wow, that article on george peck was really well written and interesting.
One-wheel wonder wows biker crowd
186 words
19 July 2004
Evening Gazette
5
English
(c) 2004 Gazette Media Company Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
Hundreds of bikers gathered this weekend for one of the country"s biggest motorbiking events.
Ridewell 2004 at Preston Park, Eaglescliffe, yesterday played host to everything bike-related.
Motorbikers from far and wide enjoyed the classic bikes on show, stunt displays and crash reconstructions.
John and June Bolton from Port Clarence brought their two sons Sean, 13, and Jack, nine, to the event.
John, who rides a Suzuki JSX 1400, said: “It"s a really nice crowd. You can walk around and people have got time for you.”
June said: “Bikers are just happy people. No matter what you look like or what you are dressed like they accept you for what you are.”
Simon McAndrew, 17, from Billingham Old Green, Billingham, entertained the crowds with his trials unicycling.
Simon"s stunts involved jumping from high stacks of crates to ramps on a unicycle.
He said: "It"s good fun. I am getting good crowds watching me and am getting a good response.
"I like coming to events like this and getting myself known.
“It"s just something different.”
Here’s a link to a thread for coverage of the 2004 UNICON. It’s to be hoped that additional articles will be added there.
Cheers,
Raphael Lasar
Matawan, NJ
Not a unicycling article, but an interesting analogy. Does anyone think this guy is aware of moutain unicycling and chose the image for that reason? Or is it just another random choice of words?
FXAnalytics Focus: Greenspan Growth Story Unstable
1,284 words
29 July 2004
06:55
Dow Jones Capital Markets Report
English
(c) 2004 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
By David Gilmore
Foreign Exchange Analytics
…Oil prices, too, pose a growing risk. The change (higher) is not proving to be transitory. Sure in 1970 dollars the cost of gasoline is very low and household consumption of petroleum is down. But with the economy running like a unicyclist along a mountain footpath, it does not take much to knock it off course. Between risks to consumption through higher rates (impacting asset prices, debt service and refinancing), sustained high in oil prices pose a significant risk to the Greenspan growth story. …
I emailed David Gilmore to ask about this. Below is the exchange.
Raphael Lasar
Matawan, NJ
QUESTION:
Mr Gilmore,
I’m a unicyclist and came across your article with the line:
“But with the economy running like a unicyclist along a mountain
footpath, it does not take much to knock it off course.”
Out of curiousity are you aware of the growning sport of mountain
unicycling (google it if you’re not) or was this just a randomly
chosen analogy?
Thanks,
Raphael Lasar
Matawan, NJ
RESPONSE:
As a matter of fact I saw it on OLN last week for the first time…hence the reference.
Dave Gilmore
i can just imagine the reaction of a ‘i get paid to take myself seriously’ financial analyst at being emailed and asked about his similes
and so the word spreads
should we all email him and thank him for the publicity he gave the sport?
My college’s unicycle club gets some attention from NYT
More on Lars…
Unicycling minister takes show on the road
By Sophia Kazmi
CONTRA COSTA TIMES
580 words
30 July 2004
Contra Costa Times (Walnut Creek, CA)
4
English
(c) Copyright 2004, Contra Costa Times. All Rights Reserved.
Lars Clausen is one for the record books.
The Lutheran minister from Washington state is the world champion of distance unicycle riding.
He has toured all 50 states by unicycle, and in 2002, he made it into the “Guinness Book of World Records” for most miles traveled by unicycle – a 9,134-mile journey that took him six-and-a-half months.
Now, he’s on another unicycle tour, this time promoting his book on his one-wheeled adventure through America – “One Wheel Many Spokes: USA by Unicycle.”
He biked into Pleasanton on Wednesday for a stop at Towne Center Books, one stop on a 51-day book tour that will take him 1,800 miles from Canada to Mexico.
“On a unicycle, you’re essentially in a vulnerable state, and that’s when you learn about the incredible sense of hospitality of other people,” said Clausen, who said he learned much about the human spirit on his cross-country ride.
Clausen embarked on that first tour to help raise money for the Inupiat Eskimo Ministry in Nome, Ala., where he once served as a pastor.
