What a perfect opportunity for fictionalization.
My name is Greg Harper, the frequent faller. I am 49 years old and first rode when I was about eleven. I rode every year, freemounting and riding forward and even off of curbs. I recently (in the last four years) got my first new unicycle in 30 years or so and began riding more regularly, or about 200 miles a year on a 24" Taiwanese with an auto-castrate seat.
Last September, after discovering the unicycle.com website and finding out that there was an enormous supply of incredibly cool unicycles available, I bought a Coker and so for the first time in my life owned more than one unicycle. I now own seven unicycles, one of which is the uni.5, a geared unicycle which is touring the country without me. I also began commuting 5 miles to and from work each way, first on the Coker and then on the uni.5 until I shipped it out. I now unicycle to work on any day that I think will be rain free.
At about that same time, I discovered on the web that there were a few other things people did on unicycles besides freemounting and riding forward and even off of curbs. I began my quest to attain skill level 5 before my 50th birthday in August. I made it quickly to level 4 but the evil god of wheel walking is laughing in my face as I reach out for the too distant level five.
My wheel family now consists of:
Torker 20"
Jugglebug 20" (VERY cool blue with a bell)
Semcycle 6 foot giraffe
Zephyr 24"
Steve Howard MUni (WAY, WAY cool)
Coker 36"
uni.5
Most of them you can see on my website:
On the personal side, I have been married to Karen for 29 years. We have two adults (no longer children) Sarah, 25, and Zach, 21. The only other family member who has tried unicycling (other than both Sarah and Zach riding on my shoulders as pee-wees while their mother wept with joy) is Zach who tried for a couple of days when he was twelve. He remains about three hours of practice from being able to ride and, for some bizarre reason, thinks he has more important or interesting things to do. The family member who enjoys unicycling the most is Buster (the disguster) our half sharpei, half golden retriever who loves to run alongside, and occasionally in front of, a wheel. The twelve year old cat, Claire, is not quite so co-operative or enthused.
I have worked at the University of Washington in Seattle for 23 years, the last 16 of which were spent as a research engineer at the Nuclear Physics Laboratory. There have been four other people at the lab who ride or have ridden in the past. One of them learned partly under my tutelage. She broke her wrist during the process while my words, “you won’t get hurt learning to ride a unicycle”, rang sourly in her ears.
Welcome to the newsgroup. You will find much information and entertainment here even though it is peopled with a viscious and vindictive lot. They hold themselves in check, usually, with brief and silly forays into the ridiculous. I steer completely clear of those shenanigans, however.
