Say hello to the unicycle
When I watched Chris Martin of Coldplay ride a unicycle in 'Paradise', I was merely intrigued, but when I saw a Linköping resident commuting on a uni, I was more than intrigued; I was deeply interested. While I didn't follow up on that interest last year, I pulled that back from the dusty recesses of my mind and decided it'd be something I'd do this year. A few youtube videos and light reading later, I found that the fastest way to get my hands onto a uni was to simply get it from the LBS (local bike store), which is only a couple of kilometers away. They however were out of stock and mentioned that they'd not get it for another few weeks. http://unicycle.se was my next stop; I even ended up ordering a 24 " unicycle from them, but after reading some more, I began to have doubts about my initial selection. While a 24" uni would be easy to learn on, it wasn't the best of options if one intended to do any longer rides on it, as I intended to. While most people might buy a starter uni and then move on to better models, I was clear that I didn't want to take that route. While I could add one uni to my growing collection of bikes, two or more would be overkill and I didn't think there would be a great market for used unicycles. When I called them for help, I spoke to Martin Sjönneby who was extremely helpful; he spent time patiently listening to my needs and constraints and initially recommended a 29er. When I told him that I was only 165 cm tall, he recommended that I try out the 36" Nimbus Nightfox, and I agreed. He even agreed to send me an invoice for the upgrade, instead of canceling my earlier order and making me wait for the time it took for the bank to process the refund. Within a day, I had shipping details of the product in my mail and was eagerly counting away the days to Friday, when I was expected to get the delivery.Friday came and so did my new Nimbus 36" Nightfox, along with a concise getting started guide. I quickly put it together and set out, to begin my practice. Will post separately about my progress at learning to ride it, but it'll suffice to mention here that I'm doing fine and hope to be able to ride confidently, within a few days. I'd like to personally thank Martin and team unicycle.se for being super helpful and ensuring that I got started off in the best way possible. Here's a picture of my latest possession!