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  #11  
Old November 22nd 05, 02:28 PM posted to rec.sport.unicycling
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ONE-WHEELIN

Nicole Lessin
EXPRESS-NEWS STAFF WRITER
647 words
16 November 2005
San Antonio Express-News
STATE&METRO
1NC
English
(c) Copyright 2005 San Antonio Express-News. All Rights Reserved.

The day Scott Wallis saw a video clip of mountain unicycle pioneer Kris
Holm riding down a volcano, he knew he had found his passion.

Wallis had injured his neck from barefoot waterskiing and mountain
biking and could no longer bend over to hold the handlebars of his
bike.

The mountain unicycle's upright position and its promise of off-road
adventure were a perfect fit.

More than a decade ago, when Matt Kuhfahl lived on a military base in
Japan, he noticed a prevalence of school supply stores with unicycles
for sale. Kuhfahl begged his parents to buy him one and taught himself
to ride in one day.

Kenny Munn could not afford a sports car when he turned 50, so he
settled for a $300 mountain unicycle with a Ferrari-red seat cover
instead.

Though these men range in age from their 20s to their 50s, they have
this fact in common: They use their unicycles to navigate dirt trails,
stony hills and gnarled tree roots with an informal group of guys who
look nothing like juggling circus performers or any other rider one
normally associates with the one-wheeled conveyance.

The unicyclists primarily meet on Sundays at McAllister and O.P.
Schnabel parks to get their dirt fix.

``This is hard core, not something a geek would do,'' said Munn, a
former motorcycle racer and mountain biker. ``It's got a real steep
learning curve. Most people give up on it.''

It's no wonder, either.

On a unicycle, you have no gears or a handlebar. Often, you don't have
any brakes, either.

In the beginning, most novices yearn for a second ``training wheel''
after expending all their energy just trying to stay upright.

In contrast, some of these off-road unicyclists can hop off rock ledges
and jump over logs.

Others can even travel long distances.

``Every hill you do, it's just you and the unicycle,'' said Joe Wilson,
who has ridden from San Antonio to Corpus Christi on his 36-inch wheel
for the MS 150 Bike Tour, an event that raises funds to aid those with
multiple sclerosis. ``You can't coast.''

Wilson made the journey with Kuhfahl.

It's not hard to understand why these off-road unicyclists don't
appreciate hearing people whistle circus tunes when they are out
riding.

Wilson has even made his wife a solemn promise.

``If she sees me juggling while on my unicycle, she can shoot me,'' he
said with a laugh.

For his part, Wallis -- who was the first member of the group to start
these rides four years ago -- said the difficulty of the sport has been
a main attraction.

``It looked like it would be an interesting challenge mainly,'' he
said. ``It must be enough of a challenge to make it worth doing.''

Though Wallis has not yet gone down a volcano, he has maneuvered his
lightweight unicycle down the Santa Barbara Mountains in California.

What's more, he's learned that his neck feels better from moving his
arms around to pivot on his unicycle.

``If I don't ride every week, my neck will start hurting,'' he said.
``It's therapy.''

For more, go to www.alamounicycle.com or e-mail Wallis at
.



1. Jeff Prado rides his unicycle with a group of fellow unicyclists at
McAllister Park Nov. 6. 2. Kenny Munn tackles treacherous terrain as he
and his fellow unicyclists do some off-road riding at McAllister Park.
3. Matt Kuhfahl rides his unicycle at McAllister Park. Unicycles have
no handlebars and often have no brakes. 4. Jeff Prado (left) and Joe
Wilson ride their unicycles at McAllister Park. The unicyclists do most
of their off-road riding on Sundays. PHOTOS BY ROBERT MCLEROY/STAFF


--
JJuggle

Raphael Lasar - Matawan, NJ

Monday morning feel so bad. Everybody seems to nag me.
Coming Tuesday, I feel better. Even now your man looks good.
(ah-woo) Wednesday goes to show, (ah-woo) Thursday just wont go.
(ah-woo) Cause I got Friday on my mind.
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  #12  
Old November 22nd 05, 02:29 PM posted to rec.sport.unicycling
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HYPOCHONDRIACS, FRET NOT: BOOK TELLS WHAT AILS YOU

Mark Wolf, Rocky Mountain News
638 words
14 November 2005
Rocky Mountain News
FINAL
7D
English
© 2005 Denver Publishing Company, Rocky Mountain News. Provided by
ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights reserved.

