Quote of the day (from non-riders)

In Norwegian the term for a bicycle is ‘sykkel’ and that does not give any indication of the number of wheels. Nonetheless, Norwegians tend to be more specific when talking about unicycles and use one of three words: enhjulssykkel, etthjulssykkel or enhjuling. All of which make it clear that it is single wheeled.

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Kudos !!! (as we don’t have a like button or similar)

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The other day I had some MTBers coming my way, with the lead rider exclaiming “Einrad!!” to which my reply was “Zweirad!?” :sunglasses:

What do other languages use for “exercise bike”, or “spin bike”? I’ve never heard anything in English except “bike” for the one-wheeled contraptions people ride indoors.

Bare et sprogs-spørgsmål?
Hvorfor enhjulssykkel, da hjul er intetkøn?

In Dutch, we use the word “fiets”, which doesn’t say anything about number of wheels. I believe that word also has German origins. Nevertheless by law a unicycle is not a “fiets”, but as it is not named in law, they just call it an object, so the police sees unicyclists as pedestrians with objects. Kinda funny.

Here, is a reply from another thread from UniMyra

P.S. I once did a poll on twitter to see which was the preferred term. Make of it what you will

https://twitter.com/ruari/status/1143527591191748609

Might take away was I should use whichever I like as Norwegians seem to understand them all.

Thanks. I reckon you only have that “confusion/freedom” in scandinavian languages. In Dutch it is just “eenwieler” and everybody understands, though most peeps don’t understand why people want to ride them. :slight_smile: They mostly think “Why be different when you can be a sheep like everybody else”.

When I think about it, “etthjulssykkel” is the only term that makes sense from a language point of view. “Ett” refers to the number of wheels, and (as Setonix pointed out) the grammatical gender of the word hjul/wheel is neuter, so it has to be “ett” and not “en”. Why someone started to use the term “enhjulssykkel” I don’t understand, but I use it myself. It’s just a word I guess.

Kids use the term “tohjulssykkel” (“two wheeled cycle”) to distinguish a bike from a trike (“trehjulssykkel”). I’ve actually startet to use that term again to specifically point out that it’s not a unicycle.

I know somebody who says a relative started riding an eenwieler in the Netherlands because they are free on public transport? (Pedestrian with object?) :smiley:

That is funny. But does this mean that you get the best of both worlds (choose between pedestrian and cycling rules) or are in the wrong all the time?

In the Netherlands you have to pay for bicycles on the train. With the proof I got from the government that unicycles are not bicycles, the train companies can’t charge me. I don’t know if there is a limit on how big items can be that you take on the train, but a uni isn’t that big.
Unicycles are only allowed on the pavement, if there is one, so when there is pavement and a cycle path, I’m not allowed to ride on the cycle path, which I do nevertheless, because it is easier to ride there. Also lights are mandatory on bicycles, but not on pedestrians, so technically when there are lampposts, I don’t have to have additional light. They recently created a law that it is not allowed to use your mobile phone while riding a bike, but peds can still use them while walking. The only time I would use a mobile while on uni is to film myself, otherwise if I don’t look at where I’m going I will no doubt UPD.

Ed was connected to other unicyclists before he started his big ride, but I don’t know if any of them were nerdly uni-scholars like us. In other words, that may have been what they always called them. Alternately, he might call it a bike because it’s easier/quicker to say, and maybe easier to keep the flow of his narration going.

I sometimes reply to that one with “This wheel ate it!”

Ed was probably confronted by all sorts of dogs in all sorts of cultures. Ownerless dogs, free-range, car-chasing dogs, guard-the-property dogs, etc. In my experience watching dogs watch unicycles, I think they don’t usually treat them like bikes because they’re not used to them. The unicycle moves differently from a bike, so they may perceive it as some different “animal”. I’ve seen a lot of dogs just watch, and tilt their heads back and forth.

I talk to my dogs too. I know they don’t understand my words. So I don’t have an issue with people providing their dogs with inaccurate information. :slight_smile:

Next it’ll be Trumpspeak – if it isn’t already… :astonished:

For what it’s worth, in the early 80s the unicyclists in Sweden were using “enhjuling”. Possibly different spelling…

My gosh. Too funny! It’s all in the technicalities. I was thinking the same, I was riding a uni and texting at the same time. You aren’t allowed to drive a car and touch a mobile phone here in Aus, but I can ride a uni and text… I can’t ride a bike and text though, because I need to hold a handle on my bike when I ride and so texting doesn’t work…

You can’t let go of handle of the bike, now that you learned to ride uni, or you couldn’t even before that?

I could before I learned to ride uni, but now it feels too weird to let go. A bike responds differently from a uni and I feel I’m less in control. Unicyclists are weird creatures :slight_smile:

It’s the same. You see this if you go to UDC Sweden and all the unicycles are under the heading Enhjulingar (the ‘ar’ ending just pluralises it in Swedish).

Also, from the other thread

Additionally, sometimes I search for unicycle related stuff on Twitter. If I search for “enhjuling” it is mainly Swedish. That said, if I want Norwegian only results I can do “enhjuling (lang:no)”, which is a handy tip for anyone here on Twitter. Actually if you want to search all of Twitter for Norwegian references to unicycles, this would do the job fairly well: “(enhjuling (lang:no)) OR enhjulssykkel OR etthjulssykkel”. I intentionally do not force Norwegian surrounding text on the latter two words, as there is no need to exclude Swedish in those cases. It also brings up more results where some English and Norwegian are used together.

The question is why anybody who is not scandinavian, would even want to search for Norwegian unicycle stuff. :stuck_out_tongue:

Searching for the English “unicycles” gives already enough hits.

I am not Scandinavian and search for unicycle stuff all the time. :stuck_out_tongue:

Really? from where do you hail then? Naturally I was only kidding. Every now and then I search for unicycle stuff in Danish, as I used to live there and still visit it 4 times a year.

Technically I am British/Irish. Though I never actually lived in Ireland. I have however lived for a several years (as a kid) in the US/California (I even had a green card at one point) and am now onto my eleventh year in Norway.

If you base it on my time living in countries and how they have likely influenced me, I guess you could argue that I am primarily British, then Norwegian, perhaps even little American and not really Irish as all… but the only passport I currently have that is valid is Irish. So who knows… I am a mess. :stuck_out_tongue:

On the positive side: an Irish passport may be much better soon for someone who is half British and 1/3rd Norwegian. :sunglasses:

Far more dogs act aggressively towards me when I’m on the uni, than if I’m on a bike. So much that it is actually an issue in my riding. I’ve been bitten by dogs several times, sometimes requiring medical treatment.
That is, in the Netherlands. I participated in the recent unicycle tour in Cambodia. There are lots of dogs there but almost all of them ignored us.