Very similar to the above, there was a party of schoolkids out when I was riding around town recently, various complimentary comments, but my fave was “I wish I could do that”. I’ve recently moved house, so enjoying all the positive comments from people who’ve not seen me before.
What may be an original comment for this thread though:
“There’s always one isn’t there” - not referring to me at all, but to the chap who’d just come out with a hilariously original comment about having lost half my bike. For those who think you should always respond positively, that comment was followed by the sort of snigger which made it clear the intent of the comment (and clearly the second chap recognised that too).
So for being friendly rather the second chap got a positive social interaction -
me: “I’ve heard comments like that hundreds of times, I tend to just ignore them”
him: “I wondered what he was on about until you came past” (the first chap was walking towards me, I was coming up behind the second one).
Whilst out walking, I don’t think a unicyclist has every passed by me in my entire life so that’s probably the case for the majority of the walkers I pass, now I’ve learnt to ride. Despite that, I’m struck by how quickly people respond to the sight with the “You’ve lost a wheel” comment. It’s as if the response is somehow instinctive!
I rarely hear anything new enough to post in this thread but today while I was giving Hannah the dog some water as we looked out from Sunset View Park over the Olympic Mountains after a flat-out 1.5 mile ride on the Coker, I saw a very old woman on a park bench with a much younger woman I presumed to be her grand daughter. The old woman said, “I’ve never seen a unicycle before.” To which I replied, “then how did you know it was a unicycle?” And she answered, “I don’t know. How did I know that?”
Perfect sunny morning riding favorite downhill MUNI trail recently. Suddenly came upon young guy hiking uphill alone. He yells,“That is hard core” at me.
My Hatchet seems to elicit more reactions than the other unis. A boy, who had to fetch his dog impressedly said „ugh“. His mother 50 meters later whispered „what‘s that?“ to her friend.
Later on I scared a dog, whose owner stated „he‘s scared because he‘s never seen anything like that before.“
(She probably hadn’t either.)
A woman out sitting outside a pizza shop with two teenage girls as I rode past. “It’s the unicycle boy”.
Next thing I hear the sound of two people running behind me. I made sure not to lose any speed lest they catch me and discover the “boy” was probably old enough to be their grandfather.
I often ride at night and suspect a lot of people think I am much younger than I am.
Today I was riding in the forest where I always ride, though today I focused mostly on offroad and at some point a mountainbiker passed me and he said “Dat heb ik nou nog nooit gezien”. (I have never seen that before). I guess it is the sad truth that there are just too few of us.
I sometimes think I should just fill a page with all the quotes I get from a single ride. I think the best from last night was having my full name called from a pub garden across the other side of the canal (with a slight pause after the first name) as I was remounting my giraffe. Somebody I haven’t seen in a long time was somewhat surprised to see what I was doing.
The negative ones are invariably followed by a snigger - riding past a pub with a load of just blokes standing outside seems to be the worst for this as there’s the macho need to put you down; “on your bike” was the best they could come up with (as above I was riding my giraffe which receives a universal positive reaction from all but those overloaded with testosterone and alcohol). Though the positive reactions far outweigh that.
Actually another one from a group of “lads” a bit earlier - after me ignoring various stupid comments, one of them asked how my balls were, followed by:
“you probably don’t have any balls”
The comeback was obvious:
“I have way more balls than you do”
While buying a six-pack of T.W. Pitchers’ Grapefruit and Blood Orange Radler, and after telling another shopper–who commented that grapefruit and blood orange sounded interesting–that I had mainly picked it up because of the unicyclist illustrated on the package, then answering a number of questions from the cashier and bagger about unicycles and unicycling, the cashier says, “You’re the coolest person I know.”
Monocycle/monocycle, ultimate wheel, BC wheel, wheelbarrow, some gliders, surveyor’s measuring wheel, ab wheel (for doing a press up like motion that allegedly tones the abdominal muscles), Segway 1…
This happened a while ago; but it still makes me laugh so I’ll share.
I was just passing through town one afternoon with some time to spare and a unicycle in my truck, so I found myself messing in a hilly park with my 20” wheel. A baseball team was scrimmaging on the diamond, and as I rode by I could feel the players in the nearby dugout watching me. As I passed them, I heard this interaction between two players (paraphrased to clean up the language a bit).
“Hey, you know how guys who drive a huge pickup are likely compensating for a tiny manhood? Well, just think about how big that dude must be!”
this kind of fits here
I dropped by our local bike shop for the first time this weekend. wanted to ask about a new bike trail they are part of building. The grand opening of the 3 mile trail is 6-9-18 so I wanted to find out how technical it is, being new to riding in the woods as I am
any way fast forward to our conversation toward the end, I had already mentioned about riding a uni. So I’m standing at the counter and the lady say’s
hey earlier you said you ride a unicycle… I respond yep
then she say’s isn’t that the 1 wheel without any handlebars
it was all I could do to keep a straight face and just say, yes it is
then of course it was followed by and you ride it on the trails, to which I say yes I do.
I never imagined that a unicycle would be so foreign to a bike shop
Memorial Day 2018 on the American River Bicycle Trail in Folsom:
Jacquie is on her second ride of any distance since her knee replacement surgery. Still not sure if she can handle “real” hills on her recumbent (bike), but in the end our 19.4 mile ride included 671’ (204.5 meters) of climbing according to Strava. Go Jacquie!
Loads of people on the bike path yesterday, and many wanted to talk about my uni, or her bike. And some great comments:
"Go you, bro! Go you!" from a swimmer just off the side of the trail (the lake is so full just now that the edges are very close to the trail).
"My hat's off to you -- I just got rid of my training wheels!" from a guy at least as old as me on a mountain bike. His T-shirt said VOLUNTEER on the back, so I replied "Thanks for volunteering!"
But quote of the day has to go to a little girl around 6 years old. She was with a family group on bikes, and as I rode past them I heard her say, probably to the girl next to her "What the hell..." That was pretty funny!
And I'll throw in a "Where's your other wheel", since I haven't heard it in quite a while. I responded "In my garage", which isn't very funny, but at the same time, Jacquie said "One wheel makes him more powerful. You should try it!" :)
Some carry them and some don’t. In my experience it’s maybe 50/50 at best, but this may vary by region. In the past, the Schwinn dealers would have Schwinns (more accurately, probably a Schwinn), other shops would have one example of a basic Taiwan uni, and that would be about it. In more recent years I saw more Torkers (this may also be regional), and then the occasional unicycles from UDC. But I still don’t see them much. Back when Miyatas were very popular among enthusiast unicyclists, I only ever saw them in a handful of bike shops. The bikes, yes, but rarely the unis, because they were expensive and most unicycle buyers want to start cheap.
While sitting ON my unicycle yesterday, leaning against a post, waiting for the streetlight to change to green, a lady in a car (also waiting for the light):
“Do you really ride that?”
(I was non-plussed. All I could think of to reply was, “If I didn’t ride it, I certainly had a long walk to get here!”)
