The Sport of Extreme Unicycling
Unicycling is a very interesting sport; it is akin to bicycling but it is a lot harder to master. A unicycle, as its name suggests, is a bicycle with only one wheel instead of two; it does not even have handlebars. Riding a unicycle
is a lot more difficult to do than riding the much simpler bicycle but still a lot of enthusiasts take to the single-wheeled machines like fish to water. Over the years, unicyclists have started to get bored with riding around on one wheel and have started
to try different things. There are now unicycle races, unicycling in the mountains and the latest trend seems to be ‘extreme unicycling’.
Unicycles seem to have developed from the very popular penny-farthing type of bicycle that could be seen everywhere in the late 19th century. This early bicycle consisted of a large front wheel, a seat, handlebars and
a tiny rear wheel. Over the years, this design style gave way to the unicycle because many people realised that it was easier to ride the penny-farthing without a back wheel and so removed it. Both the unicycle and the bicycle evolved in sync but the bicycle
became much more popular because it was a lot easier to ride. Unicycling endured and grew slowly and today has a dedicated group of loyal riders all over the world. As the years passed and times changed, unicycle riders started to experiment with what they
could do while riding their one-wheeled bikes. They started to do tricks and stunts and like skateboarders and mountain bike riders before them, they took their sport into more extreme territories. Some people decided to hold races while riding unicycles,
some decided to remove the seat and attach the pedals to the wheel directly, some decided to conquer mountains on their cycles and some decided to wow audiences with tricks and stunts.
The more extreme form of unicycling spread rapidly among people and competitions started to be held all over the world. Recently, the 2010 Extreme Unicycling Championship took place in Germany and it had three distinct types of
unicycling competitions that competitors could take part in. 150 participants competed in three different categories; the categories were
street, trial and flatland unicycling. Street unicycling is when a rider uses handrails, ledges and other city objects to do tricks with. Trial unicycling is when a rider jumps their unicycle onto large platforms and obstacles and this discipline
focuses on hopping. Flatland unicycling sees two cyclists go head to head and perform tricks and stunts, like a dance off, in a limited time period. All three of these disciplines require a rider to have a specific set of skills and maintain strict control
over the unicycle at all times while riding. It is hard enough to do tricks on a two-wheeled bicycle let alone a one-wheeled one. However, a lot of extreme unicyclists say that it is easier to do tricks on one wheel because it gives the rider a lot more freedom
and flexibility. It is lighter and less cumbersome to manoeuvre and a person can hop onto obstacles a lot more easily than on a bike.
There are other forms of extreme unicycling such as the intrepid adventurer who has ridden his unicycle to Mount Everest. Steve Colligan, a 47-year old extreme unicyclist from Manchester, has decided to ride his one-wheeled cycle
across the roof of the world. He will ride over 1000 kilometres in total and his journey will see him ride along the backbone of the Himalayas from Lhasa to Kathmandu. He is doing this crazy feat in order to raise money to build a school in the mountains in
Nepal. He will take on a mountainous region on one wheel all in order to build a school; we should all wish this daredevil all the luck we can muster and hope he completes his journey.
In the next few years, we will see many more forms of extreme unicycling emerge to wow us with. For the time being, though, we can be content with watching people hop around onto huge obstacles and do back flips and other tricks
on one wheel. This interesting and exciting sport looks all set to become very popular as more people give riding a unicycle a try for themselves.
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