Who is the oldest unicyclist?

poser

David, this has to be the same guy that John Foss was talking about. Perhaps you could email the head of the Arizona club youā€™re talking about. It would be a great thing to know. Iā€™ll bet heā€™s the worldā€™s oldest unicyclist.

Yeah, thatā€™s who I meant, sorry. I thought Iā€™d scanned the other notes and had not seen mention of him.

I donā€™t recall if I have Keithā€™s address or eddress, but itā€™s easy enough to find, so letā€™s contact him about our probable world-record holder.

Thanks again David. I just found Keithā€™s email address and will send him a quick letter. They have pictures of their members on the Arizona Unicycle Club website and no one on it looks like theyā€™re 93, unless theyā€™re aging very very graciously. Hopefully this guy is still around and still riding. Iā€™ll post any info I come across.

This is sort of a no-update update. I emailed both Keith at the Arizona club and Jack Halpern in Japan and unfortunately have received no responses from either of them. David Stone, John Foss, or anyone else do you think you could give it a shot? This seems like something that really should be known that just isnā€™t. Itā€™s also proving to be more difficult to figure out than I previously expected. Thanks in advance.

Iā€™ll try to contact Keith, but Iā€™m not sure I have any more info than you do.

Hi John.

I have that Newsweek article. Rumsfeld looks wobbly but he doesnā€™t appear to be falling, IMHO.

We ran an ad with the 92-year-old rider in On One Wheel magazine. Do you have the back issues handy? We also received a clipping that appeared in a Phoenix newspaper, and it featured a color photo of him riding. He had to be 93 or 94 by then.

I wonder who is the oldest HARDCORE muni-er or street/triasly type rider. I know there are probably a fair number of 70+ year-olds doing mostly basic riding but it would be way cool to actually see video of an 80 year old doing a 5 foot drop or bombing a super technical Muni trail! Iā€™d like to see me still doing that in 29 years!:smiley:

This is good news and certainly looks like weā€™re making some progress. Do you happen to know this manā€™s name? It would be interesting to see if we could find that clipping from the Phoenix newspaper. Iā€™d also love to see the ad with him from On One Wheel. Heā€™s got to be the oldest unicyclistā€¦at least American unicyclist. I wonder if there are any who are older in Asia.

Thanks David. I just did a quick google search and found the Phoenix clubā€™s site. It did look like it hadnā€™t been updated for a while and I presume he doesnā€™t check that email anymore. I hope you have more luck than I did.

The gentleman who bought his first unicycle at age 92 is Fred Barton from Arizona. Heā€™ll be 98 in September. We got word today through a close friend of his that Mr. Barton gave up unicycling about a year ago, per his doctorā€™s orders. He was still riding at age 96.

P.S. I just found this article in a Google search.

http://www.cyclingforums.com/showthread.php?t=161184

Wow, 96!! Thanks so much for this info! Well, thatā€™s it. Weā€™ve got a name and an age. Heā€™s got to the be the worldā€™s oldest unicyclist. Fred Barton of Arizona at age 96. Very impressive!

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What an interesting guy! That is really something elseā€¦everyone should give that a quick read. I guess it should have been assumed that someone who picked up unicycling at 92 must have had a pretty astounding life before that.

There have been a couple of guys over 60 riding at Moab, though not doing 5-foot drops. Probably the oldest rider I know of who really goes big is John Long (who is 54 and in need of a Wikipedia page update!)

I remember someone trying to tell me ā€œthereā€™s more people currently alive than have ever diedā€. I donā€™t for a minute think this is true (although I havenā€™t ruled it out).

This thread got me thinking (morbidly), there must be thousands more unicyclists alive now than have ever died.

Can anyone give an educated guess on how many dead unicyclists there are? Or even how many living?

Iā€™d guess something like

10,000 - 20,000 living
300 - 500 dead

Would these figures get closer to each other or further and further apart in the years to come?

Amazing

What an interesting life. This guy is an inspiration to all us senior citizens!

The Japan Unicycling Association claims six million people have learned to ride through their programs, and thatā€™s as of several years ago. They only started in 1979 or so, so hopefully most of those people are still alive. Still, I think your 10-20,000 is a more accurate dead number. Lots of people learn to ride a unicycle at one point, but most donā€™t keep doing it regularly. 300 - 500 would probably cover just people from American school programs from the 1960s or later who have died off.

six million??! Thatā€™s incredible! The population of New Zealand is about 4 millionā€¦

still 87 is impressive.

Age of learning to ride

After nearly two years of learning under the expert tutillage of two remarkable people Clive Gray and Pauline Paradise in Bath yesterday I had the thrill of riding solo a full length of a room. I was 68 when I started and have been determined to do it before 70 so am quite chuffed! I do not yet consider myself a unicyclist and am aware there may be small set-backs but I now know I can be one.
Has any research been done on possible health benefits from learning to ride at a later age? Martin Clotworthy