Clausen is pedaling about 30 to 50 miles a day. He expects to reach the Mexican border Aug. 20. But it’s not all about the book tour; he manages to still find time to deliver Sunday sermons at Lutheran churches along the way.
Judy Wheeler-Ditter, owner of Towne Center Books, requested the book to see what it was about. When Clausen’s publicist asked if she would like to have him give a talk in Pleasanton, she thought it would be fun to host the unicycling minister-turned-author.
“Anyone on a unicycle will create a little excitement,” she said.
Clausen says he gets varied reactions while on his unicycle, from strange looks on the highway to a parade thrown in his honor by the city of Sultan, Wash. During one part of the parade, fellow unicyclists rode with him, he said.
'They closed down the highway, and we pedaled together for four blocks," he said. “It was awesome.”
Still, others just think he’s crazy, he said.
In his book, published by his own Soulscapers venture, he describes part of his reason for riding:
“Spurring this whole venture is the mid-life recognition that I will not live forever, no matter what I do. Although the unicycle is an unusual vehicle, the journey is a common one.”
Unicycling is something just runs in his family, he said. Clausen’s father unicycled. Clausen learned how to ride one when he was 10, after two harrowing weeks of trying to balance himself on one wheel.
He has taught his daughter, KariAnna, 10 and son, Kai, 8, to unicycle. His children and his wife, Ann, travel with him by car. They all meet up at the end of each day.
Unicycling is not the most popular hobby, but there are clubs and organizations made for the riders, he said. There is a Unicycling Society of America, of which he is a member.
Reach Sophia Kazmi at 925-847-2122 or skazmi@cctimes.com.
UNICYCLE TOUR OF BAY AREA
Today: 7:30 p.m., Avid Reader Bookstore, 617 Second St., Davis
Sunday: 7:30 p.m., Books, Inc., 2251 Chestnut St., San Francisco
Wednesday: 7:30 p.m., Capitola Book Cafe, 1475 41st Ave., Capitola
Information: Visit www.onewheel.org
So has anybody done this or at least put it on their CV?
An interviewer’s guide
239 words
2 August 2004
The Daily Telegraph
19
English
(c) 2004 Telegraph Group Limited, London
As a new study demonstrates, grade inflation is no longer just a problem for universities. With more than a fifth of A-levels awarded now receiving A grades (more than double the proportion in 1989), over half of all graduates gaining at least a 2:1, and a government policy of squeezing 50 per cent of school leavers into further education, employers are increasingly filtering candidates according to non-academic criteria. Students, wise to this fact, are decorating their CVs with a wealth of extra-curricular activities, to the extent that exotic travel, internships and voluntary work are now almost a sine qua non for the successful candidate. While no one should discourage them from such strenuous self-improvement, we are rapidly approaching the logical conclusion of such demands: in 10 years’ time, employers will be hard pressed to find an applicant who does not claim to have retraced the Silk Road on a unicycle, or helped to found El Salvador’s space prog…
Unicycling minister takes show on the road
By Sophia Kazmi
CONTRA COSTA TIMES
580 words
30 July 2004
Contra Costa Times (Walnut Creek, CA)
4
English
(c) Copyright 2004, Contra Costa Times. All Rights Reserved.
Lars Clausen is one for the record books.
The Lutheran minister from Washington state is the world champion of distance unicycle riding.
He has toured all 50 states by unicycle, and in 2002, he made it into the “Guinness Book of World Records” for most miles traveled by unicycle – a 9,134-mile journey that took him six-and-a-half months.
Now, he’s on another unicycle tour, this time promoting his book on his one-wheeled adventure through America – “One Wheel Many Spokes: USA by Unicycle.”
He biked into Pleasanton on Wednesday for a stop at Towne Center Books, one stop on a 51-day book tour that will take him 1,800 miles from Canada to Mexico.
“On a unicycle, you’re essentially in a vulnerable state, and that’s when you learn about the incredible sense of hospitality of other people,” said Clausen, who said he learned much about the human spirit on his cross-country ride.
Clausen embarked on that first tour to help raise money for the Inupiat Eskimo Ministry in Nome, Ala., where he once served as a pastor.
Clausen is pedaling about 30 to 50 miles a day. He expects to reach the Mexican border Aug. 20. But it’s not all about the book tour; he manages to still find time to deliver Sunday sermons at Lutheran churches along the way.
