I’ve taken to riding Blue Shift to work with only a helmet. OK, I wear shorts, shirt, shoes, but no kneepads or elbow pads or other protective gear. Yesterday I passed four bicyclists. A good day for my 10 mile roundtrip (5 in 5 out) commute. Today I passed a guy on a bike who said he’d never seen a unicycle travel so fast. As he passed me on the downhills and I passed him on the climbs we discussed big wheels and geared hubs a little. As I was passing my second bicyclist on the way in, I sped up a little to increase the gap and get some space. I sped up a little too quickly on terrain that was a little too bumpy. As I passed her, she said, “that looks challenging.” I think I hit the pavement halfway through the “challenging” part so the sentence was followed immediately by my signature line, “are you OK?” I’m never OK after a disgraceful display like that. I didn’t hurt anywhere and I knew about how long that would last. Ripped up my right elbow badly and took a good chunk out of my right knee. I cut my left middle finger but I cut the end off it off a couple of years ago and don’t care to much about that one. It’s the bruise on the heel of my left hand that started to hurt first. Do you think I learned anything? I must have held back because I only passed one bike on the way home from work. I love passing bikes. Risky business, that.
Re: Meet Mr. Pavement
Ouch!!! That’s gotta hurt.
I never pass Bikes. Maybe I need to add a Blue Shift to my wish list. A geared uni… wow!
Hope you heal quickly. --chirokid–
I consider that little accident to be just your warm up for the Vancouver Island Muni Weekend. I expect to see more displays of artistic falling and bloodshed from you this weekend. There is an elevated skinny somewhere on the island with your name all over it.
Ouch! 
Pride goeth before a fall? My worst fall was witnessed, too. Makes it much worse.:o
I hope she was worth it. 
Huh, you never mentioned what happened to Blue Shift, I sure hope she is alright.
Re: Meet Mr. Pavement
to paraphrase mel gibson’s character in braveheart…
“all unicyclists fall,
not all unicyclists pass b*kes”
u’d think the retailers would carry a combo-pack of wrist- and ego protectors by now
Sorry to hear the bad news, Greg. But passing bkes on one wheel is great fun, and worth a little pain once in a while. I hope you took the day off rather than adding to the pain by showing up at work in shreds. Heal up soon. There are many more bkes waiting to be passed.
You write that as if I have some common sense. I worked all day after patching myself up and then passed the third bike on the way home.
John Childs enjoys seeing me fall and I am sorry he missed that one. He’ll see plenty on Vancouver Island. I think I’ll get him on Blue Shift and goad him on to pass some bikes himself. He usually responds well to peer pressure.
Greg,
Sorry about your fall. I don’t think you need to go back to wearing other pads until your wounds heal.
I rode your Blue Shift with sandals on; it seemed safe enough to me:(
I had an elbow dismount Sunday on a hill after about 30 miles of Cokering. This old guy laughed at me from his front porch(the first house I had passed in 5 miles 
)
Seriously, I enjoyed meeting you. I’m not really a con artist.
-Mark
I also love passing bikes when on one wheel. I passed a few bike tourists in Norway and occasionally pass them commuting to work too.
If you like this activity, I recommend you heal up and come down to California for the Mt Diablo Challenge in October. This is the best bike-passing event I know of. The course is 10.8 miles, almost all uphill, but starts with a descent, so all the unicycles basically start at the back of the pack. Then for the entire ride, you are passing bikes. Last year there were 741 bikes and 9 unicyclists who completed the course, and the first unicycle (Gary Kanuch on a Coker) came in 339th place! How’s that for bike-passing?!
Surf on over to http://www.mtdiablochallenge.com/ and check it out. Sunday Oct 5, 2003 is the date!
—Nathan