the "death" of Muni...

General
61

When I started riding in 1987, home computers weren’t common, and were ainly for word processing. I had no access to the internet (I don’t know if it even existed at the time), and I had no TV or VCR. I doubt if there were any pure unicycling VHS videos available. If there were, I never saw them.

Within a year or two of getting my first unicycle - a 20" with a cheap BMC tyre, no handle on the seat, and cheap un-pinned pedals, I was riding it along muddy single track for fun.

I never met another unicyclist or saw one on TV for about my first 16 or 17 years as a rider.

Whatever did we do before video? :thinking:

62

Rock is dead they say, long live rock.

Rock 'n roll is here to stay,
it will never die
It was meant to be that way,
though I don’t know why
I don’t care what people say,
rock 'n roll is here to stay

http://www.lyricsdownload.com/danny-and-the-juniors-rock-and-roll-is-here-to-stay-lyrics.html

I’m off to see Chuck Berry live in concert on Wednesday.

Seen Motörhead several times.

Seen The Meteors, and Reverend Horton Heat.

No one missed rock and roll, they just failed to notice it’s still there.

63

First thing I did after learning to ride: Muni

I JUST picked up a trials, it’s OK…but I like Muni better.

64

oh how untrue the things you’re saying are…

i wouldnt have started unicycling if i didnt see kris on ripleys believe it or not…i probably wouldnt have kept on progressing and shown such an interest if it werent for U1, U2, and Defect. The street scene would not be where its at today with shaun J and all of his insane flip trick videos.

video has done more for this sport in the past 5-6 years, then the 20 years of riding and talking about how great it was.
why not use these resources to our advantage?

so yes, at this point it is time to put my money where my mouth is and maybe just get the ball rolling. I really just wanted to see if there was anyone else here who was at all interested in taking something great and progressing it further along…

also,

i did notice there was a comment from someone who had mentioned “you dont see mountain bikers doing flatland tricks in the trails”?..really? are you sure about that?..have a browse on google or youtube and see what you can come up with when you search “freeride mountain biking”. OH! and how would worldwide sponsorships work…did anyone think of that?

Im really diggin all of this chatter though, i havent really been convinced that muni shouldnt be expanded or explored more. Plus i see a lot of people saying " its tough to film it, or i work too much, blah, blah, blah" if that were always the excuse then we would still be stuck in the 80’s praising about how great the good 'ol days were and nothing would have been ventured or explored, thus spawning street unicycling! and now thats one of the biggest parts of the uni world.

oh and maybe one more thing…how did my age get factored in to this? does my age hinder the fact that ive been unicycling for almost 9 years now? so really ive spent almost HALF of my life riding a unicycle, does that not entitle me to some say or even an opinion on where i think it should and CAN go?

Ok time for work, keep the comments coming, im loving ALL of this :smiley:

65

You quoted my entire post, every word of which was about my own experience, and true.

You just called me a liar.

66

(picks up pint and slowly moves away from the table)

67

Hey! That’s my pint!

68

do you think unicycling would at the level its at today if it wasnt for people taking the time and making videos.

how about you pick up your muni while youre at it and head’on up the mountain?

69

i think this thread might need an age restriction…
anyone whos under 30 and wants to kickstart muni raise your hand.

maybe if i had said " muni is on life support"? would that help all of you relax a little about the situation? no, its not deceased…but when something stops growing then it starts dying. So lets feed it a redbull and see what else we can accomplish in the world of mountain unicycling. I know it can go a lot further then the level its at now and from everyones voice in here, it sounds like theres more then enough people to do it.

70

Let’s look at this from a numbers perspective. Does anybody have statistics on the number of mountain unicycles sold in the past several years? Or the number of attendies at various mountain unicycle festivals/weekends/conventsions over the past several years? I don’t, but I’d suspect that those numbers are INCREASING. So in that regard at least, MUni isn’t dying. Progressing in terms of the overall ability level of its riders? That’s debatable…

Another point is what do you mean by MUni? That’s like saying Mountain Biking. It’s a general category, I think perhaps you’re talking about “Freeride MUni” am I right? Just as not every Mountain Biker is into Free-ride Mountain Biking (either because of lack of interest, or geography) not every mountain unicyclist is into Freeride MUni.

The bottom line is this will always be a niche sport, in any unicycling category, because of the high learning curve. That isn’t to say the sport, in general, won’t grow but the rate of growth will probably be very slow as slow probably as the rate of progression of skills.

71

As a response to “You just called me a liar,” that was hardly appropriate.

You are entitled to your opinions on muni, although I disagree with them, and you are entitled to your views on video, although I disagree with them.

