Unicycle articles (but wait there's more...)

THE OUTDOORS ALMANAC; THIS IS FUN? HOP, FLIP, JUMP; MOUNTAIN UNICYCLES
-- MUNIS, FOR SHORT -- CAN GO ANYWHERE BIKES GO (AND NO ANNOYING
HANDLEBARS).

Hannah Nordhaus
513 words
14 June 2005
Los Angeles Times
Home Edition
F-9
English
Copyright 2005 The Los Angeles Times

As with all great social movements, the origins of mountain unicycling
are unclear.

Many attribute the sport's beginnings to Alaska magistrate George Peck,
who in the 1980s chronicled the challenges of technical one-wheeling in
the seminal video "Rough-Terrain Unicycling." Former world unicycling
champ John Foss and Vancouver superstar Kris Holm, meanwhile, were
independently exploring off-road mountain unicycling. Since then, the
outdoors thrill ride has exploded. The nation's preeminent mountain
unicycling event, the Moab MUnifest, drew a whopping 162 participants in
April. L.A. mountain unicyclists gather at a first roundup in Van Nuys
at Lake Balboa in the Sepulveda Dam Recreation Area at 10:30 a.m.
Saturday.

Mountain unicycles have 3-inch-wide knobby tires, a sturdy axle,
heavy-duty cranks, padded seats and a brake mounted just beneath the
saddle. In the early years, off-road unicyclists took blowtorches to
bicycle forks and cranks. In 1997, the first commercially made mountain
unicycle hit the market. Nowadays a high-end rig sells for around $500.


Munis can go anywhere mountain bikes can go (only slower), and some
places they can't. Holm, the sport's most accomplished rider, has
dropped 15-foot airs, threaded cliff edges and bridge railings,
descended the south face of Mexico's Pico Orizaba and traversed Bhutan
on a unicycle.

To negotiate obstacles, unicyclists pull upward on their seats and perch
on their pedals, bouncing as if on a Hoppity-Hop. Without handlebars to
entangle riders when they fall, wipeouts tend to be less dramatic.
"Places where you might typically do an endo on a bike you can do on a
unicycle with a series of hops and rolling moves," says Moab MUnifest
founder Rolf Thompson. "I do a lot of stuff on a unicycle that I
wouldn't do on a bike."

Because munis have only one fixed gear, the wheel can roll only as fast
as legs can spin. "We can't coast down a hill, so we're never going to
go over 15 mph," Foss says.

Who does this? "We get people who like things that are hard," he says.
"A lot of overachievers, smart people, computer geeks."

Hannah Nordhaus

*

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Muni speak

How the one-wheel world communicates.

UPD: Unplanned dismount

Unintentional coasting: When feet fall off the pedals but the rider
remains perched on the seat.

Unicycle bowling: Bikes come to a stop quickly after a wipeout;
unicycles keep rolling and tumbling down the hill.

Dead spot: When the cranks are in vertical position, the unicyclist has
no pedaling power.

Roll-out: The best way to disperse energy when catching big air is to
land pedaling.

Calftracks: If the foot slips, studded muni pedals can leave bloody
marks across the calf.

Shindentations: Where the pedal meets the shin.

-- Hannah Nordhaus

PHOTO: ON EDGE: Jess Riegel from Granite Bay, Calif., at Tahoe Rim
Trail.;PHOTOGRAPHER: John Foss


--
JJuggle - We Are the Newts Who Say, Nigh.

Raphael Lasar
Matawan, NJ

'7th Annual LBI Unithon' (http://jjuggle.unicyclist.com/lbiunithon) -
Saturday, June 11, 2005.

Cellphones don't annoy, people do.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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View this thread: http://www.unicyclist.com/thread/22148

On Tue, 14 Jun 2005 11:06:56 -0500, "JJuggle" quoted:

As with all great social movements, the origins of mountain unicycling
are unclear.

Great article, very inside, supplied my new sig.

Klaas Bil - Newsgroup Addict
--
"As with all great social movements, the origins of mountain unicycling are unclear. - Hannah Nordhaus (Los Angeles Times)"