Unicycling

Dawn gave me a unicycle for Christmas, but I have not really commented on it here yet. Basically I spent the first week I had it learning to not fall on my head while getting on, then I found out I had a hernia (probably not from unicycling, but I did have one nasty fall before I learned to fall off). While waiting for my surgery, I learned to go along a wall or fence and not fall on my head. Then I took a couple months off and I did not ride again until a week ago.

I have been practicing on a small 60 foot bridge over the emergency drainage ditch about 2 blocks from my house. The fence is maybe 4 feet high, perfect for holding onto while learning to mount and pedal. A week ago I managed to go 3 full rotations of the wheel without touching the fence. Then 4 rotations. Then Monday I managed to make it a full 8 rotations, which is about 40 feet. Since then I've been busy and we had lots of snow.

Today I went out again and managed to go 8 rotations several times, then 12 a few times, then I started running out of room on the bridge. At one end of the bridge is a steep drop off, and the other end has a pole to keep cars off and I'm afraid I'll fall off and impale my head on it like in some B movie. Plus there is about a 3" drop on either end, which wasn't really noticeable on a bike or walking... Anyway I made it the full 60 feet of the bridge a few times and even had a few PDs (Planned Dismounts) once I gave up trying to go down the hill.

Then I started at the bridge just past the 3" drop and started riding down a path that runs about 1500 feet along an easement between two rows of houses. I've been doing that all along, I just usually only made it about 2 rotations before falling off. The tricky thing was I immediately had to turn right to not run out of path, and then left again... oh and it was down hill... oh and there is still melting snow all over. Anyway today I made it 240 feet down the path, a ways past where it starts going back up and past lots of little pockets of ice where the snow that melted was refreezing.

My next goal is the end of the path... then I need to learn to free mount. I'll try to post some newer pictures soon.