Be wary of that doorknob.

If it's contaminated with germs - you non-hand-washers know who you are
- it can spread infection to the first 14 people who touch it.

Almost everything you do, ingest or even think about is capable of
inflicting mortal damage, some experts somewhere say. At least now
we've got your mind off the bird flu.

In 15 years of writing about health, John Naish of The Times of London
squirreled away reports about odd diseases and syndromes. He cleared
his file cabinet to produce Hypochondria Can Kill: A Disease for Every
Occasion, An Illness for Every Symptom (Plume, $14), a guide for the
health-fretter in all of us.

Hypochondria, Naish believes, is on the rise because we have more time
to worry: "It's a bit of an illness of luxury. More and more of us have
the time and the luxury to worry about things. We're bombarded by the
Internet, by magazines that all have health sections. They do play on
the imaginations."

Take beauty parlor syndrome. After seeing five women ages 54 to 84 who
had strokes after visiting the beauty parlor, a doctor hypothesized
they could have been caused by women bending their necks over a beauty
parlor sink.

"It has happened to people, but it's very, very rare," said Naish, who
includes medical journal/research citations with the entries.

His intent, Naish said, was to provide "a mass inoculation into this
stuff, to say, 'Why worry? Get on with one's life.' People who worry
obsessively about their health are more likely to die early."

THE BOOK IS PACKED WITH SYNDROMES, INCLUDING UNICYCLISTS SCIATICA,
CAUSED BY \"THE RIDER PUTTING ALL OF HIS OR HER WEIGHT ON THE
PERINEUM.\"

Confirmed germophobes will find much to work themselves into a lather
about. "The point is that if you were to swab anybody, you'd find
people are full of bacteria. That's what being human is all about.
There should be a slogan: 'Get out of your body. It's full of germs.'

"There's something called the hygiene hypothesis that said if you
compare children brought up on farms with children brought up in very
persnickety, germ-wiped households, the farm kids have much lower
levels of asthma and allergies."

Anyone with a sour tummy and an Internet connection can become a
cyberchondriac. Naish himself fell victim:

"I was having a bit of a stressful time and started getting pins and
needles in my fingers. I got up at 2 a.m., got onto the computer and
typed my symptoms into Google. Very helpfully, it came back with 'It's
stress,' but it's so easy to get another 5,000 opinions that it's a
brain tumor or multiple sclerosis."

He found a study reporting 2,500 people a year are injured while
brushing their teeth: "What are they doing? I do walk around brushing
my teeth . . . Are they brushing their gums away through some kind of
hygiene frenzy?"

Naish devotes a chapter to the "nocebo effect," which he calls the dark
side of the placebo effect: "If you tell someone that something . . .
might cause stomach upset, gastric problem or headache, people do
report that that's what happened to them. The mind has a huge and
important role to play in these symptoms."

The soundest health advice, says Naish, may be to simply have a nice
day: " 'Don't worry' seems to be a good health prescription, and laugh
more. It increases the amount of oxygen in your body and gives you a
little muscle workout."

or 303-892-5226

Photo; Caption: John Naish dug up odd tidbits in 15 years of writing
about health.


--
JJuggle

Raphael Lasar - Matawan, NJ

Monday morning feel so bad. Everybody seems to nag me.
Coming Tuesday, I feel better. Even now your man looks good.
(ah-woo) Wednesday goes to show, (ah-woo) Thursday just wont go.
(ah-woo) Cause I got Friday on my mind.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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  #13  
Old December 5th 05, 04:38 PM posted to rec.sport.unicycling
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IT'S WHEELY HARD FOR ONE TO SUSTAIN HOCKEY BALANCING ACT

By Emma Tinkler
371 words
5 December 2005
Canberra Times
5
English
(c) 2005 The Canberra Times

As if trying to stay on top of a unicycle isn't hard enough - consider
the tricky balancing act required to play unicycle hockey. A group of
enthusiastic unicyclists from Canberra and Sydney made it look
decidedly simple - but still exhausting - in a series of matches near
Old Parliament House yesterday. Teams made up of players from both
cities competed for a gold medal in front of a small but enthusiastic
crowd enjoying a host of cycling-related activities as part of the
inaugural ACT bike-fest, the Brindabella Challenge. ACT Unicycle Riders
Society president Rod Lambert said unicycle hockey was ''very, very
strenuous exercise''. ''Ten minutes of hockey played well is very
tough,'' he said. ''But it's a low-impact sport and it's really just a
matter of endurance.