Judy Wheeler-Ditter, owner of Towne Center Books, requested the book to see what it was about. When Clausen’s publicist asked if she would like to have him give a talk in Pleasanton, she thought it would be fun to host the unicycling minister-turned-author.
“Anyone on a unicycle will create a little excitement,” she said.
Clausen says he gets varied reactions while on his unicycle, from strange looks on the highway to a parade thrown in his honor by the city of Sultan, Wash. During one part of the parade, fellow unicyclists rode with him, he said.
'They closed down the highway, and we pedaled together for four blocks," he said. “It was awesome.”
Still, others just think he’s crazy, he said.
In his book, published by his own Soulscapers venture, he describes part of his reason for riding:
“Spurring this whole venture is the mid-life recognition that I will not live forever, no matter what I do. Although the unicycle is an unusual vehicle, the journey is a common one.”
Unicycling is something just runs in his family, he said. Clausen’s father unicycled. Clausen learned how to ride one when he was 10, after two harrowing weeks of trying to balance himself on one wheel.
He has taught his daughter, KariAnna, 10 and son, Kai, 8, to unicycle. His children and his wife, Ann, travel with him by car. They all meet up at the end of each day.
Unicycling is not the most popular hobby, but there are clubs and organizations made for the riders, he said. There is a Unicycling Society of America, of which he is a member.
Reach Sophia Kazmi at 925-847-2122 or skazmi@cctimes.com.
UNICYCLE TOUR OF BAY AREA
Today: 7:30 p.m., Avid Reader Bookstore, 617 Second St., Davis
Sunday: 7:30 p.m., Books, Inc., 2251 Chestnut St., San Francisco
Wednesday: 7:30 p.m., Capitola Book Cafe, 1475 41st Ave., Capitola
Information: Visit www.onewheel.org
Black Hills MUni Weekend
Better late than never.
From the front page of the Local section. Rapid City Journal Sunday June 27, 2004.
Unicycling youngster wins top circus competition
286 words
5 August 2004
Bath Chronicle
default
24
English
(c) 2004 Bath Newspapers Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
A Ten-year-old with aspirations to join the circus has had his wish granted.
Rory Clark has been named as a winner of the national talent search by one of Britain’s most popular circuses.
The Trowbridge schoolboy competed against eight other acts in the world-famous ring at Blackpool Tower and Circus.
His unicycling skills, which he has been perfecting for the past three years, impressed judges so much that he won the overall prize and will appear in front of a sell-out crowd at the circus later in the season.
Geoff Sage, Blackpool Tower and Circus general manager, said: "Rory was absolutely outstanding at his audition.
“He presented himself with the composure and flair of someone much older than his ten years. I strongly believe he will be a circus performer in the future.”
Rory was the youngest competitor chosen to go through to the finals.
He was nominated by his mother Amanda, and his father Shaun helped Rory in his performance.
Rory was told of his success while on holiday in France, and is now looking forward to meeting the other circus performers when he travels to Blackpool to rehearse before the big day.
After rehearsals, he will join more than 60 world-class circus artistes in a spell-binding performance.
Rory’s performance was a 15-minute display of his skills, which he has been practising on his way to school in Staverton.
The judging panel, which included circus director Laci Endresz, said: "Rory proved that age is no barrier when it comes to unicycling.
“There is plenty of potential in his act and he performed while grinning and frantically cycling around the ring.”
Here’s one for GILD! 
Corrections & Amplifications
66 words
16 August 2004
The Wall Street Journal Europe
A2
English
(Copyright (c) 2004, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)
SOME JESTERS in a British competition described in an Aug. 9 page-one article ride on unicycles. The article incorrectly said they ride on unicorns.
No Laughing Matter: Keep Those Balls in the Air, Lose The French to Win This Job — Most Hopefuls for New British Jester Pratfall Flat; `It’s Not a Bladder Day’
By Anita Raghavan
997 words
9 August 2004
The Wall Street Journal Europe
A1
English
(Copyright (c) 2004, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)
STONELEIGH PARK, Warwickshire, England – Oliver Cromwell, England’s puritan ruler, abolished the post of court jester 350 years ago. He apparently knew what he was doing.
