There’s an article about me and Joey Cohn unicycling in the Living/Arts section of the Boston Globe. You can see the online version at:
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/315/living/Hell_on_wheel+.shtml
Also http://www.boston.com/globe/living/ has a picture, but it will only be at that link for the rest of the day.
Ben
stunning article!!!
how did they contact u to set up the interview?
Excellent, accurate, and very positive article. You guys deserve the coverage.
Re: MUni article in the Boston Globe
Ben Plotkin-Swing wrote:
>
> There’s an article about me and Joey Cohn unicycling in the Living/Arts
> section of the Boston Globe.
Re: MUni article in the Boston Globe
Ben Plotkin-Swing wrote:
>
> There’s an article about me and Joey Cohn unicycling in the Living/Arts
> section of the Boston Globe. You can see the online version at:
>
Nice article, and good job guys!
The writer states, “The grandfather of mountain unicycling, an Alaskan
magistrate named George Peck, started taking his unicycle over boulders
and through snow-crusted fields two decades ago”. As an Alaskan I
momentarily feel a bit of pride, but wasn’t it a Frenchman (who’s name
escapes me (grumble, grumble)) who instigated the sport of mountain
unicycling?
Cheers,
Jason
Good stuff, Ben. I made copies and will pass them out at our club meeting tomorrow night.
Bruce
Re: Re: MUni article in the Boston Globe
The article on Peck in the Atlantic Monthly of April 97 ( http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/97apr/uni.htm ) cites this Frenchman: Thierry Bouche, but does not credit him as being the creator of MUni. It seems that MUni developed independently in a number of places and the community has over the years coalesced.
This is a great article. Only one mention of clowns/juggling and one comparision to bicycling. It got me thinking that one measure of where a sport/activity stands is the likelihood that it is its own reference point in writings about it. There can be, and in fact are, articles about mountain biking that make no reference whatsoever to bicycle touring and visa-versa. Unicycling has not reached this point, but this article is about as close as I’ve seen (outside, of course, of OOW).
Raphael Lasar
Matawan, NJ
Re: MUni article in the Boston Globe
Sweet Article, good job guys! Excellent exposure.
Dylan
Re: MUni article in the Boston Globe
> The article on Peck in the Atlantic Monthly of April 97
> http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/97apr/uni.htm
>
> This is a great article.
Thank you. It is indeed a well written article and it helps clear up my
confusion. I found other related information at:
http://www.unicycle.uk.com/muni.asp
Cheers,
Jason
I was contacted by the author about a week before MUni Weekend. She was looking for some MUni people a little closer to the Boston area. I knew just the two guys. But they were out of town at that moment, as they had already headed off for Santa Cruz! So the article waited a bit, until they could get back home and add their experiences of MUni Weekend.
Who created mountain unicycling? This is a common question by reporters that has no easy answer. The most common one, even harder to answer, is how many mountain unicyclists are there? So I give a long disclaimer, and take a guess.
But if I had to narrow down who started it, I could get it down to four names. This does not count the 100+ years of people riding unicycles off pavement since they were invented, and only relates to recent history of people specifically pursuing unicycling on dirt for the purpose of dirt, and not just to get somewhere. Those names, in rough chronological order, are me, Thierry Bouche, George Peck, and Duncan Castling. I don’t know when Thierry and Duncan started riding off road, so that order is based on what I know of their publicized exploits.
My claim to fame is the “UMX” article I did for On One Wheel in 1981. It appeard in early '82. I rode on dirt from the beginning, as my street was unpaved. But that was jsut to get from A to B, so I don’t count it. Sometime in 1980 or 81 I started riding on trails for fun, which resulted in that article, telling people to try it out. I called it UMX because in those days BMX was huge, and moutain biking was barely bigger than mountain unicycling is today.
I believe George Peck started riding around 1984. He came to my attention when he sent me some offroad photos for the IUF magazine in 1985. Meanwhile, Thierry Bouche has been riding down the Alps since 1981(?) I’m not sure. Due to the language barrier and lack of knowledge of unicycling in the French-speaking world, I don’t know what impact he has had on other unicyclists. But surely he is the first “extreme offroad unicyclist.”
Duncan Castling was not alone in his early exploits, but I’m not sure who else was around in their original entry into the Polaris Challenge. Mini Mansell and Roger Davies are two names that come to mind. Duncan and friends broadcast stories of their adventures to the unicycling mailing list/newsgroup back in 1994.
Duncan is credited with coining the term ‘Muni.’ I added the capital U, and was questioning whether to keep using it. But since the new Trivial Pursuit game has included “MUni” as what must be one of its hardest new questions, I think I’ll keep using it that way for a while.
Re: MUni article in the Boston Globe
Ben and Joey - great article! It’s always a little scary when an article is
coming out since they never let you see it in advance. But she did a great
job. I’m putting up the picture on the wall with the others.
—Nathan
“Ben Plotkin-Swing” <Ben.Plotkin-Swing.dykty@timelimit.unicyclist.com> wrote
in message news:Ben.Plotkin-Swing.dykty@timelimit.unicyclist.com…
>
> There’s an article about me and Joey Cohn unicycling in the Living/Arts
> section of the Boston Globe. You can see the online version at:
>
> http://tinyurl.com/2lln
>
> Also http://www.boston.com/globe/living/ has a picture, but it will only
> be at that link for the rest of the day.
>
> Ben
Re: MUni article in the Boston Globe
On Mon, 11 Nov 2002 08:45:38 -0600, Ben Plotkin-Swing
<Ben.Plotkin-Swing.dykty@timelimit.unicyclist.com> wrote:
>There’s an article about me and Joey Cohn unicycling in the Living/Arts
>section of the Boston Globe.
Spicey article, absorbing read. A great picture for our sport!
Klaas Bil
All my posts are made with 100% recycled electrons.
But which one of you is the hot babe in blue?
Nyah.