Once you have the basic skill levels it's a matter of having the energy
to go on with it.'' Unicycle hockey had been played as an organised
sport in Canberra since 2001, and a team competed at the National
Unicycling Championships in Darwin in July, Mr Lambert

said. However, the Canberra team consisted of quite a few young players
and was no match for the champions from Sydney. Unicycling generally
had grown in popularity over the past five years, and there were some
50 unicyclists in the Canberra club, he said. Most people could learn
to ride a unicycle within two or three months, but playing unicycle
hockey might take about 12 months. ''Anything you can do on a bicycle
you can do on a unicycle, including mountain biking, long-distance
races, freestyle tricks and playing basketball,'' Mr Lambert said.
''It's different, it's low cost, the equipment is easy to throw in the
back of the car, and there's variety. Usually for most people it's
about going along and trying a bit of everything.'' A series of
professional and recreational cycling events was held over the three
days of the Brindabella Challenge, which organisers hoped would become
an annual event. More than $30,000 in prize money was up for grabs, and
thousands of people participated over the weekend.


--
JJuggle

Raphael Lasar - Matawan, NJ

And when I'm feelin' blue,
The guitars come through to soothe me.
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  #14  
Old December 5th 05, 05:08 PM posted to rec.sport.unicycling
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Good to see southern hemisphere representation.
Even if they still can't spell UniHoki...


--
GILD

'three short gs and a long e-flat'
(http://w3.rz-berlin.mpg.de/cmp/beethoven_sym5_1.wav) - 'map'
(http://www.frappr.com/unicycleworld)
'\\"freedom is just chaos, with better lighting.\\" entropy'
(http://tinyurl.com/77lom)
'harper' (http://tinyurl.com/c9epx)
'NAMASTE!' (http://tinyurl.com/4qcxw)
'Dave' (http://www.lyricsdir.com/d/deep-purp...ld-in-time.php)
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  #15  
Old December 5th 05, 07:59 PM posted to rec.sport.unicycling
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GILD wrote:
Good to see southern hemisphere representation.
Even if they still can't spell UniHoki...


Yeah, and I really like the reporter's name, too.


--
JJuggle

Raphael Lasar - Matawan, NJ

And when I'm feelin' blue,
The guitars come through to soothe me.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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  #16  
Old December 19th 05, 02:25 PM posted to rec.sport.unicycling
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ONE WHEEL IN COMMON . . .WELL-BALANCED PUPILS RIDING WAVE OF POPULARITY
By Glenn Conway
396 words
19 December 2005
Otago Daily Times
English
© Copyright 2005 Allied Press Limited. All Rights Reserved.

Forget PlayStation and mobile phones - the latest craze at Milton
Primary School is an old-fashioned balancing act.

Unicycling is making a major impact in the schoolyard, thanks largely
to caretaker Glenn Wilson and an enthusiastic group of pupils keen to
impress their friends.

One-wheeled wonders have taken over the playground and become a
must-have item.

The craze started earlier this year when a travelling unicyclist
performed at the school. Afterwards, Mr Wilson, who rode unicycles as a
child, hopped on one and impressed the pupils so much he was besieged
with orders.

Happy to oblige, he began making unicycles out of old bicycles.

Nik McIntosh was the first in line and within a few weeks, he was the
proud owner of the school's first official unicycle.

''I gave it to him and didn't see Nik with it until about a month later
when he turned up to school riding it. I was amazed,'' Mr Wilson said.


Their popularity grew and pupils in the senior classes were soon
ordering their own unicycles.

Yesterday, the courtyard was full of unicycle-riding pupils. Some can
even multi-task. One girl can play her violin while riding around while
another happily dribbles a basketball while pedalling.

Mr Wilson has been ''blown away'' by their popularity and the skill
levels of the pupils.

''Depending on your ability, it can take about a month's practice to
get confident, but I know one pupil was up and away within three
days.''

