Mountain Biking on a Unicycle
October 10, 2008 – 12:46 am PT by GregTags: Unicycle —
You know all about mountain biking, but I don’t think you’ve been properly introduced to mountain unicycling (aka Muni). Yes, you heard that right — mountain unicycling. It’s a subset of a larger sport known as extreme unicycling and it’s pretty crazy.
If you think mountain biking or BMX is dangerous because of the possibility of crashing, then you might not want to check out Muni. UPDs (or unplanned dismounts to you and me) are a fact of life and there’s no such thing as coasting, given the mechanics of the unicycle.
But that doesn’t mean you can’t do just about everything you can do on a downhill mountain bike with a unicycle — in fact, you can probably do more. Or at least different things. And if you check out the video below of Kris Holm, an acknowledged legend in the sport, you will see a few things you might not ever see done on a regular bike (haven’t seen many bikes on the railings of bridges, myself).
Holm also promotes the sport with his Evolution of Balance Award, an annual grant that promotes “non-competitive mountain unicycling adventures in remote places around the world.” Most recently, the grant was awarded to a group of riders who proposed a route across the isthmus of Panama. They plan to follow through with the adventure next January.
Though the sport is growing, there are only an estimated 1,000 Muni riders in the United States, so mountain bikers don’t have to worry about sharing their trails too much any time soon.
For more about Kris Holm, check out KrisHolm.com.
