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.
Routes for unicycling around Linköping
Stepping up the miles on the unicycle
2020 will be remembered for being the year in which the world was hit by the COVID-19 virus; 2020 has also been the breakthrough year for me, as far as progress on my unicycle is concerned, and the two are perhaps even related. Since COVID-19 ensured that I started working from home, I was missing the workout I used to get thanks to my daily commute to work and back, and I turned to unicycling, to get some exercise. If the weather was poor, I practiced indoors on the 20” uniccycle, practicing riding backwards and idling. If the weather was good, I went outdoors with the 36-er, and I’ve practiced pretty much every day, in all of May. Yesterday, I did a 5 km ride on the 36-er and found that I’m now very much more efficient and that my calorie burn has significantly tapered off, due to my increased efficiency, and this made me realize that I should now start planning for longer or harder rides.