Quote of the day (from non-riders)

This is not about a quote but a lack of one.

It’s fun riding my 36er and come around the bend of a trail and see someone’s jaw drop. What makes it so funny is they tend to open their mouth as wide as it will possibly open and stand there in silence.

Wait, it’s not a great core workout?? It actually is a very good core workout (especially compared to nothing), depending on the type of riding. Learning to ride is like “core boot-camp” if you aren’t already an athlete. Street, Trials and many forms of Muni are great for the core. So is Freestyle, especially when learning new skills. Road riding, on the other hand, is probably one of the least core-related forms of unicycling, especially if you ride with two hands on a handlebar.

In a thread that’s about all this stuff coming out of peoples’ mouths, sometimes nothing at all is a refreshing change. :slight_smile: Actually I rarely see wide-mouthed stares. Maybe it’s because I’m usually not looking? Sometimes I’m in a mood to show off, but when just cruising the bike path, I’m usually about making good time and riding efficiently.

“Where did you forget the other wheel?” The most repeated comment.

Also a lot of “It’s cheaper with only one wheel”!

Nothing special right now… but I’m a newbie travelling and not just learning

I got one from a kid who didnt notice i was on one wheel. He asked " where is your steer?" :smiley:

I never got that one before. It may have something to do with Italian phrasing.

So, got to think of some good comebacks! In English, at least. They might not sound right in Italian…

  • If I knew, I'd still be riding a bicycle!
  • I can't remember.
  • "What do you mean, forget?" Then look down and fall off
  • At home. But I remembered this one...
  • At the Alzheimers clinic. I think.
  • This IS my the other wheel!
:)

I also hear a lot this one and it often puzzles me that the person doesn’t seem to notice that it has only one wheel.

One time I even had a girl shouting at her friends: “Look! A bike with no wheel!” She then got her mistake and her friends laughing at her.

Sometimes I also have “There’s no brake on this!” or “Where’s the brake ?”.

Thursday morning, on my KH36 slogging along the path at the side of the rowing lake into the teeth of a gale, my breath condensing into clouds, I passed two portly young women, no strangers to Greggs, waddling along contentedly, and one of them quietly said to the other in a self-deprecating manner, “I’d probably fall off that.”

Thank you!!! #2 and #5 will be used tomorrow! :slight_smile:

Passerby: “What are you training for?”
Me: “The circus!”

Unpleasant acquaintance: “Can you even ride a bicycle?”
Me: “I don’t think I forgot how.”

LOL! Thanks!

Sometimes when I hear the WYOW comment or something similar. My favorite come back is to say, “does it look like I need two wheels, or I got rid of the training wheel”. :wink:

That is just brilliant! Especially when he gets hopping mad before firing!

Sunday, April 15 on Auburn’s Clementine Loop (the original trail from the original Muni Weekend). 3 riders, Ashley Foster, Rich Sherwood and myself. Rich has never been there, but has been unicycling for many years. Currently all he does is cruise around downtown Sacramento (mostly) on his 36", and ride some of the bowls and ramps at his local skatepark. He really wanted to ride the 36", even though we cautioned him it was lots of climbing, followed by some choppy, narrow singletrack with lots of exposure in certain sections.

He ate it up. We all walked some of the climb, but he rode pretty much all of the technical! Props to Rich for exposing lots of downtown Sacramento pedestrians and motorists to unicycling. And on the trail, for just making all three of us look more badass. Lots of positive comments from downhillers that day. And as we exited the trail, another downhill biker who hadn’t started his ride yet, marveled that we had just come out of there on unicycles. Then, on his own, he blurted: “Half the wheels, twice the fun!”

Yes, I’ve heard it before, seen it on T-shirts, etc. But this guy made it up in a few seconds, for one of the best non-unicyclist quotes in my experience. :slight_smile:

I was trying and failing to ride some rough section when a hiker came through, gave my uni a strange look, and said…

“Is that a multi-speed hub?”

Not what I was expecting from a random passerby! Turned out he was a former muni rider who’d actually ridden a Schlumpf, and my older fat-through-the-middle three piece Nimbus disc hub looked kind of like one.

And this is the second time I’ve met a muni rider in the exact same section of trail, which I only ride a couple of times a year when I drive up from Atlanta to Cleveland to visit family. I never meet anybody on my home trails…

Salmon Falls Trail, April 29. Lots of bikes and hikers on the trail on this beautiful, not-hot day! From the first and third of a close-together group of riders:

  • “Now I definitely know I’m not a badass.”
  • “At least you only need to carry one spare tube…”

And then, just a short distance up the trail, on a really narrow section a guy squeezed over to a stop and said: “Come on through, badass.”

That’s two badasses and an inner-tube within about 10 minutes of each other. :slight_smile: The inner-tube one was a little off; do most bikers really carry two? And it’s not like a unicyclist can’t flat more than once in a ride… :astonished:

For the second time in a week, this time from a different acquaintance: “Do you know how to ride a bicycle?”

Next time (if there is a next time) someone asks me that, maybe I’ll reply: “One wheel is hard enough!”

Unicyclist to bicyclist: “Oh, my god, where did you get that other wheel?”

From a teenager passing in a car, “Chase your dreams!”

Holding your stuff…

On the morning commute I bid “Good morning” as I passed a young man lazily riding a bicycle on the sidewalk. As I went past he expressed, “It always looks like you got your hands holding your stuff!”

I choose to ignore him and ride on.

He choose to move out into the street in pursuit and brag, “I can go faster than you can!”

In reply I commented, “Yes, but you can’t while holding your stuff with both hands!”

He slowed up either contemplating my advantage or tried experimenting with displaying any newly found and needed skill as I wheeled away.

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“You’re a weapon.”