This summer has been exceedingly warm; warmer perhaps than even the super-warm summer of 2014, and today was a pretty muggy day. I’d not ventured out all day, and at half past five, I was a bit miffed at having spent all day indoors. I topped up my hydration pouch, slung on my backpack, and set off with my 36-er, to try and practice for a bit. Unicycling gets a lot of attention, and before long, I was surrounded by kids in the neighborhood, asking me questions and cheering me on enthusiastically.

After I’d been practicing for about a half hour, I was pleasantly surprised to see a person pull up beside me, on a 29-er unicycle! He’d passed by on a bicycle, seen me, and decided to join me on his own one-wheeled ride! His name was Niklas, and he lived quite near too, apparently. He’d learned to ride a unicycle many years ago, and owned a bunch of them too! He hung out with me for a while, and offered me tips to improve my riding. Up until this point, I’ve practiced alone, and have never had a fellow unicyclist watch me and offer feedback, so this felt super! He realized that I could mount pretty well, but that I had greater difficulty in getting off to a clean start, and recommended that I practice more of supported launches, using a pole or a wall. Since I was beginning to get pretty tired, I told him that I intended to grab something to eat, and ride some more after supper, perhaps at the children’s play area, not far from where I lived, and he said he’d probably come too.

After a relaxed meal, I messaged him that I was on my way, and sent him the coordinates to the park, and in a little while, I saw him riding his 29-er uni, with a 20” uni slung over his shoulder! The ease with which he rode over uneven terrain and even sand was quite inspiring. In a few minutes, we were joined by his girlfriend Emma, who was also on a 29-er unicycle! With the three of us, we were looking quite like a unicycling school/club, just by ourselves! Niklas is the most experienced, and can do a lot of interesting things on a unicycle, including juggling balls while riding! Emma can ride very well, but hasn’t quite mastered mounting. When she saw my mounting attempts, she too noted that I mount pretty well (the first part), and that with some improvement to my launch technique, I could get better quickly.

I’ve almost never practiced supported launches on the 36-er (except maybe for a day of practice near my workplace), and practicing launching off with support from the wall made it clear that the real problem area for me was accelerating to a clean start. Both Emma and I used the wall to launch ourselves off; while my launches were rather brief, Emma would ride a few laps around the field, each time she started. After a while, I managed to successfully launch myself off a few times, and even succeeded in free-mounting three times in a row, a feat I’d never managed before today.

We seemed to be motivating each other to push the envelope a bit; Emma and Niklas practiced some synchronized riding, supporting each other, something they hadn’t done before, and it seemed to turn out very well. I shot this video of them, as they rode together. I shot it in portrait mode believing I needed the length, but it turns out it wasn’t necessary after all. Shooting in landscape would have got us so much more of the background, and what was happening around them, like the kids playing etc. A lesson learned!

I practiced a bit more, and for the first time ever, I rode two laps around the field. Having ridden that distance, I felt now that the saddle is perhaps a little too low, and that puts a strain on my knees. Now that I’ve progressed to a certain degree, I think I should increase the saddle height a bit more, and practice some more and see how I cope. We were all a bit tired, me more than them, and we decided to call it a day. It’ll be fun to see if I can meet with them again, and ride some more! Unicycling is fun, but unicycling with other unicyclists for company? It’s way more fun! Thanks, Emma and Niklas, for a fantastic evening!