Once you learn....

Riding Advice
1

Okay… I’m going to post a ‘serious’ post today!

My friend in Tecumseh, MI suprised me on the weekend by saying that he
‘used to’ unicycle years ago (before MUni and trials). The last time he
even sat on one was five years ago and it was someone elses. He had given
his up way before then.

I adjusted the seat on my Pashley and stuck it under his nose (the Pashley
not the seat) to let him try. He got up beside a tree and for several
tries gave it a go. After those several tries he certainly got farther
than I did at the beginning but fell after just a couple of revolutions.

We didn’t have time for him to try further as we were taking all of our
kids to see Harry Potter. I’m sure that on a better surface and with an
hour more he would have been able to do okay.

What I’d like to know is, do you always remember how to ride a uni just as
you always remember how to ride a bike?

Does the type of uni make a BIG difference to the ‘comeback’?

What’s the longest anyone here has gone without riding?

And… was MUni or Cokering or Trials, being relatively new on the
unicycling scene, what drew you back to it?

Christopher Grove

“Be Bold and mighty forces will come to your aid.” -Basil King (Anyone who
can give me more info on THIS Basil King please email
me.)

My small but growing site: http://home.earthlink.net/~crgrove/index.htm

If you are in the Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti, MI area check out my resume and if
you know of a company that fits me please let me know… Thanks!

2

I made a 33 year gap when I came back to unicycling. My unicycle broke
when I was 12, and I started riding again at 45. I rode mostly off road as
a kid–there was no paving in the north Florida swamps where we lived. I
found that I’d lost very few skills–if any–during my break.

What got me back? I bought a unicycle for a niece, and found I could ride
it. I checked out the internet, and found the Atlantic Monthly article
about George Peck. I was hooked instantly.

David Maxfield Bainbridge Island, WA

3

Chris:

Although I’m not a frequent poster to this list, I’ll respond with a
qualified YES! I learned to ride back in '73 or '74 on a crapcycle my
sister got as a gift. I was 13 or 14 at the time and this uni was very
difficult to learn to ride. After several weeks I was able to ride it
around my block but it was extremely uncomfortable. I gave up after about
a month and a half because of the pain - I didn’t know that not all uni’s
were painful to ride.

Fast-forward 25 years to 1999. I had been wanting to find an
sport/exercise form that wasn’t the latest trendy thing to do and I
remembered my long ago unicycling days. I went out and bought a Schwinn
24" and was amazed that I could ride 100 yards within 15 minutes. What
truly shocked me was how comfortable it was, Viscount seat and all! Heck,
it was actually FUN!

Now that I ride regularly and have added a Coker to my stable, I regret
that I gave up so easily back in the 70’s. If I had done some research on
where to get a quality unicycle, I could have enjoyed 25 additional years
of this sport.

John (41 years old)

-----Original Message----- From: Christopher Grove
["]mailto:c_r_grove@yahoo.com] Sent: Tuesday, November 20, 2001 12:12 PM To:
rsu@unicycling.org Subject: Once you learn…

Okay… I’m going to post a ‘serious’ post today!

My friend in Tecumseh, MI suprised me on the weekend by saying that he
‘used to’ unicycle years ago (before MUni and trials). The last time he
even sat on one was five years ago and it was someone elses. He had given
his up way before then.

I adjusted the seat on my Pashley and stuck it under his nose (the Pashley
not the seat) to let him try. He got up beside a tree and for several
tries gave it a go. After those several tries he certainly got farther
than I did at the beginning but fell after just a couple of revolutions.

We didn’t have time for him to try further as we were taking all of our
kids to see Harry Potter. I’m sure that on a better surface and with an
hour more he would have been able to do okay.

What I’d like to know is, do you always remember how to ride a uni just as
you always remember how to ride a bike?

Does the type of uni make a BIG difference to the ‘comeback’?

What’s the longest anyone here has gone without riding?

And… was MUni or Cokering or Trials, being relatively new on the
unicycling scene, what drew you back to it?

Christopher Grove

“Be Bold and mighty forces will come to your aid.” -Basil King (Anyone who
can give me more info on THIS Basil King please email
me.)

My small but growing site: http://home.earthlink.net/~crgrove/index.htm

If you are in the Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti, MI area check out my resume and if
you know of a company that fits me please let me know… Thanks!
_________________________________________________________________________-
__
rec.sport.unicycling mailing list -
www.unicycling.org/mailman/listinfo/rsu

4

I learnt to ride over a period of several weeks and then took a ten year
break. I don’t think I’d been riding long enough for skills to really sink
in, but now that I think about it, basic riding did come much more easily
this time around.

I now dearly wish I had continued riding for those ten years…

Arnold the Aardvark

British Unicycle Convention 9: Kidderminster, 19-21 April 2002

5

Yeah… I haven’t had a working unicycle for almost 2 months now, and…
I’m gonna go insane if I dont get my new one soon. Well that’s the
longest I’ve went without riding, which is alot seeing as i started
unicycling in July!

