I am stuck with nobody that is my skill level to ride with in my area.
I have taught two people how to ride, but they are not serious about unicycling.
I ride 24" and 26" munis, and can do reasonably long and difficult trails. I enjoy small amounts of trials as well. I live NNW of Houston, Texas on I59.
I am writing this because the Houston uni facebook group is not responding to my queries, and I have not been able to connect with a single unicyclist outside my family. (the two people that I taught were my sisters.)
I am 19, almost 20. I ride most often at Lake Houston wilderness park.
Please help. I am tired of competing against nobody and myself.
Asking around here might help. I’ve found a few people that way.
Look into local universities. There are usually a few people who ride or are interested. You can look into local juggling clubs/communities as well. There might be some riders there.
This is more passive, but you can try creating and maintaining your own facebook or meetup page. I think meetup costs a few bucks per month, but I’d say it was surprisingly successful here in the DC area. Someone had a unicycling meetup that didn’t see much activity. I don’t remember how exactly, but the guy who ran it met up with some of us and then gave us access. We started hosting events semi regularly, and in the last 2-3 years it’s grown to 50+ people, of which I’d say roughly 20 are pretty active.
Different types of riding will help too. You tend to see less people during muni, but say out on a bike path it’s not uncommon to have people comment that they used to ride or that they are interested in riding.
I feel like most populated areas have a decent number of riders. They are hard to find, but if you make yourself known, people tend to come out of the woodwork.
I visited the bike shop today and they told me there were a few unicyclists around … though I’ve never seen one. My thought is to maybe leave my contact information there, if they’re cool with that, so that other unicyclists could see it and might contact me one day. You might want to try that too?
I think craigslist might have something like that too … not sure though …
When I took my uni to the LBS here, they looked at me funny and asked where to get parts. I was certainly the first to come in with a unicycle since they opened the shop I dunno how many decades ago
I’d be more surprised if they weren’t surprised to see a uni than if they were!
It was surprising to hear that there were a few unicyclists in my area. They said one will come in once in a while, but generally when they see a unicyclist, it’s somebody who thought they’d try to learn and gave up immediately, then came in to try to sell it off.
They definitely found the KH crank a real surprise.
Yes,
I have had an identical experience at my LBS, about other unicyclists.
That is a good idea to leave my contact info there. I will try it.
Might be a good idea to hit the bike paths. I haven’t tried that yet, because I don’t own a road uni, but hey, I am a tinkerer after all. I can figure something out. As to social sites, this and google are the only ones I use. The rest are depressing in comparison to reading about unicycles and unicyclists.
I rode at Madrone Trail by Canyon Lake outside New Braunfels about 2 weeks ago which is challenging rocky technical (before that 4 weeks in Durango, Sante Fe and Taos with a lot of cool muni terrain).
But I can’t help you directly at this time as I just flew back last week from Austin to Germany where I now live. I spent over 2 years in NW Houston but it’s a long time ago and I didn’t unicycle back then, just mountain bike.
Hmmm… it’s not so close, but Kenny aka BlueHarmony on the forum is an experienced Muni rider in San Antonio, although he’s not quite in your age class. Maybe write him and ask if he knows anyone in Houston. He moved to SA about 3 years from outside Seattle, where he knew lots of riders in the Northwest. Another rider from Austin I rode with about 3 years ago, I think Sam, is also on this forum (forgot the nick) and he knows a lot of riders too and enjoys trying to keep up with the young riders.
There are a couple of other riders on the forum in Dallas and Houston. I think there’s a really good muni rider in his early 20s named Bobby from Houston, but I’ve never met him, not sure if he’s on the forum (Sam in Austin knows him).
One of the best ways to meet good riders (although not necessarily in your area) is at the Muni Weekend events. There are somewhat regular ones in Arizona and Moab, and I went to the Colorado Muni Weekend in 2016 and Seattle Muni Weekend in 2015. Not that those are really close to you… but if you get the chance it’s such a great experience to ride with a group (I’ve been doing about 3 group events a year for the last 4 years or so). I know riders in Albuquerque and Denver but again, pretty far from Houston.
I know well over a hundred muni riders all over the world and close to 50 riders within 100 miles but most of the time I still ride by myself, except for at the big events.
I second starting a unicycle Meetup. I’ve had some success getting a small group of riders together here in Sacramento, and I thought i was the only rider in town when I started. Plus, as you start having gatherings in the area, they attract attention and interest on their own.
