
In Case You Ever Want to Unicycle 21,000 Miles - zdw
https://www.outsideonline.com/2407533/unicycle-travel-gear
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elijahparker
I unicycled 1100 miles with a group through Europe (2001) and again about 500
miles in northern Norway (2003) with mostly the same group. Both were
incredible experiences and a unicycle is actually a fun way to tour since
you’re upright and able to look around, use a camera, dig things out of other
riders’ backpacks, ride in close formation and hold a conversation easily. I
tried to look up the website just now, but it’s gone. However, here’s the
Norway trip on archive.org:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20060622062249/http://www.unitou...](https://web.archive.org/web/20060622062249/http://www.unitours.org/tours/NUT/Update).

Edit: on both trips we had a support vehicle carry much of our luggage. I
really admire Ed for fully self-supporting — it definitely adds a lot to the
challenge especially since most of the equipment to carry it is custom.

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ce4
The Wayback machine says its not archived, strange...

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TheNorthman
They forgot adding .htm to the link. Here it is:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20050207215504/http://www.unitou...](https://web.archive.org/web/20050207215504/http://www.unitours.org/tours/NUT/Update.htm)

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ColinWright
I was part of the group that broke the world record unicycling from Land's End
to John O'Groats in 1986. I started as one of the five riders (we were all
going to ride the entire distance, it was not a relay), but three of us
dropped out due to injury. Nevertheless, Mike Day and Michel Arets made the
entire distance, about 900 miles, in 14 days, 12 hours, and 41 minutes.

We were using unmodified 28" unicycles, neither gears nor brakes, and no
armrests or equivalent. It's interesting to see how the unicycle has been
adapted for these ultra-long journeys.

After dropping out I become the support vehicle driver, finding accommodation
_en route_ (which sometimes were tents, and sometimes kindly donated hotel
rooms), buying food (no restaurants as we were skint students doing this on
zero budget), and generally looking after the riders.

It was an interesting experience.

For reference, the previous record had been 19 days, 1 hour, and 45 minutes,
so we beat that by about 4 1/2 days. The _current_ record is 6 days, 8 hours,
and 43 minutes. Which is insane.

Also for reference: The current bicycle record is 43 hours, 25 minutes and 13
seconds, set by 40 year old Michael Broadwith on 17 June 2018. Note that this
is roughly an average speed of 20mph for roughly two days, non-stop. This is
also insane.

Unicycles, by comparison, are _quite_ sane. Honest.

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axelfontaine
Ed has an absolutely fabulous YouTube channel
[https://www.youtube.com/user/worldunicycletour/featured](https://www.youtube.com/user/worldunicycletour/featured)

I have been sponsoring him on Patreon for a while as not only did he ride
those 21000 miles (with no freewheel!), but he also self-filmed and self-
produced one of the most original, high-quality video series on the platform.
You can really see how much he learned about video making as he progressed on
the journey.

If you are new, start with the USA series. Well worth it:
[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLocRYksAqGOIS5qv3zfJ5...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLocRYksAqGOIS5qv3zfJ5eqWPfCY0sBGi)

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ronyfadel
For something more accessible to laypeople: bicycle touring is a thing. Pack a
few bags, attach them to your bike and cycle across a province, country,
continent or around the world. I biked across Europe in 2017 and it is my most
happy and memorable life event to this day.

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monadic2
Ahh I wish this were as easy in North America.

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ronyfadel
It is! I spent a week traveling the Pacific Coast Highway in 2018. I brought
camping gear, but never used it because I found a warmshowers.org host
(sometimes multiple) at every stop.

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egdod
I did a section of the PCH too (northward starting at San Francisco). As
pretty as it was, it was not my favorite place to ride a bike. No shoulder,
winding road, zero visibility... it felt like I was taking my life in my hands
every time I approached a curve.

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newnewpdro
It's a very dangerous road, I love cycling but refuse to ride on the PCH.

I've lived in a few PCH-adjacent neighborhoods over the years in the bay area,
and I always had neighbors affected by bad accidents on hwy 1.

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gumby
When my kid was about 3 he had a nanny who was a circus performer and
dedicated unicyclist. So my 3 yo could unicycle (with a cute tiny unicycle)
before he could bike.

The nanny said he was a “mountain unicycler”. I thought it was an absurd
exaggeration until he showed us a video that had been made of him and a friend
doing stunts on a cliff face. We began to worry about his sanity...Luckily my
wife considered that a positive thing.

This is not him but some of the kinds of stuff I am talking about:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkppaV-
gQXU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkppaV-gQXU)

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saghm
One thing that sticks out to me in that video is that they seem to grab the
seat like a handle a lot. I'm not sure why this surprised me, as it seems
pretty natural, but for some reason it never occurred to me that unicyclists
might do that. It almost looks like it's a pogo stick with a wheel when they
do that!

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vuln
He says in the video "My left arm maintains the brake" @ 1:26 in. So I assume
there is a brake lever there along with the other comment saying it helps
keeping the bike close during airtime.

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elijahparker
Yes, I used a brake as well. It can help with stopping quickly but only with
much practice (well, stopping isn’t hard, but doing it comfortably). A brake
also helps to drag on hills so as not to fatigue the legs and knees. Some in
my group used a shift lever to operate the brake, carefully increasing until
the right amount of drag was reached for comfortably going downhill.

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rusteh1
Ed is an absolute legend. Can't imagine the courage it took for a 19 year old
to head out into the world like that. Would highly recommend checking out his
youtube channel, on which he has hours of very well edited video documenting
the entire trip.

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chrismorgan
I’m curious about the legality of this. In Australia I don’t believe it’d be
legal to ride a unicycle on public roads; the laws vary by state, but the
standard definition of “bicycle” requires that it have at least two wheels
(e.g. [https://www.vicroads.vic.gov.au/safety-and-road-
rules/road-r...](https://www.vicroads.vic.gov.au/safety-and-road-rules/road-
rules/a-to-z-of-road-
rules/bicycles#expanding-F05A1A0220DD49B1A242B6E445A3A118) for Victoria,
[https://www.transport.wa.gov.au/activetransport/bicycle-
rule...](https://www.transport.wa.gov.au/activetransport/bicycle-rules-
standards-and-safety.asp#31424) for Western Australia), and I doubt that
unicycles would be covered by any other category.

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3pt14159
I tried unicycling.

I couldn't get past the, uh, pressure it put on my groin. I don't know how men
do it for more than a couple of minutes, let alone a globe trotting distance.

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nicoburns
It doesn't necessarily put that much pressure on your groin once you get the
hang of it. You can rise up a bit, and it eases that. It's definitely
exhausting though. I made the mistake of trying to keep up with a group on
bikes once. It was only a mile and a half, but even so it was almost
impossible to keep up. Not being able to freewheel is a big resstriction.

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dasil003
I doubt you'd be able to keep up with a fixie either though. I believe the
core issue is the energy required to balance front-to-back.

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tomcdonnell
I've done quite a bit of unicycling. The better your balance, the less energy
is required for balance. I think for a skilled unicyclist the difference in
pace compared to being on a fixie would be slight.

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gao8a
The inflatable globe is genius.

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sm4rk0
Great adventure!

Just a small correction to: “I used an app on my phone called Maps.Me, which
creates open-source maps that are completely free and downloadable...snip...”

Maps.me is using OpenStreetMap data created by more than six million
contributors including Maps.me users who also can edit the map data.

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willio58
Been watching his videos for a couple of years now, really great guy.

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AndrewWarner
His mic and camera skills improved a bunch over the trip. It’s inspiring to
watch him grow as a creator

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JimmyRuska
Maybe in a death stranding DLC?

