One’s ability to ride a unicycle is similar to that of riding a bicycle; one learns the skill for life, however the similarities don’t extend much deeper. Many skills that one learns on a unicycle are heavily confidence/form related, so unless one is really relaxed and confident, extended skills such as freemounting, idling, hopping etc can be seemingly lost, at least till the confidence returns. Another aspect of one’s abilities on a unicycle that suffers adversely with long pauses is the speed; when we are less sure, we find that we simply can’t push harder, so the top-speed becomes very conservative.

My last post about unicycling on my own blog dates back to May of 2021, when I’d posted about doing steep descents on a unicycle. Since then, I’ve not posted at all, and have only ridden on a rare few occasions. I’d started to do a bit of offroad riding with my 24” uni, but when it developed an issue with the crank arm coming off repeatedly, that too got scratched off. The situation right now is that I’m once again trying to both lose weight as well as up my fitness game; I turned to intermittent fasting for the former, and unicycling for the latter.

Descending down a steep grade is one of those things which are super cool do do on a unicycle, but can seem terrifying before one learns to be able to do it. Ever since I’ve learned to ride a unicycle, few things have left me more scared than the prospect of descending, with even the gentlest of grades causing me plenty of anxiety. When I decided to buy a 29-er earlier this year, I was sure that it would have to be disc-brake equipped, and that I’d use that to learn to be able to take on steeper descents.

My unicycling goals

In 2020, I unicycled 468 kilometers. In 2021 thus far, I’ve covered 457 kilometers, logging 263 of them this month. The 29-er has clearly been my unicycle of choice, logging 246 of the 263 kilometers I’ve unicycled this month. Since I started riding outdoors in 2020, this month has been the fourth time I’ve unicycled 100 kilometers or more, and the first time I’ve ridden 250+ kilometers in a month. I’d hoped to use the last day of the month to get in some more miles, but the incessant rain put paid to that. Per Strava, I’ve also recorded rides on 23 of the 31 days in March, averaging 11 kilometers per outing, which too is nice. I hope to continue to consistently log in more miles and I’m looking forward to riding more on the 36-er too.