As someone that and has an interest in old things In general And particularly anything on wheels my mind recently drifted to thinking about Semcycle. It seems to me Semcycle unicycles have a respected history with performers but you really don’t hear much about them in the present. I’m curious why they never moved into making trials unicycles , It seems like a natural progression. I really don’t know much about the brand but I would love to here some history and personal perspective from those of you that have riden one of these machines in the past or present.
This could be due to the fact that Sem and Teresa Abrahams are performers, not so much trials and MUni riders. Although I did ride some MUni a couple of times with Teresa 20 or so years ago at NAUCC meets. I never saw Sem on a trials or MUni. I owned a Semcycle 6’ giraffe that I donated to my neighbors ten years ago. It had some history in that I bought it from Jeff Lutkus of the Rochester Institute of Technology Unicycle Club.
Performers have always been a bit of a separate group from the rest of the “unicycle scene” (although there are a few exceptions of course). So without knowing much about semcycle, the step to producing munis and trials unicycles doesn’t seem necessarily natural.
I have asked this question of other brands in ealier, posts i guess I’m trying to fill in the gaps from when I rode as a kid in the early eighties to when I started riding again 5 years ago. Everything has changed so much and the brand’s that I would recognized seem to have faded a way or at least into the back ground. Understandably unicyclng is a niche market and the cost innovating and retooling I’m sure would very hard to recoupe.
I’ve got a 26" Sem for sale…