado ski mountaineering legend) is also into MUni and trial riding.
Oops! 
i think it’s great that John is into the sport. We need to get more exposure for it in anyway that we can. I do know one of the recent climbing magazines had a mention of JL getting into mountain unicycling – if only that had some good pictures to go along with it!
What i really need to do is run into Steve Jobs and get him to start the sport. That would be great exposure. (I work at Apple).
-corbin
Really? I’ve skimboarded a bit and find its my physical stamina (having to run a LOT) that goes first. Plus the running speed is a major factor, and all thats before you actually get on the board. After that its just pure balance & weight distribution. Or is there a factor I’m missing? I have’t done it all that much, its been a bit wintry in the uk of late :p.
Thats what I love about it as well. The fact that everyone you meet has never seen someone on a unicycle before, let alone one going down rocky trails & hills they wouldn’t walk down!
As far as using unicycling as cross training is concerned, I don’t really do any other sports so can’t guage its impact, except it has made me lose a lot of weight!
Loose.
i dont know any, but i have seen loads of your uni vids (kris holm) and i just wanted to say how much i admire your skill!!! i also have flames on my leg protectors(just like yours in ‘in to the thunder dragon’(i love that film))
Perhaps you’re right, vivalargo. Especially during the period (Yosemite CAMP IV heyday years) you’ve written mostly about, climbing was certainly NOT mainstream. Also, the Gunks mythology and the Vulgarians were actively striving for anything but mainstream.
Now climbing (and all those so-called extreme sports) are downright trendy, but still maybe not mainstream.
Re: mainstream athletes who unicycle?
Uh, how about the guy who started this thread 
Ok, so maybe you ain’t so mainstream Kris…but to us you are
You can’t ride during the winter? Why didn’t someone tell me before I did it? I’ve pretty much given up snowboarding in favor of smuni (snow muni) cause poor students like myself can’t afford lift tickets (especially after buying uni stuff :D))
rodney mullen and jay quinlan
where does joakim malm lives ? Gothenborg?
easy to contact him just need to know where he lives…
Not an athlete, but someone told me yesterday that John Denver unicycled. …something about seeing him on the Today Show or a similar show riding one.
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld can unicycle. He’s not really an athlete but he has been doing some crazy juggling lately…
Graceful…don’t ya think !
steve-o in jackass can unicycle too
Ah, two things now he has in common with Rumsfeld.
[I]eljest wrote: steve-o in jackass can unicycle too
Rutabaga Answered: Ah, two things now he has in common with Rumsfeld.
[/I]
Ha ha ha…I almost fell off my chair. Politics aside, that comment made my day…thanks. 