Principal Bryan Freeman was just as enthusiastic, saying the craze gave
pupils a novel way of exercising and improving their balance and
co-ordination.

These magnificent pupils and their cycling machines even have a leading
role in the school's end-of-year assembly this afternoon, when they
will escort Santa Claus into the school grounds for the festivities.

Doubtless, the jolly red gentleman will be asked to deliver some
one-wheeled gifts on Christmas morning.


--
JJuggle

Raphael Lasar - Matawan, NJ

What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without
evidence.
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  #17  
Old December 19th 05, 02:26 PM posted to rec.sport.unicycling
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*Freewheelin' daredevils ; Extreme mountain unicyclists take on rough
terrain for ridiculously difficult fun.*
DEIRDRE FLEMING Staff Writer
1399 words
18 December 2005
Portland Press Herald
FINAL
K1
English
Copyright (c) 2005 ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights
reserved.

Got boulder? This is the weekly thought for mountain bike unicyclists
Kaycee and Brian Stevens and Matt Sirocki of Scarborough High School.

They pedal, they lift off their seats, they pull their wheels off the
ground onto rock formations, over logs, up onto wooden bridges, and
from boulder to boulder, freewheelin' it like an X-Games halftime show.


These three Scarborough rough riders are among only about a dozen such
one-wheeled daredevils in Maine, Kaycee Stevens said.

They may have started as members of a whimsical after-school circus
program known as Scarborough's Gym Dandies, but these off- road,
stump-soaring riders are also part of a rare niche: extreme mountain
unicyclists.

They are also called all-terrain unicycles or even UMX, just like BMX.


What might appear crazy to spectators is second nature to these
off-road riders who travel to Bradbury Mountain and along Scarborough's
wooden trails - riding one wheel.

"It's better than other sports," said enthusiast Brian Stevens, 12.

What they do is ridiculously difficult, but, for them, it's merely a
question of seeing something in the landscape that looks interesting
and trying to ride up, over or on it.

A boulder appears, or a ditch filled with logs, and they ride over or
through it.

Generally, mountain unicycling is bigger out West, said John Foss in
California. Foss is the "Uni-Cyclone," who runs a mountain unicycle
event in southern California each summer.

Foss has been bringing together groups of unicyclists who do big-
boulder, mountain-cliff stunts for 10 years.

"There are, depending on the activity, 100 or 1,000 mountain
unicyclists in the country. We got 150 at the Moab Winter Festival in
March this year," Foss said. "That was a record number of off- road
riders."

For some members of the International Unicycle Federation, the Olympics
is the end goal. Today there are 50 countries with unicycle
organizations.

But for most, like Kaycee and Brian Stevens, it's just enjoying a sport
that is whimsical, difficult and different. Learning to ride a unicycle
usually takes somewhere from four to eight hours or more, Foss said.

"It's really kind of in the mind, how bad you want it. I've seen people
ride it in 15 minutes. But they're like mutants," Foss said. WHAT'S SO
DANDY?

The Stevens brothers and Sirocki all learned to ride a unicycle in the
Gym Dandies, and it was there that instructor Jon Cahill emphasized the
need for safety equipment.

Cahill, a physical education teacher at Scarborough's Wentworth
Intermediate School, dubbed his after-school circus community the Gym
Dandies back in 1981.

Cahill now has 230 children in grades three through 12 who ride
unicycles in the school gym. He does not discourage the mountain
unicyclists from exploring the off-road version of the sport on their
own time, but he does not encourage the activity or recruit for it.

The group was led by Kaycee Stevens, and his friends and younger
brother followed him.

"Extreme unicycling is not part of what we do," Cahill said. "They've
taken it to a whole new level."

What the Gym Dandies do is tough enough.

Try riding a unicycle for 20 minutes, and see if you get an inch.

Cahill tried to teach a new unicycle rider a week ago, offering a
wide-seat, thick-tire uni bike, and a school auditorium stage as a
backdrop.

Outfitting the rider in full body pads, Cahill held her hand.

Then the seat was pulled out just enough to position the body behind it
and rolled in under the rider's rump, where the seat and rider were
lifted up onto the uni bike.

Cahill coached: Keep the center of gravity firmly down on the seat,
keep pedaling to avoid falling back, and, if all goes well, don't stop.


The first six or seven attempts, the rider fell off. The seat popped
out in front. The feet hit the floor.

