He’s a.k.a. teachndad to most of you and is featured with his custom MUni in today’s paper. Link below.
http://www.dailynews.com/Stories/0,1413,200~23157~1554995,00.html
Well done, Rod!
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“bike” You are reading the words of the jounalists, not Rod’s, and is that the only thing worth posting about? Let’s read an article about you and see if it is 100% correct.
Overall, it’s good article. If you look at the faults in things, you’ll miss the big picture.
Good point. And in addition to journalistic errors, at least a few unicyclists deliberately, for simplicity, or inadvertantly refer to their cycles as bikes.
I thought the article was excellent, presented MUni in a good light and was not disparaging of other types of riding.
Also, as a librarian, I appreciate the fact that the article presented a selection of resources for further information. I wonder, did Rod provide those or was this a particularly industrious reporter?
Cheers,
Raphael Lasar
Matawan, NJ
So the term UPD made it out of the unicycling community. “Phat” is in the dictionary now, lets see when unicycling lingo is going the same way 
This is a great article to see…congratulations Rod. Hopefully the story and the references will help some other folks make the leap into the sport.
I was especially glad to see the community references…meeting up with folks in and via this forum has significantly changed my riding life for the better. It was just 11 months ago that I was pretty psyched just to be an “around the block” uni rider when I ran into Nathan Hoover at the Portland Juggling Festival. I had never heard of muni, and was of course oblivious to the fact I was talking with a famous and well-filmed rider. But via that conversation in the gym and looking at his beefy muni, I realized that I had been leading a very sheltered life, at least unicyclically speaking. Since then, I’ve been lucky enough to spend some great time learning from and trying to keep up with much more advanced riders I’ve met via these forums. Maybe they tolerate me tagging along for the comic value or my sexy red hair, but that’s ok by me. I’m getting better, and have discovered a “new side of the ride”, as well as some very cool folks and a quality hang.
I hope articles like this one help “open the view” for others, and pull them into this great sport.
TB
Thanks for the kind words, guys! I was really happy with the way the story came out. I think it conveyed the sport as a serious sport and one not for loonies. So often I meet people on the trail who think “that’s crazy”. It ticks me off. The sport requires dedication, hard work, practice, skill, and conditioning. I think that should be admired and not ridiculed.
Raphael,
I was the one that suggested and furnished all that data.
Scot was right. The term “bike” was used by the journalist, not I.
The story was really quite easy to set up. I just emailed the outdoors writer with his email from the bottom of his weekly articles. I pointed out I lived and worked in “the Valley” and this is a how I spend my free time. Pushing the local angle really helped, too, I think. It clearly was used as part of the article. This might be a way to go for others seeking to get some publicity in their local paper.
The only snag was waiting to do the piece, because I had to wait for my wheel rebuild after I broke the welds on my Suzue hub. That was about 4 weeks. After we rode for the story, it was in the paper in about two weeks. There was a big black and white picture, @ 7" x 9", in the paper of me riding that went with the article that didn’t make it into the online edition.
I had my best ride ever on that day. The day started out overcast and cool, so all of the climbing was done before the sun came out with the heat. It was my farthest ride at 6.5 miles. Two miles of switchbacks up, two miles of gentle traverse and then two miles of switchbacks with technical rocky parts on the way down. It helped to have someone along and knowing I was being photographed gave me some extra energy.
MUni is a gas!
Congratulations on that article. It’s nice when a reporter gets a story “right.” I especially like that he didn’t start the article with the, “unicycling isn’t just for clowns anymore,” angle.
Is hopping up a hill really called chipping? I’d never heard that before…
I must be a forum failure. 
Doing little side hops up a hill is usually called pecking. It’s named after George Peck who demonstrated that technique in his rough terrain unicycling video. I’ve never heard it called chipping before.
Thats awesome exposure for the sport.
Good stuff there Rod, it’s good to see someone get out there
and help to possibly expand the unicycling community.
i’m pretty sure paulb made his post with his tongue at least slightly in cheek
that b*ke thing is the kinda thing i would’ve noticed…
the reporter’s email addy is at the bottom of the article
Bill Becher can be reached at billbecher@yahoo.com.
shall we drop him a line and thank him for a kewl article?