A competition here Saturday to select an unofficial British state jester turned into a bit of a joke. Six candidates showed up. A group of working jesters boycotted the event. A French contestant managed to insult British royalty. Buckingham Palace disavowed the contest. And some said the winner was nothing more than a juggler in a joker outfit.
“There’s more to being a jester than juggling – it’s really about using humor to make sharp points,” says Beatrice K. Otto, who wrote a book on jesters. “There are some good jesters in England,” she adds. “It sounds like they didn’t turn up” Saturday.
The match, sponsored by English Heritage, an organization devoted to preserving British history, showed that being a jester isn’t what it used to be. No kidding.
Jesters were an essential part of court life before Mr. Cromwell purged them following the English Civil War. Beholden to the monarch, jesters amused the king by making fun of people at court. They also played a serious role – “the only person who could stand up at court and speak his mind,” says Alex Burghart, a historian at London’s Kings College.
Modern-day jesters play a far less lofty role. They walk on fire, stand on stilts, ride on unicorns and juggle. While Medieval jesters typically were beholden to one ruler, jesters these days serve a community, often helping to raise money for charity through street performances and cabarets in local halls or holding circus workshops for children with disabilities…
This was about Patrick Thomas, who is hopefully finished, or nearly so, with his ride across the U.S. Does anybody know what his web site is, or how he’s doing?
Anyway, Cory starts off his article by pointing out how preposterous it is to conceive of riding across the country on a unicycle. It is. Especially on the small wheel I believe Patrick to be using. I don’t think he was being so harsh.
Sacramento Bee, after my return from Unicon. This was put up by my company’s PR person:
http://www.sacbee.com/content/business/story/10312332p-11232437c.html
[NOTE: This is not the complete article, which had three other non-related sections]
By Bob Shallit – Bee Columnist
Published 2:15 am PDT Monday, August 9, 2004
Cyclical business: It’s not about the bike. It’s about the unicycle.
At least when you’re dealing with John Foss, a talented Web designer with Anderson Solone Inc., a Rancho Cordova communications firm.
Foss is a unicycle fanatic. He commutes to work most days, eight miles each way, on his one-wheeler. He’s the founder of a California mountain unicycle race. And he’s a 12-time competitor in Unicon, the olympics of the sport, which just concluded in Japan.
Foss, 42, captured a half-dozen golds this time in events such as mountain climbing and an obstacle-course race. And, he tells us in an e-mail from Japan, he had a great time despite muggy weather and, on one day, a typhoon that forced riders to take shelter in a bathroom.
Co-workers are planning welcome-back festivities for Foss today. Account service manager Tamara Kaestner says Foss is one of the more popular people in the office. “You’d think a guy who rides a unicycle to work would be quirky and fun,” she says. “And he’s all that.”
Please don’t post only links!
NOTE TO ALL:
If you post an article, please don’t just post a link to the newspaper! Most papers don’t keep their articles online for very long. The New York Times requires you to sign up to see anything at all on their web site. Please copy and paste the articles onto the newsgroup so they are preserved for us to see in the future (which may start as early as next week).
Even the George Peck article from the Atlantic Monthly (April 1997) is finally unavailable to read anymore. It was still there the last time I looked! Now I have to take down my link to it…
I briefly contemplated that last year- even emailed a few other unicyclists to see if they were interested. In the end I decided to do a charity unitour through Vietnam/Cambodia instead. I am still keen to do the Silk Road one day. But not within the next four years- too many other epics to complete. Unless someone else is doing the organising
Ken
Must have been a sloooow weekend in Coeur d’Alene…
…for me to be front page news.
I was in CDA this weekend for their fantastic juggling festival, and was riding my coker down one of the bike paths around the lake when I was flagged down by a local reporter. The result was the front page article below (including both the link for those reading soon, and the article itself per John Foss’s advice in case the link goes dead).
What is amazing to me, besides how poorly this story is written, is the degree to which the reporter brought her own prejudice into the piece. Maybe it was my fault for being a boring subject, but she kept fishing for an angle that I couldn’t give her. First it was the “attention” angle…she wanted to know if I rode for attention, but I told her most of my riding was either solo or with a few friends, usually in the woods or other places where people are not. Then she tried for the “danger” angle…she wanted to know if my wife was scared about our son learning to ride. I told her “No, it’s not dangerous and she did most of the work in helping him get started.” So all by herself, after we parted company, she came up with the “respectability” angle, which makes no sense at all. I fail to see the connection between unicycling and not holding down a day job.