Again, this sister-sport to mountain biking was explored: eight, nine,
10 times.

All the while, 8-, 9-, 10- and 11-year-olds were wheeling by, rolling
and juggling like tiny jesters mocking the novice attempting what
seemed more and more unfathomable.

Finally, with the help of Cahill's right hand, the novice reached a
black line 4 feet away.

But several more tries brought the rider no closer to this new Finish
Line.

Cahill just smiles and offers with encouragement - and some hopes of
recruitment: "You're a unicyclist!"

The Dandies's coach is proud of his 230 students who have appeared in
the Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City and the Independence Day
parade in Washington, D.C.

In the elementary school's bright gym, Bridget Diphilippo, an 8-
year-old novice, shows the skills mastered by these whirling unibike
wizards, even at an early stage.

After just a month of learning, she takes Cahill's hand and cycles with
some ease several feet, until she starts to fall backward.

No worries. The Gym Dandies even make falling look easy.

Diphilippo leans back and, like a human frog flipped inside out, falls
on the gym floor as smartly as a longjumper falling back in the sand.

She's back on the unicycle in minutes.

OFF ROAD

The Dandies ride for many hours a week. To master a unicycle, you need
to, Cahill said.

"Every adult needs to put in (hours of practice each) week just to do
the basics," Cahill said. "Kids that excel are those that go out and
buy their own unicycle and practice at home. There are 70 in the
advanced group."

Cahill has 100 unicyclists, more than 60 who ride 6-foot unicycles.

Only about four or five ride off road, down mountains, over logs,
through streams.

"The older kids ride down mountains, over hills and banisters. They are
way beyond me in skill level," Cahill said.

"They ride out in woods, over logs, over curbs, down steps, up steps,"
Cahill said. "Kaycee Stevens, he was really the one who started moving
into that. His leadership has led other kids."

Even though the mountain riders go out on their own time, Cahill
badgers them to wear hard pads over their knees, elbow pads and wrist
guards.

Unlike the regular Dandies, the mountain unicyclists wear pads all the
way down their shins, and they have pads for their entire lower arms.

Oddly, Kaycee Stevens doesn't ride a skateboard or snowboard. He
downhill skis but has never attempted any alpine stunts.

The unicycle changed him. Now he's a stuntman extraordinaire.

"I just had a regular unicycle. One day, I was trying to hop up some
steps. I jumped down one of them and the unicycle broke. I went online
to look for a replacement and found other people who do mountain
unicycle. That's what got me into it," said Stevens, who has never been
seriously injured and competed in mountain unicycle events in Toronto
last summer.

Now Stevens has six unicycles.

Last summer, he went to Utah to ride in Moab Canyonlands and Arches
national parks, a mountain bike and hiking destination.

At 16, the world of mountain unicycling has only just opened for him.

"We basically are doing things that people wouldn't normally think you
could do on a unicycle," Stevens said.

Staff Writer Deirdre Fleming can be contacted at 791-6452 or at:



MOUNTAIN UNICYCLING FOR MORE INFORMATION on Gym Dandies, Maine's youth
unicycle circus, go to
www.gymdandies.org. Or call Scarborough teacher
Jon Cahill at Wentworth Intermediate School. FOR MORE INFORMATION on
Mountain Unicycling, or M Uni, UMX, go to: http://
www.unicycling.com/muni/index.htm

Caption: Staff photos by John Ewing Tree roots across a woods trail
create a challenge for extreme mountain unicyclists Kaycee Stevens,
left, Matt Sirocki and Brian Stevens. The three are members of
Scarborough's Gym Dandies but have taken unicycling to a new level. The
Stevens brothers are active extreme mountain unicyclists. They got
their start on unicycles with the Gym Dandies, an after-school circus
program in Scarborough. Brian Stevens, 12, navigates over branches on a
trail in Scarborough. Kaycee Stevens, 16, nails a jump on his unicycle.


