WTF: Muni Cycling & Electric Unicycles?

Sick of disc brakes? 160mm of travel making your local trails too easy? Finding it too hard to decide what width of bars to fit on your next bike? We have found the answer: mountain unicycling, or muni cycling.

Actually, that’s not entirely accurate – some muni cycles come equipped with disc brakes. So, that sounds a lot safer then.

‘It’s a very very inefficient way to get around the woods’ says one rider in this video. We’re guessing he doesn’t work in sales.

‘It’s a certain type of person that tends to ride a unicycle. You’ve got to be not afraid to look stupid’ says another rider. That sounds like good advice.

Lacking the necessary foreign language skills to be sure what the narrator is saying in this video, we thought it probably goes something like this:

‘I was riding my mountain bike plenty, but I found I still had a beer belly. I just wasn’t working my core muscles enough.’

‘I started out by making like Hans Rey and took my front wheel out of my fork, but this seemed silly, so I thought I’d do away with all but the rear wheel and switch to unicycling.’

‘Pushing a two wheeled bike up a mountain is so heavy, it’s much easier to carry the unicycle – although it does make it a little harder coming back down’.

We have now discovered there are subtitles if you click the closed captions button, and perhaps unsurprisingly the riders are talking about loving the challenge of unicycling, and enjoying the possibility of failure. No, we’re still none the wiser as to why you would bother.

In case this all seems like hard work, or you’ve got knee trouble, how about an electric unicycle?

If the Mobbo doesn’t look quite cool or rugged enough for you, how about a Solowheel Extreme? As the guy in this video shows, you can ride off park benches, through puddles, and if you want to look really cool you can ride it using only one foot. You’ll be so cool your friends will be calling you ‘Ice’. If you have any left.

If your friends stop speaking to you, or the STW Forum is not enough to fill your internet chat needs, how about joining the Electric Unicycle Forum? Now before we sucked into the wormhole and find ourselves reading discussions on the pros and cons of commuting by unicycle, we’re off to ride bikes. Ones with two wheels.

Hannah Dobson

Managing Editor

I came to Singletrack having decided there must be more to life than meetings. I like all bikes, but especially unusual ones. More than bikes, I like what bikes do. I think that they link people and places; that cycling creates a connection between us and our environment; bikes create communities; deliver freedom; bring joy; and improve fitness. They're environmentally friendly and create friendly environments. I try to write about all these things in the hope that others might discover the joy of bikes too.

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