Been There Done That

Introduction

When talking about unicycles (my favourite subject) to new riders and with the heathen non-riding public, they often make funny suggestions about what you should do with a unicycle -"Put brakes o­n it!", "Ride it underwater!"

More often than not, I find myself replying, o­nly slightly tongue-in-cheek, "It's been done. Everything that you can possibly think of, has already been done o­n a unicycle... except sex. And even then I am not sure."

This is a list of some of the amazing things that have been done o­n unicycles.

What it Ain't

It is not a list of:

• things that shouldn't be done again - just because o­ne person can free-mount, doesn't mean no-one else should bother!
• things that can't be done better.
• things which should be done again. Some of these feats are dangerous; please think twice before attempting to match them.
• all the details of the event. I prefer o­nly to record the basic details, and provide a pointer to where more information can be obtained.
• the first or best attempt, necessarily. There may have been others I have not heard about. Where a feat has been done more than o­nce, priority has been given to the version with the earliest attempt, or the version which I have more details about or the version with the coolest scanned photograph. :-)
• great accuracy. Many of these items are gathered through word of mouth - they could be wrong.
• everything that has ever been done o­n a unicycle - although I can try!

Despite these caveats, I hope this list opens the eyes of some non-riders, gives new riders something to aim for, give experienced riders some ideas for new feats and helps my o­ngoing argument that unicycle riders have "been there, done that".

Please let me know of any feats you think should be added, any details you can fill in, or any corrections that need to be made.

Thanks

A special thanks to John Foss, Beirne Konarski, and On o­ne Wheel who provided me with much of the detail and many of the photographs that appear here.

The Guiness Book Of World Records provided a number of details. Note that different editions published different records; not all records are mentioned in the latest version.

Thanks again to Beirne Konarski who made www.unicycling.org the incredible resource it is today.

Notes

To the interested readers:

• Try clicking o­n the pictures - many link to the original web pages which contain more information and larger and/or better quality copies.

To non-unicyclists reading the page:

• the term "giraffe" refers to a tall, chain-driven unicycle. No animals were hurt in the making of this web page.
• IUF is the International Unicycling Federation.
• USA is the Unicycle Society of America.

To the people who send me updates:

• I appreciate your updates, and will try to thank you, and clarify any points as soon as possible. However, please understand, making a new version of this web-page is time-consuming, and I o­nly undertake it sporadically. Please be patient. While you are waiting, why not go for a ride and think up with a new record to attempt?
• For me, the ideal submission includes - the name of the unicyclist (and manufacturer, where appropriate), where they are from, when it occurred and where it occurred, a link to a scanned photo (with permission to use it!) and the home pages of everyone involved. A reference to where the details were recorded (Guinness, Newspapers, TV shows, IUF officials, etc.) makes it possible for people to do further research if they are interested, and to verify the details.

News

The latest version contains many new items and pictures since the last update in April 1998. Therefore, it has been split into a number of pages, to reduce the response time.

I hope the next version will contain a lot of new record set at the Unicon X, in August 2000.r

Julian Orbach
Copyright © 1998-2000 Julian Orbach All rights reserved.
Last modified: Wed Apr 22 21:16:43 1998