Last weekend, I wanted to see if I could still get some rotations out of my 28" UW. I can’t try too long because of knee pain, but I will just bite through it, coz it’s cool to be able to ride it. I got 12 rotations out of it, and I was quite pleased. It was along a quiet cycle path, but some times people do traverse it. The first was a couple of older people and the woman said “Wow nice wheel”. Then a bit later some guys rode passed me by bike and they thought it looked very cool. People seem to have more respect when I ride UW compared to a “normal” uni.
I know I’m late to the party and cannot add anything new to the discussion. However for what it’s worth it took me 2 month of trying to ride every.single.day until I was able to keep going for 10 to 20 meters. Without freemounting, that is. I still needed something to hold on to get me started for another couple of months. It’s definitely the most difficult thing I ever learned in my life (this coming from someone with a degree in maths ).
As I was struggling to mount my 36” Titan today after a quick break to catch my breath, a man sitting on a bench 20 feet away asked me, “Would you like me to carry you while to get going?”. There may have been a little bit of language barrier, but he certainly speaks English better than I can speak his language. I believe he was offering to let me lean on his shoulder while mounting, and then walk beside me as I gained momentum before letting go of his shoulder.
I thanked him, but let him know that I really needed to force my way through it and learn it. He understood.
After that, I mounted and while slowly pedaling and wobbling on the (slightly) uphill path, he cheered me on as I pedaled further and further away from him, and his loudest encouragement was when I hit my stride and attained “cruising speed”.
So, today I was riding down a hill that goes under a bridge and a bicycle rider passing the other way, said, “beware of the ice under the bridge”.Probably one of the kindest remarks I have had from a non rider. It turns out I could ride it out. The next bridge however I did have to get off, it was a skating rink under there.
While doing a loop on a local trail I saw a guy on a mtb and he said, “I can do that”. Saw him a little later as I was riding through a technical section and he was walking his bike, and he said, “what the f##k!?”.
Today on my ride home a mother and grandmother and little kid were watching me go by and the mother said, look he’s only riding one wheel.
That is a lot better than my weekend ride when a kid said, look mom, a clown. Hes a clown mom.
I had an interesting comment when a cyclist went past as I UPD’d. “NIce recovery”. I thought, well, before I actually really learned to ride, I learned to fall and recover from falling so as not to hurt myself, so yeah if I can’t ride that well, or if I have trouble free-mounting at least I know how to get off. Sigh.
“You’re a local legend and we love you!”
I’ll take that
From two lads walking dogs after I had passed them with our dog pulling me on my 36". My usual route but not my usual unicycle.
Some people ask me: “Do you need a Driber Lizence to ride this?”
He was looking to my 36" Unicycle.
Most of the time , you hear the same but that one, was a good one. . I think: Oh man, what to you think about unicycling, do you have to much drink or amoke or the people are a little bit stupid.
I don’t know it but i onow that i don’t need a drivwr lizence to ride a Unicycle.
On Sunday evening I decided to ride my 19" trial uni and go for a short ride, which ended up being 12km, which is quite a lot for such a small wheel. I still have muscle ache. Halfway the ride I didn’t see a bump on the road and the uni was about to shoot away under and in front of me, but my leg got tangled between the pedal and the wheel so I ended up with a strange dance, but still standing and a lot of blood because of the pedal bite. Naturally at that moment there was someone walking his dog. I quickly got on and told him that that sometimes happens, though I hadn’t had pedal bite in many years.
He didn’t seem to have noticed that I almost tumbled off, but he said he had never seen anyone ride a unicycle in town and I ended up having a talk about the unicycle as he was genuinely interested.
Yesterday I took the 32" out for spin, also around 12km, which went a lot faster than with the 19"
Anyways it was very nice weather and there were many bikers, among which there was an older woman (grey hair) on a race bike with her hubby behind her. She was very focused on her riding and from the corner of her eyes must have seen me riding towards her in the opposite direction. She had noticed my hands hanging from my sides and shouted angrily “Hey watch out! Keep your hands on your steer”. Then as she passed me, I held my hands in front of me as if they were on a steer, though I didn’t have any handle bars on that uni.
I’ve had people joke with that remark, but in this case the woman clearly hadn’t expected a unicycle and thought I was on a bike myself.
Such moments are always very short and I wish I could have seen her face when it had dawned on her I was on a uni.
).
. I think: Oh man, what to you think about unicycling, do you have to much drink or amoke or the people are a little bit stupid.