It’s Aliiive!

Posted by JH under Uncategorized

Status - online. Wheeeee!

Let’s start with a brief introduction of my - and my team-mates’ - ride and distance riding on a unicycle.

That’s the unicycle on the right. The one on the left is still waiting to grow up.

Unlike bicycles, unicycles haven’t gears so instead of switching from a smaller gear ratio to a higher one on long roads, you’d switch from a smaller wheel to a bigger one. Very uneconomical if you ask me but it’s tons more thrilling than what you’d get from a bicycle - and this coming from someone who rides predominantly a small trials unicycle.

Most distance riders ride Cokers. They’ve wheel radii of 36″ and look very intimidating. Because people are always experimenting with parts and customization, there’s now a lot more options for unicycles. For even FASTER speeds on long roads, there are now geared unicycles which simulate a 54″ tire on a 36″. There are also handlebars that you attach on unicycles to rest your arms on and take weight off your ass-crack during rides AND people have found ways of putting brakes on a unicycle not so much to stop it but rather to slow it down during crazy downhill rides, taking the effort off your knees.

In Singapore, unicycles are about as common as cold weather. The shop which kindly brought our unicycles in for us isn’t ever going to bring in large unicycles again in the foreseeable future. We couldn’t get our hands on 36″ unis and hence are riding 29″ ones. Which is just as well since it’s honestly freaky riding a large unicycle.

So there you go, boys and girls. I’m going to fit brakes and a handlebar on it in the coming week or two so stay tuned for the pimped up pics.

I might get butterfly decals…