Issue 3 – Tuesday 1 August
One-Wheel Drive
Zack and Nick Dowson, V12
After some weeks of hesitation and planning, we chose a warm Friday evening and a circuit through several local parks for our first ever sponsored unicycle ride to help fund the group of Macedonians coming to camp with us in Golden Monkey village. The only modification needed to our unicycles was the addition of a speedometer – luggage racks seemed unnecessary as the support vehicle (also with 2 wheels, but these ones permanently joined) would carry essential supplies.
Some local woodcraft members arrived for the send-off, others missing us as we were late to start. Our route included several steep hills, and a couple of planned refreshment stops, not to mention occasional unscheduled ‘groundings’ on the rougher and wetter bits of the course (in those days it used to rain from time to time in the Northeast). Fortunately, for some strange reason, there were barely any more pedestrians than cyclists along the way, as there are only a limited number of witticisms that people seem to think up if they notice you uniwobbling past (we’ll not provide any clues to them here though). It’s amazing though, how often they don’t notice, although when there are 2 of you together, this doesn’t apply.
One of the challenges with unicycling is negotiating both uphill and downhill in the same, fixed gear – and of course, the steeper, the more difficult. A ‘fixed’ wheel is a necessity on a unibike, as the only way of controlling your speed is to slow the wheel with backwards pressure on the pedals. However, getting photographs of the ride was also difficult – there’s a surprising turn of speed to them at times, and a lot of other movement going on as well.
Over the 5-kilometer (3-mile) route our average speed was 7 mph; and the sponsorship money came to £140. The costs included about 5 gallons of liquid, but no petrol and no Kitkats, and the odd aching muscle.
Other fund-raising in the 3 Rivers area (Tyne, Tees and Wear) included a vegan marathon, a football stake, a book swap and a cake-sampling morning; and a Venturer/DF music event that may well become a regular feature of the social calendar.
But - why unicycle? Is it really one of the craziest forms of transport ever invented? Or is it a crucial, neglected tool in the struggle against global ruination at the hands of the oil giants? In fact, unicycles are lighter, cheaper and simpler than bikes, as well as more maneouvrable – and they even take less time to learn to ride than bicycles do. So in the hope of going yet another step, we’re now working on a no-wheeled cycle event for next year!
Had you realized that at least 12 % of campers are regularly unicycling around this site?