Another milestone today.
Firstly, I replaced my small plastic pedals with a pair of Wellgo DMR knock-offs. At first I was a bit nervous of the pins, but these pedals are much wider than the old plastic ones, and now my feet don’t feel as if they are about to fall off the pedals, as they did before. Much more comfortable.
Once I start learning how to freemount though, I may take a few of the pins out, as they will make a mess of my shins if things go wrong.
Before, when practicing, I’ve been riding up and down in front of the local museum, concentrating on staying on the uni and turning the occasional corner.
Today I decided I would go somewhere.
Down to the local supermarket car park, alongside the local leisure centre, round the corner along the bike path and back to the car park. A loop of about 2 miles.
The first third of a mile goes well - one lean on the wall, and I’m away. (Breathe, sit up straight, breathe, sit up straight - that’s my mantra).
My first UPD is where the pavement slopes down to the road. The camber takes me off. It takes about ten frustrating attempts to get going again - the post I lean on is quite far from the pavement and balance is awkward.
I UPD again almost at the halfway mark, and this time there are no handy posts to lean on, so I walk the fifty yards to the halfway turn. (A man passes with a dog and says I have lost half my bike - “Ahahah”, I say out loud,as inwardly I shoot invisible laser death beams at him with my eyes).
The second half was much better. A slow gradual slope downwards (I’m getting the knack of gradual slopes now) and I pass a father and son who smile at me. I’ve no sooner gone by them when I UPD again.
I take the time to get my breathe back, wipe the sweat from my brow and clean the mist from my glasses.
The father and son catch me up while I take a breather and we have a small chat. They say goodbye and stroll off.
I remount on the third attempt and go by them again and keep going, slightly uphill now, the path goes alongside the rear of a new supermarket, and where the checkouts are is a huge glass window looking out onto the bike path.
Every time I’m in the supermarket, I think to myself “I’m going to uni that one day. I AM going to uni that one day.”
Today was that day.
Cycling along the path, I knew that people and kids at the checkout would be going “Hey, look at that guy!”
So I gave it my all, and prayed I wouldn’t UPD.
Sweat was dripping off my nose.
I make it passed the giant window and UPD behnd a convenient tree.
Phew.
A walk of about thirty yards to a lampost, back on again, and around a tricky corner which I surprise myself by not falling off, and I’m back at my starting point.
Hey.
I’ve actually been somewhere on my unicycle.
Not just farting around.
I went from A to B.
This is a big thing for me.
If I can do two miles, I can do three.
If I can do three miles, I can do five.
If I can do five…
Well, you get the picture.
Go me! 