My Car

Here is a great shot of the Uni Mobile, my 2001 Aztek, loaded with unicycles. In this picture, you can see some of the many unicycles squeezed into the back. In all, there were nine or ten, with room to spare.

Bicycles

I have been uni'ing since I was 13, 26 years ago. I had this cool bike before then, but after I discovered uni'ing, I pretty much let the bike rust. After we gave it away, I never went the way of my friends, who were all getting 21-speeds. Instead, I got another Schwinn uni (a 24"), and later, a giraffe.

In high school, my brother and I rode around after school on our unis. I did errands and got to places either on a uni or by bus. There was no need for a bike, and street-riding is not much to look forward to. Both of us attended the same college, which has a pretty insular feel. There were few streets running thru any of the places we wanted to go. So we still went bike-less.

After college, we eventually discovered larger wheel sizes, so now we really didn't need bikes. In fact, I worked for 4 years, till I was 30, at a school close by, so I uni'ed to work every day. When I took a job across town, I decided to get a bike, but as fate would have it, it got stolen, and so did its replacement. Eventually I figured out a way to own a bike without having to worry about it being stolen: I never rode it, except when I took my little daughter for rides.

7 years ago, I took a job in Brooklyn. Initially I took the subway everyday, but one day I decided to go by Coker, and since then, I have commuted to work on a Coker or guni for the past 5 years. And that bike that I had finally got stolen last year. I didn't notice for about 6 months. Apparently I'd left it outside.

All in all, I've ridden a bike regularly for only two of the last 26 years. I own over a dozen unis but no bikes other than a couple Super Trick Cycles and a tandem that I got on the cheap.

John bought a bike a few years back, and I was shocked. He might as well announced that he was taking up smoking or voting Republican. I've since made peace with his decision, but I'm much happier knowing that he unicycles much more than he bikes. Somehow it just feels better.

12:35

I rode around the Prospect Park bike loop in 12 mins, 35 secs last night, 7 seconds faster than my previous best. Later I calculated that riding 20 mph for 7 seconds comes out to about 100 feet. But still, it was only 7 seconds.

It's impossible to imagine that I could ever beat 12 minutes. I was huffing and puffing, breathing steadily the whole time and pushing myself to ride as fast as I could thruout the ride. I could have gone a bit faster on some of the flat parts, and I didn't set a new record for maximum speed, so presumably I could have gone a bit faster on the downhills, too, but it's hard to envision a way that I could go 4% faster for the whole ride.

Actually, 4% doesn't sound that impossible, does it?

I noticed during this latest ride that altho I didn't feel as fast on the downhills, I felt quite speedy on the long uphill. Perhaps that means that for long races, you win by attacking the uphills more than by attacking the downhills.

It's worth noting that I'm averaging over 15 mph for these rides, which is a fairly strong clip, but 4% isn't asking too much, is it?