In this post, I thought I’d write about routes around Linköping, which are suitable for unicycling. I try consciously to avoid traffic (both vehicular and human!), so I can enjoy my rides in peace, and I pick routes with a strong bias towards asphalt, as I lack experience of off-road riding. In the future perhaps, as I gain more experience, I’ll expand upon this post with non-asphalt options. Another point of consideration for me while designing routes is that I don’t generally design one-way routes, so this means that the distance will have to include both the onward and return legs. Since my current average speed is quite low, the time-cues for rides would perhaps be only relevant to myself so I’ll mention both time and distance for the routes.

I like to setup routes of different lengths so I can simply set off and ride them when I like/can, without having to waste time planning the route on the day of the ride. I’d setup a 30 km ride on komoot last year, and had even ridden it with my wife, on a bicycle, but the intention had always been to do the ride on a unicycle, but I’d not believed that I was ready, after earlier attempts to do 20 km rides had left me totally drained.

A bicylist learns to ride a bicycle using the handlebars, and can after getting reasonably proficient, start to ride it without using the handlebars. For a unicyclist, it is exactly the opposite.

When I started riding outdoors in 2019, I could barely ride a couple of laps around the basketball field before my calf muscles screamed murder. Since then, I’ve not only been able to steadily increase the distances, but I’ve also learned to ride on different types of surfaces. I’ve now ridden on asphalt, firm soil, sand, snow, gravel-covered asphalt, and cobblestone. The ability to ride on different kinds of surfaces gives one more confidence, and the ability to change from one surface to the other without having to dismount and remount is a great advantage, particularly if one wishes to commute on a unicycle.

I bought another unicycle! It’s a URC Roadrunner 29-er, with a hydraulic disc brake. Weighing in at 6.8 kilograms, this steel uni is no lightweight, but feels very well balanced and responsive.