Can any of you ride a unicycle?

[fasterspider]

I am 44 years old and in the worst shape of my life but, I can ride a unicycle. Can you?
A couple of weeks ago I was looking around ebay when a unicycle caught my eye. Now I own a new 26" wheel unicycle after alost 30 years since my last one.
DSCN1022.flv - Video - Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting (http://s34.photobucket.com/albums/d138/fasterspider/?action=view&current=DSCN1022.flv)

[friendowl]

hahahaha
venice beach here you come

[LIP]

That's damn good lol. I couldnt ride with two wheels, let alone 1. Im dangerous enough with 4 lol.

[friendowl]

hey spider did you get the one without a seat

[birdgirl73]

I asked for a unicycle for Christmas as a 12-year-old kid and received one and got good enough at it that I could ride around the neighborhood on it, but I doubt I could still keep my balance on one now. It was fun back in the days when I was more elastic and less breakable than I am now. I stay in good shape doing other things nowadays like yoga and lots of exercise.

[geonagual]

I never did get the hang of a unicycle
I wanted to be able to ride one and juggle at the same time. I read an article not to long ago of these teams of unicycles that do hard terrain trails. knobby tires and everything. It could be fun if I knew how to ride one.

[birdgirl73]

I think they're the sorts of machines that are best learned when you're a kid. Somehow my brain had a wonderful ability to help me balance when I was younger that it no longer has. One of my best friends, a guy who's still one of my friends today, and I used to also play "balance beam" and cross over a raging, deep creek by balance-walking along a 4-inch drain pipe that spanned the creek behind our school. We did that hundreds of times, and if we'd fallen, we'd have likely been killed. But we never even worried about it. I couldn't anymore do that now than I could walk on the moon.

I tried juggling when I was riding the unicycle once, but I fell hard on my butt. And when you're riding a unicycle, those falls happen a lot even when you're not juggling.

[Nochowderforyou]

A unicycle always looked like a lot of fun to me. I mountianbike like crazy when the weather is good, but one wheel I have never tried.

I saw a crazy guy at the mall last summer and his unicycle, the wheel had to be at least 50inches round, and no, that's not a typo. The wheel was HUGE, and the only way he could mount the thing, was if he jumped on the side of a wall with his feet, and bounce himself up there. He couldn't just hop up there, he had to use the wall a leverage to get up there. He didn't use a pedal either. He just used his foot to kick the wheel to get it rolling.

Amazing really. I just stood there and watched him for a good 15 minutes. Weed makes anyhting interesting I guess. Even unicycles! :p

[fasterspider]

Hey Birdgirl, it was almost 30 years since I rode one and had no problem regaining my balance. I bet you could do it if you gave yourself a chance?
This is the very 1st ride after almost 30 years.
DSCN1017.flv - Video - Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting (http://s34.photobucket.com/albums/d138/fasterspider/?action=view&current=DSCN1017.flv)
I am going to get myself able to ride the thing around the block. That will be a while in the making but, it will happen. My legs hurt now as I have been riding it for about 10 or 15 minumtes every day since I had it and it is getting to be a longer distance already that I can ride. I have gone 250 feet in one shot so far and that is an accomplishement for me. I will be happy when I can go a mile on the thing because I used to ride it for miles when I was a kid with my dog in tow.
I used to be able to juggle and ride it but that was when I was 15 and very flexible, I am not as flexible as I once was nor do I have the same sized balls as I once had. Or maybe my brain actully grew a little?:confused: I can still juggle but I won't try it on the unicycle.

[MaryjaneAndHashley]

Once i saw that guy on an unicycle going down a street that was like really abrupt, like 45 degrees angle, with a stop right in the middle of it, and at the end, a big ass boulevard!!

I was like damn.. that guy is gonna die...but I guess he got lucky for the stop, as there was no car, and he even got lucky for the boulevard, the light was green. Its crazy, he would have been screwed if there was a car...he was going real fast.

[birdgirl73]

Hey Birdgirl, it was almost 30 years since I rode one and had no problem regaining my balance. I bet you could do it if you gave yourself a chance?
I strongly doubt I could do it now, Fastspider. As it turns out, I was born with a malformation of the very back, low part of my brain, the cerebellum, which governs balance. People who have this malformation compensate for it beautifully as a kid, but they lose that ability as an adult. I began to notice problems when I was in my mid-30s with my balance, which is when they diagnosed the malformation. I ended up having to have some fairly routine brain surgery to help take the pressure off the malformation, but my balance has never been what it was when I was a kid. I can't safely ride a two-wheel bicycle these days without falling off, and so I'm sure I'd be a disaster on a one-wheeler. I want a motorcycle something awful, but my neurologist has said I need to stay off machines that require balancing ability. So I'm fairly certain I'd be a disaster on a unicycle now. Too bad, too. They're a lot of fun!

[slipknotpsycho]

couldn't pay me to get on one of those damned things.... see i'm like a magnet for injuries.. and sitting on a single wheel just screams "HEY I'M VULNERABLE!!! MAKE ME HURT!"

[420Toaker]

Ive actually never tried to ride a unicycle before but me and my buddies out of bordom got really good at balancing a wheelchair on the 2 back wheels and just wheeling around doin 360's and stuff. It really gives your arms a good work out too.