You post your age as 21. If at that age you feel that it is appropriate to call a complete stranger of your father’s generation a liar simply because you disagree with him, and if you have not yet learned the good grace to apologise when you make such a mistake, maybe we should be discussing the death of manners.

Maybe, except that I know plenty of people your age who do know how to behave in public.

72

That was me. I don’t know the freeride genre well at all, but from what I’ve just seen and read, I’d argue that freeride mountain biking is not a combination of mountain biking and flatland.
Is freeride uni a combination of muni and flatland/street? Not the way I’ve seen it. Maybe you’re saying it should be? Maybe I’m just plain wrong.

There is a distinction between unicycling freeride and muni, just like mountain biking freeride and mountain biking. Right?

Maybe all this time you have been meaning to say: is freeride dead? , the “death” of freeride, and bring’n back freeride?

I was crafting my own response when you posted this. My thoughts are similar.

73

I think a lot of us are waiting for you to say you were wrong and that muni IS growing. Muni has not stopped growing. All that we keep hearing is something like “I’m so glad you’re all commenting! This is great!!” As if we’re here to amuse you.

Maybe every one of us is just speculating… but it seems to me like the “muni IS growing” crowd as a lot of followers.

74

Is muni growing? Shrinking? Staying the same?
[THREAD=77626]Make your best guess in this poll.[/THREAD]

If you guess correctly you may win a new 24" KH '10!!!
No purchase necessary. Odds of winning: 0

75

I don’t really understand all this talk of “pushing the sport forward,” as if that’s the ultimate goal. IMO, that ideal misses the point. Unicycling isn’t about pushing the sport forward, it’s about pushing yourself forward. I’m not opposed to the sport moving forward, I just think that having that as the highest goal is quite silly.

I stumbled across a “Learn how to Unicycle” book one day, and bought it for $1. Then, I went out and bought a 20" Sun learner at a bike shop, and practiced every day for two weeks until I could ride around the parking lot, and haven’t stopped riding since. It wasn’t until weeks after that that I found this forum, and saw some videos.

What I’m most concerned about is muni, or even unicycling in general becoming a “scene” sport…much like fixed gear bicycle riding has become. It’s no longer about the sport and the ride, but about making a fashion statement via your bicycle. When this happens, the price of equipment and components goes wayyy up.

I know there are legit fixie riders out there, but the vast, vast majority I have seen/met are just buying their way into another the hipster-fixie subculture, in a vain effort at being “non-conformist.” I fear the same may happen with unicycling.

Claiming that muni is dead because there are fewer videos than other styles is just silly. Muni isn’t, and shouldn’t be about broadcasting yourself.

Why can’t we all just ride, without worrying about who’s doing the latest crazy stuff that most people will never be able to do? Is there some inherent value in being “XTREME!!!” that I’m missing, beyond the fulfillment of person challenge?

The sport will progress on its own, as it happens. No need to force it. Just roll with it, and have fun :smiley:

76

yes the sport is growing in terms of the amount of people actually riding Muni.

But the style and progression of muni hasnt really changed at all.
im not wrong, just passionate about seeing it get bigger and better then it already is.

77

You’re begging the question. What evidence do you have that MUni isn’t growing? We had the biggest MUni event in history this year in Moab (which was far bigger than the biggest street or trials event in history, whatever that was). Seems to me that MUni is still far bigger than street or trials in terms of participation.

Street and trials are session sports, MUni isn’t. Session sports naturally lend themselves to video more than trail sports.

And please, leave the crankflips on the street, we’re not interested.

78

I don’t want to see a major increase of MUni riders all over the trails. It would become regulated. You would start to see “no unicycle” signs crop up. I like the uniqueness of unicycling on/off road. I follow (mostly) the rules of bicycles but can get away with riding on the sidewalk, wrong side of the road, riding horse trails, beach trails, etc. I would like to see more video of both extreme and “average” riding. I just don’t need to see an increase in riders. This isn’t likely to happen anyhow because of the initial unicycling learning curve. It seems many people give up when they don’t get it after a couple of attempts.

79

…

80

Really, you don’t want to see your sport grow, not even in Number? I too dread the day when I see a no unicycling sign, but I’d never let that fear stop me wanting to grow and develop this awesome sport. And for everyone out there saying some variation, on “Growth is all well and good, but I’m not that kind of rider, I ride for fun, and for personal challenge.” Me too. That doesn’t mean I can’t support the growth of Freeride, and harder Muni. I’m all behind the making of more Muni vids, I lack the equipment or the drive to do it myself, but I’ll watch whats put out, be inspired by it, and have an awesome day at MT. Doug because of it.

Keep up the good work Justin, and everyone, just remember we’re all in this together eh? I don’t really know if there’s such a thing as bad growth.

Sean

I hope the above makes some kind of sense, just my thoughts on the thread.