Oh yeah, my first and second unicycles were taiwanese cheap ones and with
a little bit of off-road riding, broke easily… and now i must wait
till my new one arrives!!! )—(x) Dylan Wallinger Keep Riding
http://www.extremeunicycling-bcmat.cityslide.com

6

11 year hiatus. I had moved to rural Mississippi from California, and left the wheel back in the Golden State. Anyway, I finaly succumbed to a desk-job, just over a year ago. No window. Cube Life (if you can call it “life”) made me fat and mizerable. I was at a convention in Atlanta with a juggling friend (Ed Perry), watching some Juggle-fu (Bad-ass juggling action). I made mention that I could juggle on a Uni, but that I had not riden in 10 years. Ed asked me why I had stoped… so I had to ask myself the same question. A week later, I’m firmly planted back in a cube farm. A google search for Unicycling was enough to infect me again. First I found some Muni sites- they reminded me of my trail rides a decade earlyer, just taken to a higher level. The idea that there were other people all juiced up about Uni’s was encouraging. I was hooked again when I saw photo’s of Cokers from the Europian ride.

A decade earlyer, I had used my Uni as my primary mode of transport for 2 years. Gota go to the laundry matt? Groceries? Hop on the Uni. When the the 24" United came from the Source, I mounted on the first attempt and rode without issue (I actualy had more trouble riding it after several days on the Coker…it was like I had bionics that I was just lerning to controll!).

Bye-the-way Mr. Grove: 6 Inches off the waist line, now… all from the Uni. Did 6 miles of hills at lunch today… realy feel the burn!

Later,

Christopher LeFay

7

I watched a good friend of mine wobble a very short distance on my uni
after a 20 year hiatus from unicycling. I believe if he were to pursue it,
unicycling would come back at a much quicker rate than in the initial
learning stages.

Bruce

Christopher Grove wrote:
>
> Okay… I’m going to post a ‘serious’ post today!
>
> My friend in Tecumseh, MI suprised me on the weekend by saying that he
> ‘used to’ unicycle years ago (before MUni and trials). The last time he
> even sat on one was five years ago and it was someone elses. He had
> given his up way before then.
>
> I adjusted the seat on my Pashley and stuck it under his nose (the
> Pashley not the seat) to let him try. He got up beside a tree and for
> several tries gave it a go. After those several tries he certainly got
> farther than I did at the beginning but fell after just a couple of
> revolutions.
>
> We didn’t have time for him to try further as we were taking all of our
> kids to see Harry Potter. I’m sure that on a better surface and with an
> hour more he would have been able to do okay.
>
> What I’d like to know is, do you always remember how to ride a uni just
> as you always remember how to ride a bike?
>
> Does the type of uni make a BIG difference to the ‘comeback’?
>
> What’s the longest anyone here has gone without riding?
>
> And… was MUni or Cokering or Trials, being relatively new on the
> unicycling scene, what drew you back to it?
>
> Christopher Grove
> –
> “Be Bold and mighty forces will come to your aid.” -Basil King (Anyone
> who can give me more info on THIS Basil King please email
> me.)
>
> My small but growing site: http://home.earthlink.net/~crgrove/index.htm
>
> If you are in the Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti, MI area check out my resume and
> if you know of a company that fits me please let me know… Thanks!

8

At ten I received a homebuilt uni for Xmas. It had a true ‘banana’ seat
carved out of wood with foam and vinyl wrapped around it. It was a
torturous seat.

I started again after a 20 year hiatus. But also I’ve rarely ridden in the
past 8 years. Now I read this newsgroup and get pumped up to go ride and
get some exercise. I’m trying to upgrade my uni based on all of the help
in this group. I thought of myself as too mature to ride during those
twenty years. Wasn’t it Picasso that said “When I was a child, I drew like
a child, then spent 20 years learning to paint like the masters, and then
several more years to learn to paint like a child again.”?

When I began riding again, getting around was OK but definitely not at the
same level.

By the way, to go along with the “doing it on a uni” thread, my first kiss
was on a uni, leaning over her back gate after a football game. That was
sure a great ride home.

Oh well…later she did to me what that seat had been doing for
some time!

Doug Massey

“Christopher Grove” <c_r_grove@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:3BFA8EDC.C49A0DC6@yahoo.com…
> What I’d like to know is, do you always remember how to ride a uni just
> as you always remember how to ride a bike?
>
> Does the type of uni make a BIG difference to the ‘comeback’?
>
> What’s the longest anyone here has gone without riding?
>
> And… was MUni or Cokering or Trials, being relatively new on the
> unicycling scene, what drew you back to it?

9

On Thu, 22 Nov 2001 04:42:55 GMT, “Doug Massey” <dvm@mmcable.com> wrote:

>At ten I received a homebuilt uni for Xmas. It had a true ‘banana’ seat
>carved out of wood with foam and vinyl wrapped around it. It was a
>torturous seat.
…
>By the way, to go along with the “doing it on a uni” thread, my first
>kiss was on a uni, leaning over her back gate after a football game.
…
>Oh well…later she did to me what that seat had been doing for
>some time!
You’re not saying that was torturous, are you?

Klaas Bil

“To trigger/fool/saturate/overload Echelon, the following has been picked
automagically from a database:” “Reprieve, 510, Alex”