reply-uni challenge

d.kathrens@genie.geis.com
Fri, 2 Sep 94 02:38:00 UTC

Name : Dennis Kathrens
Age : 38
Location : LeRoy Kansas (out in the boonies, 70 miles south of Topeka)
Occupation: Instrumentation and Process Controls Technician
Hobbies : read science fiction, repair just about anything,
bicycling, unicycling.

Favorite sayings :

Reality is a Crutch for Minds that can't handle Science Fiction.
Man who Wear Shoe Think Earth Covered with Leather.
Think for Yourself and Question Assumptions
The Higher, The Fewer
Nuke a Gay Whale for Jesus

I am tall and skinny and was never considered athletic, more the
bookworm type in school. When I turned 30 (gasp! I'm old now!) I
decided I should take up some program of exercise. After trying and
rejecting weight training (a waste of time for ectomorphic individuals
like me) and running (boring and painful), I got a recumbent bicycle
and started commuting to work on it. I have come pretty close to my
original goal of 100 miles per week, riding about 5000 miles per year
for the last four years. I also tour and run errands with it. It's my
"other car".

One thing about recumbent bicycles is that your upper body is
supported by the seat and doesn't benefit much. I suffered from
Doogie Schwarzenegger Syndrome--very muscular from the waist down,
like a 16 year old kid from the waist up.

It came to mind last fall that riding a unicycle would be what I
needed to balance this out. No upper body support whatsoever, using
the upper body for balance and directional control. Tones arms,
shoulders, back and abdominal muscles. And it sounded like fun!

I searched high and low for an inexpensive used unicycle--let's
see if I can even do this before I spend big bucks on a new one. After
scouring the local area without success, I went to Michigan for a short-term
job, and my searches there were just as fruitless. I broke down and bought a
24" Matthews through a mail order company. The very next day I called to talk
to my wife and she told me "You'll never guess what I saw at Wednesday
auction--a unicycle. It sold for $5!" Sigh.

My unicycle arrived a week later and I assembled it myself, frantic to
get outside and start learning. This is the hardest thing I have ever tried
to do, and during the first two hours of practice I was afraid that I had
bitten off more than I could chew. But I concentrated on learning little bits
of the process and putting them together. Inside a week, practicing about
30 minutes per day, I was able to ride 50 feet, turn around and come back.

After two weeks of practicing, I rode my unicycle to work, 4.5
miles away. I hadn't learned a free mount yet and I thought I could
get away with carrying just one stick. Half a mile from the house I
fell off and found I couldn't get back on with just one stick. No
curbs, no mailboxes, no parked cars to hang onto. The road I took
bordered a woods so each time I fell off, I had to walk across the
ditch and find a dead branch to use as the second stick. I would get
going and then throw it away. The last mile was a private road to the
power plant where I was working, and I dared not fall since there were no
trees on that road. It only took me four remounts and an hour and ten minutes
of pedaling to get to work. Only three remounts and one hour to get back home
after work. I found and used many of the same sticks I had discarded
previously .

At the morning meeting, one of my coworkers who arrived late
asked "Is that your unicycle in the bike rack?" I said yes. Someone
else said "Just how do you park a unicycle in a bicycle rack?"
With a straight face I answered: "Same as a bicycle--you poke the wheel
into a slot and put down the kickstand." Then I sat back and watched his
brain overload trying to process this datum.

There's a new simile to add to your lexicon: Useless as a
kickstand on a unicycle. :^)

After about 3 weeks I learned to hop on from behind and get
going. First by starting with the wheel backed against a curb, then
against a block of wood and !finally! against nothing at all. It was
at this point that I felt I could start calling myself a unicyclist.

Since then I have learned several tricks, thanks especially to
the videotape IUF Skill Levels. I haven't been qualified by an
official examinator, but I am somewhere between level 4 and 5 now. I
hope to go all the way to level 10 eventually. I look forward to
meeting uncyclists in other areas of the country. I travel all over
the US for contract work lasting 3 months or more, so I have time to
really get to know an area and meet interesting people.

I have a lot of fun riding around town and learning new tricks.
I have ridden in several local parades this summer to the amazement
of my friends and neighbors.

My nephew from Ohio came to visit last week. He noticed my
unicycle and wanted to see me ride it. I showed him what I could do
and then let him watch the IUF Skill Levels tape. He asked why people
spent so much time learning such difficult tricks. I replied "What about
skateboarders and freestyle bikers? They do tricks that look downright
impossible. I'll bet it took a long time to learn them." He thought about
this for a moment and said "Yeah, but THOSE tricks are COOL." My wife took
all this in and started laughing, so I retorted "Oh yeah? Well I was uncool
when uncool wasn't cool!"

( For those not into Country & Western music, this is a take off on
a popular song, "I was Country when Country wasn't Cool" by Barbara
Mandrell. )

That's all for now...