Also during the interview, I kept trying to steer the conversation back to the Juggling Festival, which was the big news. She dismissed this by saying “we have someone there covering it”, but then it turned out the only coverage was the content she dropped into the middle of the story, with no segue into or out of.
At least, thank God, there is no mention of circus…
Here’s the link: http://www.cdapress.com/articles/2004/08/16/news/news02.txt
Here is the story text:
Coeur d’Alene Press - August 16, 2004
Juggling childhood dreams of unicycles
By LYNN BERK
Staff writer
Festival a celebration of hobbies that are becoming more popular as sports
COEUR d’ALENE – Tom Blackwood has a respectable career as a customer service representative with Microsoft Corp. in Washington State.
He also has a wife, Marie, and a son, 10-year-old Miles.
But behind all that respectability and tradition, Blackwood secretly nursed a childhood dream. He wanted to ride a unicycle.
And now he does.
Now he stands beside the gleaming red custom 36-inch touring unicycle propped against a bench at Independence Point, one more participant in the weekend’s Juggling & Unicycle Festival, and says, “It’s just something I’ve always wanted to do.”
He wanted to learn how to ride a unicycle when he was a little boy but his efforts then were stymied by one very salient fact: He didn’t have one.
Then four years ago, the old dream resurfaced.
“My wife, she probably thought I was middle-aged crazy,” Blackwood says. “I’m sure she never thought it would become such a serious hobby.”
He even took the cycle, designed specifically for speed and distance, on a 33-mile, one-day ride – not an easy jaunt with a machine that has no gears. Since he’s been riding, Blackwood, who said he was in “reasonable shape” before, has dropped 15 pounds because the concentration on a unicycle is in the abdominal muscles.
“It’s a good challenge and a way to stay in shape,” says Blackwood. “And the people I’ve met are really great. Unicyclists are a pretty fun group.”
About 150 jugglers and unicycle enthusiasts participated in the weekend festival, which also included a juggling performance at the bandshell in City Park Saturday night.
“This has been our biggest year yet,” said David Groth, co-director of the juggling festival. “It was a high caliber show.”
Travis Hennon, Coeur d’Alene, has been juggling for four years and participated in the event.
“It’s really cool to be able to juggle locally,” Hennon said. “This is really great.”
Blackwood says it takes about 10 hours of concentrated practice just to get the basics down, but even if you fall, unicyclists tend to take it in the feet rather than the head … maybe in the butt and the hands. Because there are no gears, he adds, you can’t coast downhill.
“You have to work as hard going downhill as you do going uphill to keep from going too fast,” he says.
The cycle gives him a lot of attention, but he says he’s more in it for the sport itself and not the curious looks.
“It’s a pretty serious sport now,” he says. “I know people who are riding all around the U.S., around Europe, around Norway. Long-distance unicycling is increasingly becoming a proper sport. It’s good to see it expanding.”
Now his son is unicycling, too. In fact, Blackwood points to someone just wheeling past him. “Look, there goes another one,” he says with a grin. “They’re everywhere.”
-30-
All I can say is, she writes with the same level of care she devotes to the application of her makeup… TB
Patrick’s website is Pedal the Waves. As of the end of July he was in Nebraska.
Raphael Lasar
Matawan, NJ
Re: Must have been a sloooow weekend in Coeur d’Alene…
I think you’re being too hard on yourself and the reporter. It sounded like a good, solid little story to me, making you as a unicyclist sound like someone who took on this difficult skill at a later age, and are enjoying the health benefits of doing it!
Believe me, I’ve read much, much worse.
Yes, some reporters definitely seem to have a story already written in their heads, regardless of whatever goes on in the real world. If you see this creeping in, sometimes it’s best to pull it out in the open and help them come up with a better (or more accurate) angle. I used to play up the safety aspect of unicycling. “It’s really a lot less dangerous than it looks!” But this doesn’t drive peoples’ interest. So even though I know MUni is a lot safer than mountain biking, I generally don’t bring it up unless they ask. Let them believe we’re super risk-takers!