I haven’t dedicated serious time to a unicycle since at least 2011 when I was 15. At that time I was in my freshman year of high school. Soon I became overwhelmed with homework and my unicycle lay unused in the garage, collecting dust. Since half the parts belonged to a friend (Colby Thomas, if anyone remembers his kickass videos), he came over one day to reclaim them. Given I couldn’t ride a unicycle without any peddles, no tire and no seat, I completely gave up riding.
Around that time Pumped Up Kicks, Sexy and I Know It, and Party Rock Anthem were topping the music charts. The Kris Holm brand was the premiere unicycle maker and had released their 19" flatland unicycle (which I’m disappointed to see they discontinued – that was a thing of beauty). In 2012, Eli Brill performed the first 1260 unispin. By 2014, I was aware that Max Schulze took the world by storm by performing his impressive “maxwhip” or “uniwhip.” I believe at one point a couple people did a 1440 unispin.
All that said, what’s new in the world of unicycling? Anybody land some crazy, new incentive tricks? Any new developments in unicycle gear? Get me up to speed. I’m considering buying a new unicycle with my adult money at the ripe old age of 27.
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I don’t know if there were many new tricks in flatland, but in street, there’s Mimo Seedler. The latest news is that he’s broken his wrist, but I’ve no doubt he’ll make a speedy recovery.
On the gear side: mad4one handlesaddle, freewheel hubs, TPU inner tubes, Flansberrium frames, carbon rims of all sizes, hubs with internal discs, the QAXLE will become the new standard after the ISIS…
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Oh, and I can’t forget the Pöham Brothers. They were really active at that time. They were the ones who inspired me to dedicate more time into filming my videos cinematically (and ultimately work in film production).
A few other names that come to mind are Adrien Delecroix, Jacob Spera, Julia Belk, Unihopper, and a few others I can’t remember by name.
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How is the QAXLE different from the ISIS hub? Just more durable?
I don’t think Qaxle is more durable. But lighter, easier to install and no risk of putting the cranks differently than aligned (whereas you could put your cranks in different configurations with ISIS 
). Oh, and no need for a crank extractor! A good hex key does the trick!
Any good Q-Axle crank options out there currently? I remember really liking the Mad4One 125mm cranks when doing street/trials but looking at their website it seems they still only sell the ISIS version. 110mm also seemed like a nice size for crankflips. I’m not a fan of double hole cranks. Too much weight and makes your ankles an easy bashing target.
I’m no urban rider, so can’t advise on the best Qaxle cranks for flat nor street riding. But you can have a look at Qu-ax website to get an idea of which cranks and sizes exist:
I would say that you can definitly go with the mad cranks, qu-ax is the new standard for muni and road, but for trial and street I think isis is good.
Unfortuately, most of those people from 2011 are not very active unicyclists anymore. Eli seems to be still riding, colby is around (he built skrrrt.io , which is a bit more active for the urban unicycling disciplines).
Raphael is still doing sports cinematography (including for Redbull), Adrien is doing visual effects for big movies, so you are not alone in going to work in film production.
Flatland and Freestyle have been blending a fair amount (Flatstyle, X-style, etc. have spawned). In general the trend has gone away from “big tricks” a bit and toward more complex tricks. A few more people have done uniwhips, but they are not super common.
Mimo has almost singlehandedly changed street unicycling in style and what is considered possible.
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One other question I had… What’s the largest unispin and crankflip that have been performed in the past few years? Anybody do an insane 3240° unispin? A 10thflip? 
What about combos of the two?
Certainly there’s a limit at some point. There’s only so much airtime you get before you have to start jumping off objects to extend it. At that point, might as well skydive and perform dozens of backflips, crankflips and unispins all at once 🫨
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I think the largest unispin ever is still Elis 1260. The hardest pure unispin you see performed somewhat regularly are (still) 1080 sides.
It seems like the common mood currently is that any tricks involving more than a 1080° unispin or quadflips are getting too deep into silly territory. Even if you are very used to watching them, you can’t really tell the difference and getting them consistent is hard.
Regarding doing tricks down objects, in street it’s now more similar to skateboarding, where a clean fulloutflip down a bigger set of stairs tends to be regarded more highly than a treyquad down a small set. (Of course it’s still impressive when people do that, but it’s not an area where people seem to push too much currently).
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Quint flips have been done, but not by alot of riders. Eli has done the first, certainly a few other riders have but it’s not a common trick. The tricks have changed in style aswell. Things are smoother and combos are nicer to look at rather than a ‘‘jump - do trick - land - done’’. As much as big tricks are impressive, the control and combination of multiple tricks now is nicer!
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