This is my first post and please excuse me if I am covering old ground. I looked around a bit but didn’t find anything very recent about unicycle riders near our area. I live in Miamisburg, which is just south of Dayton and about an hour north of Cincinnati.
In order to connect with the community, we started a top spinning event some 13 years ago. It has done pretty well and instead of waiting for a whole year for some other “hands on” activity for the community, we had a yo-yo day for several years. It went OK but I have not seen anyone practicing or heard of anyone asking about doing it again. On the other hand, we have several who are working on the unicycle and they are asking about an event based around their new hobby. So, I am asking around to see what events might be in our area. I am also wondering about what unicyclists there might be around these parts (of course, I have heard of WOW and the Cincy group My Nose Turns Red). And finally, what is anybody doing on February 10th? Want to come ride in our church fellowship hall and meet/help some new riders?
I’m in Ohio, but way up on the other end of the state - 20 miles east of Cleveland…
A couple events of interest within easy reach for us this year are the NUACC in Butler, PA http://uninationals2013.com/ , and the 2013 International Juggling Fest in Bowling Green. http://www.juggle.org/
BTW, Emil Layne Jr, cofounder of WOW, passed away last year. Here is a link to his obituary:
http://thecourier.com/Issues/2012/Jul/27/ar_news_072712_story6.asp
Hello unigami. Great to hear from you. Thanks so much for your post and your information. I am looking forward to the IJA fest at Bowling Green. I don’t know much about NUACC. Maybe this is my year to find out and attend?
I also appreciate the information about Emil Layne, Jr. I have followed that group for years.
I just talked with people from “My Nose Turns Red”. They are a youth circus group from the Cincinnati area. It sounds like they have 15 active unicyclists in the group. I want to go check them out soon.
While I live in Virginia, I visit Cincinnati for five days, two to four times a year. I just started unicycling middle of December so I only have basic skills 
Not sure that this is what you’re looking for though…
I am in central ohio. there are 2 riders in the “columbus” area me my cousin and another kid that rides street and flat. I would be game on any rides any time hit me up!
Thanks for your responses. We have some young riders going and I was trying to find them some more inspiration by having a unicycle day at our church. February 10th is a Sunday and we could do something in our fellowship hall from 2-5. Please let me know if you are interested. It is not the biggest space but there are fairly high ceilings and enough room to do some challenges and other activities.
We are at St. Jacob Lutheran Church, 213 E. Central Avenue in historic downtown Miamisburg. Take exit 44 from route 75 and go west (going east takes you by the Dayton Mall). Go several miles until you go across a set of railroad tracks. The church is on the right after the tracks.
Toledo here. learned to ride over 40 years ago and bought a 36" about a year ago. Haven’t ridden it much but might be interesting in getting with others in the area.
I talked with our church council and are free and clear to proceed with our event on February 10th. We will do it from 2-5pm which allows us to have our worship services and then some time to grab a bite to eat. If people are traveling, they should have enough time to get back home at a reasonable hour.
We do not have oodles of space to unicycle. The room is about 45 feet by 45 feet and has four poles in the middle. The good news is that there is a fairly high ceiling of 11 feet. It is all on the first floor with the sanctuary on the second floor. We are near a river and the place was built in the 1860’s so they wanted to keep the main meeting room safe from flooding. In fact, there has been flooding in this room, most especially in 1913 when there was five feet of water there.
Most likely, this event will be aimed at beginners and better unicyclists are invited to attend and help them. Although, we hope to have a number of fun games or challenges. What are some good things people like to do at unicycle events…longest idle, riding on a line, going around our four poles etc.
I stopped by the local donut shop that is just a block from the church and asked if they had any unicycle donuts we could have for our event. They seemed to be caught off guard a bit and couldn’t promise anything. We’ll see what they come up with. At the very least, we can have pretzel sticks there and maybe some marshmallows we can cut out for seats. We should be able to form a basic unicycle shape from that with the donut as the wheel.
The good news is this got a couple of our unicyclists to thinking about things they could do and they want to make some unicycle cupcakes for the day! We are picking up some steam. One local gal wants to learn how to hula hoop on her unicycle and is using this day as a reason to practice again. Another young woman has always wanted to learn and is coming just to get started. We have made contact with the children’s circus in Cincinnati called “My Nose Turns Red” and they will send up a few…but maybe as many as 5 or 6! I have a list of activities and challenges and I am trying to get people to take a picture of their unicycle somewhere and to bring it to share. That will get the conversations going.
We are looking forward to Sunday afternoon, February 10th, from 2-5 at St. Jacob Lutheran Church for our first ever unicycle day. If anyone is interested, we are located at 213 E. Central Avenue and can be found at www.stjacob.net
Our first unicycle day was a big success, thanks to the support of the people in the Cincinnati children’s circus group “My Nose Turns Red”. I saw Joe and Will first and they blew everyone over with their nice unicycles. The only thing better than their equipment was their riding. Wow, they look great. Then I saw Eli and he also impressed with his unicycles and his skill. Such a smooth job of riding backwards. After that, Tony showed up. He was lugging a big bag with his unicycle and he proceeded to ride and juggle balls and ride and diabolo and ride and juggle clubs and ride and…well, you get the idea. He was always on the go with some new amazing skill. Finally, Molly showed up and she was everywhere with her unicycle. It’s always great to have female riders and she impressed us with her talents, too.
Our better riders seemed to respond to the visitors. How great to watch them improve by the minute. We also had a number of young riders just getting started. In fact, we had several young mothers sitting on unicycles trying to get their feet wet.
At one point in the day the room was completely packed with activity. I tried to count and guess that there forty some people in attendance. As the day slowed down I brought out some more fun. The two foam swords were a big hit. Then we cleared the floor and brought out the sticks and puck for unicycle hockey. What a great finish for the day!
Many many thanks to all who participated. I know a number of riders are lurkers on this forum. Special thanks to Rachel and Anna for the unicycle cupcakes. The unicycle donuts were also a big hit.
We need to do this again!