Where's The Unicycling?

Off-topic
1

G’day!

In yesterday’s Metro (a free newspaper in UK), the Scotland edition mind, the bottom of the page had a pic of unicyclists on a hill.

Imagine the excitement, an article about muni or something in my favourite paper!

The image is the title showing the date, and the bit I’m on about which was at the bottom of the page.

On turning to page 16 and reading the article, there was absolutely no mention of unicycling at all. Some students are going to travel round the world in 80 ways. Presumably from the pic, unicycling will be one of the ways, but there was no mention of it whatsoever.

I just wanted to share my excitement and sudden disappointment with others who would understand.

T.

front page.jpg

2

the article.

Sorry the images are poor quality, I aint got a scanner so had to take fotos of the paper.

T.

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3

that is a very eye-catching pic, which probably got it on the front page
are u going to contact the paper and offer some information for a follow-up story about the pic?

4

That is a very very good idea. First stop: Metro.co.uk

I’ll keep ya posted if ya like

T.

5

please do

i’m a committed unicycle-publicity slut and love knowing that i’m not alone in the world

how wide is their distribution?

6

The scotland edition covers all of um, scotland?

This paper is known as “The Commuters Favourite” as you get it at train stations and on busses, etc. I get it at work cos folk travel by train/bus and leave them lying. I of course unicycle to work.

So all the main commuter journeys in central scotland are covered, but I’m not sure how far out of that it gets.

Perhaps Innes can tell us if he’s seen it up in the Inverness area?

Somebody wrote in once to say that she sees a guy unicycling in Stirling and thought he was cool, so I wrote in saying it was good to get positive feedback from folk, as a unicyclist in Glasgow you tend to just get abuse/insults thrown at you. That morning, I woke up to text messages from my unicycling mate saying that everyone he saw said hello and smiled at him on his journey to work. He was confused, until he read Metro.

Pretty much everyone on the trains reads it, it saves them from talking to each other!

found an email address for the scotland paper, writing to them now!

T.

7

They cover most of the UK I think. I used to read the Manchester edition when I usd to commute there.

I’m pretty sure I’ve also seen it down south.

8

yes, quite
didn’t notice that bit

the reason i asked was simply because i was curious about how many unicyclists u could ‘represent’ in your dealings with the paper

whole of scotland…
2?

9

I reckon we could maybe get 5 !

Me and Pebbles - Glasgow,

Innes - Inverness,

UniGamer - Dumfries,

ummm, I know more unicyclists, but they don’t do muni.

4 is good tho!

why won’t my email sign in? I got the “Glasgowunicyclists@…” address I wanna use to contact them but it won’t let me in! Grrrrrr.

T.

10

the email’s been a bit odd for a while

fire off a PM to Gilby , he should be able to sort it out
it’s a nice email addy to use when u’re contacting the press

11

its not an address from here.

its on hotmail.

it lets me sign in and knows who i am but just won’t load the next page (inbox/welcome)

It is a good address tho, eh? If only it would let me in!

T.

12

that’s odd
i have an old hotmail addy i tried to get into yesterday and i got a ‘Server Is Too Busy’ message
their server that is, not mine here at the office

i thought u had “Glasgowunicyclists@unicyclist.com” as the addy u were using

do u want an invite to open a Gmail account for the Glasgowunicyclists@…?

13

whats a gmail?

is that like 2 better than an email?

14

at least

it’s google’s free, web-based email service
it’s like hotmail, only u get like 2gig’s worth of free storage, a very kewl labelling system, and since u have all that space, u can archive all your messages, u never need to delete anything again, and u can always go find it incase someone argues with u about something u or they said in an email

send me a mail to unigild@gmail.com and i’ll send u an invite to open one

it’s part of their marketing campaign to only have it available ‘by invitation’
smoke, mirrors and BS, but what can u do

and it’ll probably let u in…

15

Hold on, its just let me in, woohoo!

I’ll do that gmail thang in a bit, best get this sent off while it’s working.

Cheers Gild, man!

16

GILD, I just emailed you about the gmail from my aol email.

T.

17

The end result

Well, after conversing with Gild about the content of my email to the paper, I decided to phone them.

I phoned the Metro Scotland person (there was only one!)

I basically read out my email to her, she said it sounded interesting but they don’t do specific articles about “stuff”. Their articles have to be connected to an event or something. I bet they would do it if BUC was in scotland!

I emailed her anyway.

I’ll have to try and think up an event for them to cover so’s I can get my ugly mug in the paper.

T.

18

tom, u should post the contents of that email here in this thread so we can get some feedback from other people who have dealt with the media as well
i think tom’s email strikes a kewl balance between giving enough information without reading like an encyclopedia

19

ok. Here it is.

"Hello! I just spoke to someone from Metro Scotland on the telephone (it might have been you) about unicycling. Here is my email anyway, so you have my contact details.

My name is Thomas Horton and I represent a growing group of
unicyclists in Scotland. I am also a member of the UUU (UK Union of Unicyclists), Cumbria Muni & Trials club, and the secretary of Glasgow Juggling Club.

I picked up the Metro yesterday (Tuesday 31st May '05, Scotland
Edition) and was immediately drawn to the silhoutted image of the two unicyclists at the bottom of the page. Work was instantly forgotten as I frantically turned to page 16 to read the article.

As interesting as the story was, it had absolutely no mention of
unicycling or even unicycles. This confused me, as the image on the front page showed mountain unicycles/unicyclists.

This sport is known as Muni (Mountain Unicycling) and is one of the forms of unicycling that we regularly partake in.
The unicycles used for this sport are very different from the type of unicycle that most people associate unicycling with. They are the unicycling version of mountain bikes; very strong, wide and chunky tyres, wide strong wheel rims and hubs, etc. Most Muni’s also have brakes, operated by a brake lever just under the saddle.

We also partake in Unicycle Trials, this is the unicycling equivalent
of bicycle trials and uses pretty much the same equipment/obstacles.
This sport involves getting yourself (on your unicycle!) around an
obstacle course involving jumping up onto things, between things, off things, riding on very narrow platforms and along uneven surfaces, etc.

Lastly, some of us commute to work on our unicycles.

I believe unicycling is an effective way of improving your health and your life. It is an amazing accomplishment just to learn to ride one, and once you can ride, the whole world suddenly seems like a unicycle course!

I also believe that unicycling would make a very interesting feature for your paper. When you’re ready to do the story to go with yesterday’s front-page picture, please feel free to contact me for any information.

My email:
Glasgowunicyclists@gmail.com

Thank you for your time.

Thomas."

The formatting is fooked cos of multiple copy-pastes between text editors. The version I sent was cool.

GILD: I changed the first paragraph after the phone call. And copy-pasted your last paragraph suggestion. Much better sounding.

T.

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20

Oh GILD you slut.