--
JJuggle

Raphael Lasar - Matawan, NJ

What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without
evidence.
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  #18  
Old December 21st 05, 06:24 PM posted to rec.sport.unicycling
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http://tinyurl.com/aypoy


--
leo

leo vandewoestijne
*'+1 866-uni-cycl' (callto://+18668642925)
'unicycle.net' (http://www.unicycle.net/)

'subscribe' (http://www.unicyclist.org/cont/subscribe.cfm) to
'unicyclist.org' (http://www.unicyclist.org/)!*
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  #19  
Old December 21st 05, 09:18 PM posted to rec.sport.unicycling
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leo wrote:
http://tinyurl.com/aypoy




Said article:

Wednesday, December 21, 2005
No Time to Pause: Award-winning PE teacher keeps going and going


By James Romoser
JOURNAL REPORTER

a d v e r t i s e m e n t


w e b t o o l s

Print Story | Email Story | News Tip?

r e l a t e d m a t e r i a l


Ashley Barnhardt and classmates go through their paces during
unicycle-team practice at Shady Grove Elementary School.
(Journal Photo by Jason Arthurs)


ADVANCE

At a recent practice of Shady Grove Elementary School's unicycle team,
Karen Umberger didn't have her whistle.

Not that it mattered. Umberger, the school's PE teacher and athletics
guru, simply used her voice.

"Tweet!" she cried, signaling a change in formation.

"Inside reverse! First partners! Tweet! Reverse!"

Like a human kaleidoscope, 20 young unicyclists unfurled into
synchronized spirals and fluid figure-8s. Their balance was nearly
perfect.

Not many elementary schools have their own unicycle squad. But Shady
Grove has two - a unicycle club, for beginners, and a more advanced
unicycle team, which performs at local colleges and in parades.

Umberger does more than train unicyclists. That's just one
extracurricular component of a robust physical-education program that
was recently named the best in the state.

Every student at Shady Grove takes 25 or 30 minutes of PE every day. In
a school with an enrollment of about 650 students, that means Umberger
teaches 12 classes a day.

Plus, she runs an assortment of after-school activities, including the
unicycle team and club, a jump-rope team and a jump-rope club, and a
physical-education club. She organizes physical-education field trips:
bowling, hiking, ice-skating, skiing. And she spearheaded a voluntary
home-fitness program that encourages students to develop an exercise
routine and record it on a calendar.

Umberger, 55, a fitness nut whose day begins with a 5:30 a.m. workout,
never seems to get tired.

"Early on, I try to stress being active," she said, describing her
attitude as a PE teacher. "I usually don't do a lot of talking. I get
them moving right away. Moving's what it's all about."

Her students take that philosophy and run with it.

During one recent afternoon class, 60 third-graders rushed into the
school's gymnasium and instantly filed into 12 razor-straight lines.
Everyone got quiet for Umberger to make the day's announcements. After
some warm-up laps around the gym, they settled into a circle to play a
game called "monster ball." It involved four teams, a giant beach ball
and lots of excited shrieking every time the ball was in the air.

Umberger, who is in her 19th year teaching PE at Shady Grove, has a
voice like a bullhorn and a knack for keeping 60 hyper third-graders
organized and attentive. She knows the name of every kid at Shady
Grove. She has to - every kid has PE class with her every day.

"When I first came here," she said, "I told them I wanted everyday
physical education as long as I was capable of doing it."

Her principal at the time and fellow teachers supported the idea. And
she has kept it up, even as the rising number of students has increased
the number of classes she has to teach as well as the number of
students in each class. She says she couldn't do it without her
assistant, Sandra Smith.

Cary M. Powers, the principal of Shady Grove, said that the vigorous PE
program has a big effect on the school outside the walls of the gym.

"Physical activity promotes academic excellence," Powers said. "The
theory that a healthy body and an active body creates a healthy and an
active mind - I think there's a lot of validity to that."

Umberger certainly agrees. She equates good sportsmanship with good
citizenship, and she takes pride that very few of her students are
overweight. Her PE activities, she says, carry over into every area of
her students' lives.

For that reason, she hates when people call her a "gym teacher."

"I can't teach the gym to do anything," she said. "I teach physical
education. The gymnasium is my classroom, but I teach the whole
child."

Despite the relationship between fitness and mental alertness, many
schools are cutting back on PE classes as they try to meet strict
academic requirements under the federal No Child Left Behind
legislation, according to Ron Morrow, an expert on physical education.

Morrow is the executive director of the North Carolina Alliance for
Athletics, Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance. His agency
chose Shady Grove last month as having the best PE program for an
elementary school.

