No joke. 95% of the time, I get "IS THAT A F**KING UNICYCLE!? " But if I get lucky, I’ll get “Is that a unicycle?” or “How do you ride that?!”
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Yesterday I got “You’re rather unlike to have that b!ke stolen!” as a customer entered the shop.
“The chance of it being stolen for personal use is pretty low, but they still might steal it just to dump it into the next river; so I’m still a bit anxious sometimes.” was my reply.
The customer then explained to the cashier that I had a unicycle parked in front of the shop, which the cashier replied to with a “but isn’t this dangerous, today?” (The streets were icy, and the sidewalks even moreso).
“Nope, I got a studded tire!” 
“Aaaah, he’s got a studded tire…” 
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I think the kid was seeing the “i” as a “1” 
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Really, as someone who’s been doing this for a very long time, we can’t know if the quoters are non-riders. We know 99+ percent of them are, and the actual unicyclists usually let us know, often intrinsically.
All of this was cemented into my brain in my early days of riding. Attending my first USA National Unicycle Meet in Kokomo, Indiana (1980) I was practicing my routine for the “Chain Drive” trick riding competition in the motel parking lot. One of the other unicyclists came walking by and rattled off a list of “the classics”, something like:
“Is that hard to ride? Where’s your other wheel? What happens when you fall? How’s the weather up there? How do you get down?” It was a 6’ Schwinn Giraffe. That was Ted Wade, of the Kokomo Roadrunners Unicycle Club. He was a great rider and a funny guy, who passed away only a couple of years later from cancer. His listing off of common comments made it clear that this phenomenon happens to all/most unicyclists, and later lead to us making lists of such comments/questions, with suggested responses. Such as “On my other unicycle”. 
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“Shift gear”, with a big grin on his face, as I was climbing an ascent on my 36er.
Prior to that a cat saw me approaching and looked at me like only cats can. It shifted more and more to the side with that WTF-expression on its face. Didn’t even notice a dog that was approaching from the other side and was already pulling hard on its leash (but not barking).
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Today on a muni ride:
Mtb rider: “that wasn’t on my bingo list”
Another mtb rider: “I haven’t seen one of those out here yet. My son does that in Montana”
I asked a someone finishing his hike if “this trail would be good for biking… or rather unicycling” he looked bewildered and laughed a bit. He said “if you can ride one I guess. I could hike another five years and probably never hear that question”.
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It was also not just a quote, but rather a funny situation.
I first in my life met a random unicyclist in Istanbul on the bridge over the Golden Horn Bay. We were riding towards each other, I was riding on a 20" unicycle on the sidewalk, and he was riding on a 29" unicycle on the roadway. We waved our hands to each other and rode each in his own direction. He shouted: “Did everyone see this? It’s my old age that has gone!” (I was 70 that moment).
I was in Istanbul for a tour and have never been there neither before nor after. And never again did I meet a random unicyclist, when riding on a unicycle. Neither before nor after.
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I don’t know if he’s here on this forum but there is one guy from Istanbul who posts his rides on Strava. There are probably not many others out there!
I think he’s not from Istanbul, at least originally, because his shouting was in Russian.
I conclude from this situation that probably there are more both Russian-speaking and other-language-speaking unicyclists in Istanbul than in the city I live in.
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That’s a bummer. In my many years of unicycling this has happened many times, but is still a very rare occurrence. The most recent one was in Paris, of all places, during the Olympics. A guy with a 32" unicycle with short cranks happened to be there, on holiday with his parents. And he knew who I was! Freaky.
Latest good quote: “I guess he’s attracted to unicyclists?” Hiker and family; the dad was referring to their dog, who rushed up the singletrack and stopped in front of me, probably trying to figure out what I was. Dogs are common on that trail (with people) and they generally tend to block the trail while trying to figure out “what that is”.
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And I know who he is!
I don’t know if it was on the same day, but I remember seeing a story from @toutestbon during the olympics, when he met Gert-Jan in Paris. So he might have randomly met two unicyclists during the same day.
And yes, he uses really short cranks, and goes really fast. On a 29er, he uses 75 mm cranks and took only 1h32min on the marathon at the last french championship (beating his own WR by 2 minutes). I believe he was using 100 mm cranks on his 32 (it is what he used for the cross during the french championship.
