Dream Of Unicycling

Today ( 4/23/06 ) I unicycled therefore I am a unicycler. I learned about 4 or 5 years ago one night in Everett with my friend Brian Gross after we downed enough beer to take on a spot challenge like this. I bought my cycle on a whim at the end of a Sierra vacation a few months before at a bike shop in Ellensberg and just happened to have it it my truck that night - or something like that. Before that night I had not touched it and went away with the thrill and satisfaction of knowing something knew and enough of it that as they say - you don't forget how to ride a bike.

Too many things have intervened since then and I got on the bike only once in the year but got on it and rode on the first attempt and put it away for another 3+ years until today when Brian was back in the country.....Hey Dan, lets go unicycling! Well, it was a good day. I don't know if it was all the thinking about unicycling in the intervening years, or the Radio Control helicopter practice I've had on the simulator, but that's what we did today in the Sears parking lot nearby. It was stimulating enough that I thought of making a bumper sticker that says Dream of Unicycling and stimulating enough to start this web page. That's all you get folks - now go out and get your unicycle! Below is a shot of my cheapo in the garden.

Being a climber I've done most of the normal stuff like walking on the hands in a handstand, have walked tightropes and slacklines, wind-surfed, but this takes all of that in and more and might be the way to really learn to fly! More to come........

4/24/06: Another hour plus session at the giant parking lot at the Everett boat launch park. We discover that Brian's unicycle is really too small and can't get the seat high enough. The wheel is too small and the cranks are really too short. I suggest to Brian that he pedals with the ball of the foot rather than the arch and things go much better for him. We also notice at least for now there is more control through a turn if more weight is on the pedals rather than the seat. One of the real keys to unicycling in general is spreading the load between the seat and pedals. More than anything I'm trying to relax more so I can go farther. My limit is about one to two hundred yards. A bigger wheel will help. The one pictured is a 24". Nevertheless, we both had experiences during this session of getting into a 'zone' of controll that was extraordinary: Brian when he suddenly decided he was going to do a small loop and turn around, saying what he was doing out load, and me when I turned around and came back to the tail of the truck and doing this slow controlled creep. I looked like Michael Jackson doing the Moonwalk. We'll be jousting soon! There's endless potential with these toys if you like slacklines. Yes, I've already thought of doing it with a bag over my head!

Below; me trying to slackline with a bag over my head during the mid 80s. I have done much slack-lining, but ages before the current spurt of it. I learned to walk a tight-wire from an old guy in a parking lot near the San Francisco wharfs in 1971. He had his circus act set up. I didn't leave till I made it across that wire. He even had a unicycle he crossed it on. One of my most ambitious attempts at anything serious with wires was crossing the Boise River at the big park there in town in the mid 70s. There was an old cable crossing cable. I only tried once and found the returning vibration wave on that heavy cable almost like a bronking horse. It just wanted to snap you off of there.

My new big wheel with the old one above right:

Time flies and I think I had one or two more sessions with Brian up to the summer of 2006. While on vacation in Bishop, CA last Fall (2006) I could not resist picking up a new larger unicycle with a Mtn Bike size wheel - for just $75.00. That was the price of the first that I bought in Ellensburg, returning from another vacation. As per usual, I did not try it out until today, May 13, 2007, a day before my 55th birthday! I had to do something to get ready! After not being on for almost a year I went to the Sears lot nearby, alone, got on and went about 50 yds first try! You know that feeling where you surprise yourself and instead of panicking, keep your balance and go along for the ride? I don't suppose it's a coincidence I dreamed of Mtn Biking and Skateboarding last night, and I don't skateboard, but do enjoy watching the kids at the skate-parks. The feeling I had on the skateboard in my dream was, ' hey, I can't do what I'm doing but what the heck'. The first time I ice-skated backwards was in a dream. I don't think I mentioned it yet, but I did have a unicycle dream last year, the only one I know of. I think I did something crazy like go down steps.

I learned right off today that my new big wheel is much easier to operate even though I sit higher up. My only limiting factor in going farther than about 200 yds is my legs crap out - even though I'm a strong bicycle rider. So much energy is expending in using the legs to balance that it sucks them dry. You can't rest easily on a uni because there's no freewheeling - just need to spending more time on it. I need to get the seat a little higher and work on the tightening mechanism. One of the essential things is keeping your weight pretty even between seat and pedals in general. What I like about all this is what goes on in my brain when I take on challenges like this. The goal is not just to learn it but learn it and understand it without spending much time with it. I like getting in that mode where I let it all open up and get out of the way of myself. Sure, you have to project a few things that you know about pyhsics and mechanics but it's pretty rich being right there taking in new stuff. I have unicycled so little that it still seems like an improbable thing to me. I'm pretty sure it was way harder to learn than windsurfing was. I didn't have to get drunk to windsurf, and the uni still seems improbable and raises anxiety levels way up, yet I can get on it and do it. I still need to start out by leaning on something though.

That is what it's all about. That has always been a hobby of mine; The more things you pick up the quicker you learn the next one. I can't believe how many times I thought about taking the new wheel for a spin and didn't until now. I hope there's a next life because I'm sure too slow at the draw sometimes in this one! I think I'm going to have to set some goals for the new big wheel.........I can always hope that my dream life is much richer than I know - or maybe my dream life is my real life.......When you work all the time there is not time for this stuff - learn it quick or learn nothing and then take it to dreamland. I am or have also been a bowler, archer, and windsurfer, sailor.......but mostly I make packs! I still have to windsurf across the Strait of San Juan before I kick the bucket....doing it downwind.....now that's the stuff dreams are made of!

I'll try to get a short unicycling movie up with my new big wheel after I practice more. Below: My hot adult-worthy Pogostick handles 185 lbs easily. I picked it up in Bend last year for $12.00. I probably won't have a pogostick page!

It's now Memorial Weekend, 5/28/07, and I have not been on the uni since May 13. I had a great session today, again alone, and after some trying warm-ups, went over 150 yds 5 times in a row, 3 of those over 200 yds. I seem to have made a break through to relaxing and sitting more comfortably on the seat, balancing more and relaxing more, so that the act of pedaling was separate from the sitting part. This took the counter-pedaling tension from my legs. It seems I am now a unicycler - but maybe not officially until I can get going without leaning on something. I suppose I will do that by stepping on a pedal and balance while holding onto the seat, and then step on over while in balance. Part of the fun is seeing what happens the next time. I better get out at least once a month! As of 11/26/07 I have not been on it again - and so it goes!

6/15/08 - I went out today, a rare nice sunny in a pretty cold gloomy spring. I pretty much picked up were I left off last spring - OVER a year ago! At first I learned to get on the unicycle using ski poles to see what that was like. That's interesting! After a few warm up runs where it seemed like I went throught the entire evolution of learning, I did a couple of continuous 230 yard runs. I get to that point and just poop out because I'm not relaxed enough. I'm going to try and get out more. I'm tired of this level I'm at where I don't take it seriously at all. It's just that unicycling seems so pointless other than for it's abstract impossibility of doing! That's enough for me though since I don't have any other disciplines quite like that! The level of balance can certainly pay off elsewhere.