2 days ago I was out on a unicycle pub crawl with some fellow unicyclists. We had just got to our 10th pub when I noticed a picture on the wall. This was clearly the ‘missing link’ that people have been searching for, and proves once and for all that the convenient theory about Penny Farthings stopping suddenly is bunkum.
I know the quality of the photo isn’t great, and there’s a lot of glare, so in case you can’t work it out, it is a bloke with a Nills Poll juggling hat sitting on a wooden framework behind an early Coker wheel with TA tyre on*sharpening knifes. From here we can assume that one day he fell asleep slumped forward, then woke up to find his legs were still going and he and he was riding down the road quite fast with a bunch of knives right in front of him. Stopping suddenly would mean instant knife-related death, so instinct kicked in and he rode the contraption until he could bring it under control, finish sharpening the knives and deliver them to where they needed to go.
All quite obvious really!
STM - wondering if there are any other ‘missing link’ photos out there with other possible explanations
I can’t tell for sure it’s a TA tyre, but I can’t imagine an original Coker tyre would get knives very sharp
Another mystery solved! Although, if one were to analyse your evidence more closely, it would only be appropriate to note that you were in your 10th pub when this historical discovery was made.
And as one of those involved, I take offense at the suggestion that it wasn’t really the 10th. Unless of course you mean us to include the pub we went to to find it closed. So call it 11 if you prefer.
This may be a good time to admit that we were on halves. Sorry, I know it’s wrong, but we had a lot of pubs to get to. We did also ride over 10 miles.
We should also note that with a bit of leaning that is a fairly aero riding position, and that frame should give a variety of handle options. Worth looking into, I’d say.
