On One Wheel

Unicycles transform into extreme outdoor sport

STORY BY BROOKLYNN JOHNSON

Mark Miller remembers learning how to ride a unicycle when he was just 6 or 7 years old.

“I started riding it on the lawn, which was really hard,” Miller says, he recalls getting a lot of drag on the dirt.

But the sport of unicycling was about to change as the idea of riding on dirt evolved. Cyclists are now cutting their mountain bikes in half for a brand new extreme activity, a sport virtually nonexistent just years ago, Miller says. Miller, an avid unicyclist, now has 17 unicycles stored in his garage.

“Muni is short for mountain unicycling,” says Joe Myers, a unicycle enthusiast and founder of teamUnicycle, an open team of unicyclists that get together to compete in riding events in the Bellingham area. The sport has been around as early as the 1980s, but has been picking up in popularity since the early 2000s, Myers says.

A traditional unicycle cannot handle the stress of mountain trails. Similar to a mountain bike, mountain unicylces are built stronger to be able to take rocky jumps and drops.

“A traditional unicycle generally has a street tire on it, which is good for maneuvering because it has less surface touching the ground, so it’s easier to twist,” Miller says. “A mountain unicycle generally has a fatter, knobbier tire.”

Designed to take a beating compared to a traditional pavement unicycle, mountain unicycles are built to be stronger with heavier rims and tires, as well as a more padded seat. They also have more metal components than other unicycles, which utilize cheaper plastic, Miller says.

“You have to not be afraid to fall in order to learn, because so much of unicycling is crashing and trying again.” -Mark Miller

Myers started learning how to unicycle after his children had grown and left the house. A unicycle had been sitting outside his house for years waiting for someone to learn to ride it. He says he would take the unicycle back and forth between his garage wall and the parked car inside of it, until he was ready to take it out to the streets.

“Both Joe Myers and I have done quite a few of the cyclocross races,” Miller says. Miller and Myers recently completed the Tour de Whatcom, which covered a distance of 104 miles of flat riding.

While unicycling is still a relatively new sport to hit the dirt, there are events in the Bellingham area that mountain riders can participate in, including cyclocross races and endurance, or enduro races.

“Those [enduro] are the ones out in the Chuckanuts that are usually about 18 miles and have about 4000 feet of vertical gain,” Miller says. Chuckanut Ridge and Galbraith are popular spots for mountain unicycling.

Take a mountain bike and divide it in two, and one would think that there’s twice the risk of getting hurt. Miller disagrees.

“On a unicycle, you are generally limited by speed, although you crash a lot more,” Miller says. And it’s the speed that gets mountain bikers in trouble.

“When you crash the stakes are higher, you hit things hard,” Miller says. Unicyling is more about precision than it is about speed.

“Since you don’t get tangled up with handlebars or bike frame, when you crash on a unicycle, 90 percent of the time you land on your feet and you stay on your feet,” Miller says.

Just because no one is going too fast, does not mean that no one is going to topple over on this extreme dare of balance, and like with any sport there is a learning curve.

“You have to not be afraid to fall in order to learn, because so much of unicycling is crashing and trying again,” Miller says.

Unlike mountain biking, where catching air usually involves making jumps off dirt ledges and rocks, uniclyclists get their air from drops where, they drop down, and hops, where they hop over objects, Miller says.

Those who take on more difficult trails usually have an additional method of braking.

“Instead of doing all of the braking specifically with your legs, you have a mechanical brake you can use to operate the unicycle and gain some extra control over super steep terrain,” Miller says. “Although not all unicycles have brakes.”

Sadly, this sport is usually self-taught, and is often practiced independently.

“I didn’t know anyone else who did mountain unicycling, so I just continued and learned by trial and error, and getting out and trying harder trails,” Miller says.

Miller admits that anybody who does it, does it alone.

“Rarely have I had the opportunity to ride with other unicyclists on trails just because it is such a unique niche sport,” Miller says.

The sport can also get expensive.

A basic, traditional unicycle can sell for about $100, Miller says. A beginner’s mountain unicycle can go for $350, with the decent ones in the $700-$800 range.

Two of Miller’s mountain unicycles are worth upward of $3000 each, custom built with an internal, shiftable hub, a disk brake and padded seats. At that price, a cyclist can just get a decent mountain bike with two wheels.

However, Myers has found a unique way to balance out those costs.

“In nine, 10 years of year-round commuting, I’ve probably had less than 12 car commutes,” says Joe Myers. Myers is a recognizable individual in the Bellingham community.

Myers goes to work as a facility planner for Western every day on one of his unicycles. He grabs both rain gear and his work clothes on the way out the door. According to AAA, the average driver spends over $9,000 on driving expenses per year. These are expenses Myers drives his unicycle right over.

Of the 17 unicycles in Niller’s garage, there is one waiting for his 18 month old son. Despite the rarity of finding athletes of like sport, Miller has been able to make unicycling into a family affair. Among Miller’s 17 unicylces, are those for basic commuting to steep mountain drops, from snowy weather to a mini one for his son, three even belong to his wife.

“We do family rides, I pull my baby boy in a trailer behind my unicycle, and my wife rides a unicycle next to me,” Miller says.

Myers believes that the sport will continue to grow.

“The best days are when I go out there and the conditions are good, I’m with good friends, usually the’re on bikes, and we are just having fun and everyone comes home safely,” Miller says. “And we’ve had the chance to hit some big jumps and have a good time out there on the trails.”

For Miller, it was the challenge of facing a rugged mountain on a single wheel that helped motivate him to pursue the sport. Miller says that the satisfaction and rush of staying on the unicycle the whole way down a steep, rugged mountain is the most gratifying feeling.