"If a child is physically active - usually 30 minutes each and every
day - then they're going to learn better," Morrow said. "They're not
going to miss as much school. They're going to be more productive."

Umberger has known that for years. Watching over a unicycle practice,
she explained that unicycling often appeals to students who aren't
naturally athletic.

"They have that mental desire to accomplish something. They're driven,"
she said. And as she said it, a team of one-wheeled wonders twirled
across the gym is precise formation, without so much as a wobble.

• James Romoser can be reached at 727-7284 or at


--
unicycle6869

Jamey (formerly known as tuna6869)

Which is worse, a president who screws an intern, or a president who
screws the country?

*20 Years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you
didn't do than by the things you did-EXPLORE-DREAM-LIVE!
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  #20  
Old December 27th 05, 11:22 PM posted to rec.sport.unicycling
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Default Unicycle articles (but wait there's more...)


http://tinyurl.com/7md6j
Downhill Cycling, Minus One Wheel
By BRENDAN I. KOERNER
Published: December 25, 2005

SIMPLY balancing atop a unicycle looks impressive enough to people who
have never tried one-wheeled locomotion. So the mind boggles at the
exploits of Kris Holm, whose hobby is unicycling down mountainsides,
leaping over any boulders, culverts and logs he encounters along the
way. Mr. Holm's most daring forays have included a plunge down Mexico's
highest volcano, El Pico de Orizaba, and a unicycling trek through the
Himalayas.

None of these feats, Mr. Holm said, would have been possible on the
sort of unicycles favored by circus clowns and street performers. "From
1986 to 1998, I rode on retrofitted standard unicycles," said Mr. Holm,
a geologist in Vancouver, British Columbia. "I took the unicycles with
the biggest, knobbiest tires I could find. But I found that they were
totally inadequate in terms of strength."

He inadvertently destroyed more than a dozen unicycles during that
period, shredding the tires and battering the frames beyond repair.

Rather than continue to waste money on bikes built for the big top, not
the mountains, Mr. Holm decided to design his own unicycle: the
Freeride. The initial model, which cost him about $2,500 to build, was
made of steel - plenty tough, but a burden to transport. The 2005
Freeride, by contrast, has an aluminum alloy frame and weighs less than
15 pounds.

"It's basically been a constant evolution," said Mr. Holm, who
redesigns the Freeride every six months, sending his sketches and notes
to the Chinese factory where the unicycles are produced. Prototypes are
then shipped to Vancouver, where Mr. Holm tests them in the rugged
countryside.

Mountain unicycles - or munis, in the sport's lingo - are instantly
recognizable by their thick tires, and the Freeride is no exception;
its tire is three inches wide and studded with rubber grips. The other
differences between a Freeride and a clown's unicycle, however, are
harder to spot with an untrained eye. Chief among them is the
comfortable, curvaceous seat, intended to spare a muni rider any
unpleasant soreness.

"It has dual-density foam, and a better-quality material for the
removable seat cover," said Mr. Holm, whose posterior suffered through
several years of muni riding on hard-as-rock saddles. The front of the
seat also has a handle that muni riders grip for balance while hopping
over obstacles.

The forked section that connects the Freeride's frame to the wheel was
also designed with the hazards of unicycling in mind. Mr. Holm said
that on many unicycles, the forks jut out near the rider's knees,
causing frequent scrapes and falls. So the fork on the Freeride was
built to curve slightly inward near the top, to reduce the likelihood
of interfering with pedaling legs.

Mr. Holm acknowledges that mountain unicycling remains a nascent sport,
and that his sales have been commensurately small; he estimates that he
has sold 2,000 to 3,000 Freerides since the product's introduction in
1998.

Many of his sales have come through Unicycle.com, a site that
specializes in all manner of one-wheeled machines, from munis to
unicycles designed for beginners. The Freeride is one of the site's
most expensive products: the 2005 base model costs $520, and that's
without a brake. (Adding a hydraulic brake increases the price by
$179.)

Given Mr. Holm's habit of updating the Freeride twice a year, the
initial 2006 model should be available by early spring. Mr. Holm
declined to reveal how it would improve on the current version. "If I
give out too many details," he said, "nobody will want to buy the old
thing."

Consumers cursed with less-than-perfect equilibrium, of course, will
probably steer clear of either version.


--
onefiftyfour
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