By “vintage” I basically mean any uni pics and/or videos from the 80’s and before. I found these pics from 1971.
And for those newer members who may not have seen it, here’s footage from 1967, when I was 11, shot by my dad with his wind up 8mm film camera, which I now own. (pics below) Of course, back then you had to have the film developed and then you’d show it on a portable screen using an old time projector!
This is the oldest footage I know of, (now 44 years old!) but if you have anything older, or near this old, please post!
1986 - Graduation day at Virginia Tech. No muni in those days, however, I did ride down the occasional small flight of stairs around campus, and I new how to grab the saddle and hop. I pretty much quit riding from then until I bought myself a 24 Nimbus after seeing a Kris Holm video on YouTube.
I learned to ride in the 70’s, but I have no photographic proof.
I have some home movies that were digitized that show me riding in about 1964 or so. I don’t know how to post them though. My earliest photo is the one I posted in another string dated Dec 1962, the Christmas I got my first uni.
Terry,
I saw one of those photos for sale on eBay. The cool thing about it is that the location is not far from the neighborhood where my mom grew up, and where her parents lived until they passed away (east side of Detroit). I bought three of those images:
St. Helens School kids riding into the school, circa 1968
Pontiac Unicycle Round-Up, 1972 (precursor to the annual USA conventions, which started the following year
Redford Township Unicycle Club, performing on their four-way ramp, with David Brichford and Hans Mills making the tight turn at the top. I was there for that one, and remember the newspaper clipping I saw from it. Dave Brichford is no longer with us (we drank a toast to him at the MUni Weekend in Tahoe), but Hans Mills is still unicycling and volunteering for the USA Inc.
I think this is a fantastic thread Terry.
Love seeing the good ol’ Schwinns…lotsa bloody ankles from mine. Cool you had some riding partners.
Here are my finds…
This is me in 1975 ready for the Charlotte, NC Carrousel Parade on Thanksgiving of 1975. Man am a wee scary.
This is Knoxville Civic Arena with Ringling circa 1981
This may be the very first photo of a unicycle: It looks a little suspect to me. if the man is actually riding the unicycle, why is there a man standing directly in front of him? and why is the “rider” so close the the fence? And the boy (or girl?) behind the man, is leaning way too far back to be on a unicycle, and the pic appears to have a painted-on thingee on the back, like a penny farthing without the rear wheel. Pretty sure it’s been photoshopped.
I think this was from an old Sears catalog. I had one very similar to this, if not the same. I had one very similar to this, if not the same. 20 spokes, flat top saddle and lolipop bearings, and one-piece cranks!
These are not mine. Their are from the first uni club in Poland in Chrzelice. There is no date attached to the pictures, but the article that goes with them is about the beginnings in 70s.
Very cool! That’s really good footage for being so old, and also in color like mine! And was there a “zoom” feature on that camera?? If so, what kind of film camera was it?
Here is the photo I mentioned. It is a couple of years before the video posted above. This was at Christmas when I was 11…note the seat is a derailleur style seat. That is what I learned to ride with. It was several years later that I first saw a U-style seat on a unicycle. This unicycle was made by Walter Niellson.
My Dad captured our entire lives on 8mm movies. Starting from about 1948 when he graduated from college until the mid-80s when our family had all grown up and left home. I am not sure what kind of camera he used, he had several. One I recall is a Sanyo, but he did buy nice equipment.
When he passed away, my brother had all of his movies transcribed to digital format as some of the oldest films were beginning to deteriorate. They seem to have a life of about 60 years for anybody else who has some old movies like this. I am really glad we did it. It is not cheap but you do not want to lose them.
Terry, you and I may have been in near proximity. We lived in Hawthorne at the time and that is where my Dad found Walter Nielsson and we bought that unicycle from him. It was a pretty nice uni with a pneumatic tire. The films of me riding it were taken in Colorado after we moved there a few years later. I did not know anybody else who had a unicycle. It must have been fun to have some friends who rode. I wish I still had that uni but my folks parted with it in a move after I had gone to college in the late 60s.
One of my friends was looking at one in a bike shop in the LA area when we still lived there and the owner told him “If you can ride that out of here, you can have it.” He, of course took me back down there to earn his free unicycle but when I rode it out of the store, the guy retracted the offer. I believe it was the first Schwinn I had encountered.
Good to know there were a few of us in the old days…I turn 60 this year. Maybe we can cross paths some day at one of the events. Your videos show you have worked a lot on things that I have never tried…I just ride.
I remember going to his shop as a kid…it was a dark place with junk all over. The kind of place where you would stick close to your Dad. But, though he was old, he was a nice guy. He showed me pictures of him with a giraffe at the Pyramids and on the edge of some pretty tall buildings. It was only many years later that I learned he was the first unicyclist who rode across the country…and that was when the roads were bad.
