I am about to hit my 30th anniversary of riding. Other than a year when I (stupidly) went to Australia sans uni, I have ridden almost everyday since I got my first Schwinn with the last of my bar mitzvah gelt. But I can think of at least three who’ve been riding even longer:
Dave White, since 1966 (no fair! I wasn’t even born when he started riding!)
John Foss (late 1970s, right?)
Ken Springle, from a fellow NYUC’er, has been riding for going on 40 years
I’d love to see the list. For some of us, it might make up for the fact that we’ll never hit level 10 or master the new skills like crank flips!
I got my first used Schwinn 24" for Xmas '76. Actually, the uni arrived late. According to the card, Santa was too heavy, the seat post broke and its arrival was delayed until early January '77. I was minimally competent by March '77. By the summer of '79 I was delivering newspapers on it. So I’m just shy of 32 years of being training wheel-free.
It was a funky uni. White wall tire, cotter keys. I wore a hole in the tire, and couldn’t find a replacement with a white wall. I was bummed. With that first replacement tire I learned that there is a difference between a tire that is 24 X 1 3/4 and a tire that is 24 X 1.75. Who woulda thunk? The 24 X 1.75 was too small to fit on the rim.
My biggest lapses in riding were when I spent a summer in the Netherlands in '83 and when I crushed my thigh in a drunken college prank the fall of '85.
I, for one, am impressed with the correct use of the plural “all y’all” in this sentence. Kudos. Too many incorrectly use the singular “y’all” in cases like this.
George Peck got his first unicycle in 1983 I think. He learned to ride as a way to cross-train for windsurfing. He first contacted me in 1985 with rough terrain pictures.
I first got interested in unicycles when I saw them in a Thanksgiving parade in 1967 or 68, but I didn’t get to try one until 1976, when I almost/sort of learned to ride. But then my POS unicycle fell apart, and I had a gap of no-riding until 1979, so for “continuous” riding I’d have to count from there, which puts me at 29 years, 30 next Halloween.
Harper brought up the question of how to qualify “continuous” riding. Is once a year enough? That certainly separates the sometimes-riders from the ones who started at age twelve and then stopped until age 30 for example. I have gone up to maybe a month without riding.