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It must have been the same day, he had the same outfit!
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If I meet someone hiking in the wild in flip flops I tend to think ‘that’s clearly inadequate footwear for this environment’. If in future I meet someone unicycling in flip flops I’d better reserve judgement - clearly they may be the marathon world record holder!
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I love it when these chance occurances happen. Here is one of mine:
Indeed, that is a whole thread on exactly those types of events. In addition to the above, I have on occasion bumped into or spotted other unicyclists in Norway. Sometimes people I did not know but came to know latter on, including one of @PedalSprell’s old uni friends, Vidar (not on this forum AFAIK)
When I saw Vidar cycle past me for the first time I was having a coffee with someone who I did not know well and who did not know I was a unicyclist. However, I had turned up on a unicycle, much to my acquaintance’s surprise. While we sat outside the coffee shop chatting, Vidar cycled by. The person I sat with said, “Is unicycling a big thing then in Oslo these days?”. I replied “no”, then paused for a bit and said, “umm… I don’t think so, anyway!?”
Anyway, years later I met Vidar and pieced together it was him who cycled past that day. Indeed here is a photo of me with Vidar (he is in the middle, @PedalSprell is on the left and I am on the right).
I have also had chance encounters with @Erlend_Loe, though I did know him at the time. Indeed on one occasion I cycled up behind him and said some rude comment about how he must have lost a wheel. Because, you know… you have to, right!? 
And that brings my post back on topic because I was on a penny farthing at the time and hence a non (unicycle) rider… at least for that day. 
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I have several unusual interactions lately.
Two weeks ago, at work, a colleague told me she saw me on the seaside, and when she told her husband she knew me (we see each other once or twice a month), he told her that I was world champion and started explaining some of the competitions. (I do apparently I have fans).
Last week, I went to an office, and when leaving, a woman with her children explained them that this was a “bike with one wheel”, and they just stood there kind of speechless while a car was letting them cross the road I used that to cross the road, go back on the bikeway and ride back home.
And, this weekend, I was with a begginer (he used to ride a 20 / 24er, but moved on to 29er) I am kind of training, and a guy told us that that was really cool cause we had one wheel each. I replied “Yes, that’s actually a tandem”, and was pretty proud because I never had the opportunity to say this exact quote (I was either alone or we passed people too fast to have time to answer), and was looking forward to it.
I also had a “you’ve lost a wheel” a few weeks ago and was actually surprised, because I hadn’t had any since a actually quite long time (that is one of the main pros to going fast since people don’t have time to see you, realise what you are, think of a sentence, say it while I am close enough to hear it), and it came from a person coming on a bike from the other way while I was going pretty fast (between 25 and 30 kph). This person had probably seen me before, thought about it and waited until seeing me to shout it.
I would tend to agree with you there. I just have this mental image of leaving parts of your toes and top of your foot smeared across the road with flip flops on a unicycle. Stubbing your toe is bad enough!
However at least I don’t think you get SPD flip-flops – SPD sandals seem like a bad enough idea to me to be honest
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When you get these rude comments, keep in mind that it might just be me. 
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Yeah, dont diss flip flops as “uni-wear”. While i am nowhere near as fast i have done a very decent 500 m climb at 10 % and decent brakeless with my 30 € luxurious purple belgian flip flops.
I was actually using them as my main footwear for a week until i misplaced them in the wilderness. If anyone finds them please let me know!
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I was out riding my unguni 29" with 110mm cranks the other day at very high cadence (which I’ll admit looks very goofy – I can’t wait for my Schlumpf so I can look more dignified at the same speed!) when I was passed by two bicyclists on my left.
One, an older gentleman, said “Got room for two? You headed to Aspen, Colorado?”
To which I replied, “No, this isn’t Dumb and Dumber!”
I assume he was referencing the scene where Harry & Loyd slowly ride a moped all the way from Kansas to Aspen, CO.
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“Well you’re the bad-assiest badass we’ve seen today” - one of a pair of hikers, as I crested a particularly steep bit of a mountain bike trail yesterday. I was too winded from the climb and focused on an imminent steep descent to respond with more than a smile, but it made my day!
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