Downtown along the Bow River, unicyclists slide down stair rails and jump from rock to rock. Onlookers often stop to watch, but it’s not part of a performance.

Equipped with helmets, shin pads and gloves, the art of sport unicycling combines mountain biking trials with the skill of riding on one wheel. One Calgarian to take on the sport, Matt Bootsman, has been unicycling for seven years.

“Quite a lot of [people] will want to take video or pictures and watch,” he explains. “If you want to watch that’s fine, but we’re not out to please anyone.”

Atop his unicycle, Daniel Cormeau takes a plundge onto a steep hill for the sheer enjoyment and challenge of the sport.

Rest of the article can be seen here :

Photos: Mayan Freeborn/Calgary Journal

Urban rides are a must this summer! Join us!

The day was a hit – with about 15 participants in true skull style we took over the skate park. Well a tiny corner for 15 min, but it was fun. The invasion was lead by the 3 foot 4 as they lead the group into the inner park, the rest being adults fallowed like most adults do. I might be speaking out of turn but I vote we make the 3 foot 4 our heroes this week.

What from here?

Weekly rides are still over in Inglewood Till the end of the month, Then we have talked about meeting up at the skate park on Sunday nights 6:00pm for freestyle and urban rides. Although the freestyles will dominate the flat areas the urban riders are welcome to hit up the skate park or go for a ride.

The Next Skull Days 1.3

Pete is talking to MEC about having the event at there next bike day event – Fingers crossed but we might do it. If not were also bribing officials in Kensington to hold the event during  the sun and salsa festival.

What Participants Said:

Danni said- this was the best day ever – way better the Disneyland.

Matt screamed – If I had a choice between dinner with the queen or Skull Days, I would hang with the Skull.

Athena was quoted – and the cool thing is we all have skulls.

*** note the author may have made up the quotes.??..?  But the author said skull days rock

Last week at unicycle club I didn’t take very many pictures, partly because I spent a lot of club time discussing taking a unicycle on public transit. Athena and I have both been denied entry to a bus by a cranky driver. Their usual excuse is “no bikes on the bus!” which is obviously a bad argument when one is trying to transport a unicycle.

Both Calgary Transit and the province of Alberta define a bicycle as having at least two wheels. Calgary transit does not have any unicycle-specific rules, and considering a uni is smaller than most baby carriages, hockey bags and people, there is no real reason to deny us access. Try telling that to a cranky bus driver!

Do you have any experience with this issue? Write a comment to tell us what you did, especially if you managed to convince a driver to let you on!

It was a sunny, if chilly morning and we decided to go for a ride. Just as we were leaving the studio a few late comers showed up so we decided to wait for them.

Once everyone was caught up we made our way to the bike path by the river.

Some of the guys decided to take the hard way.

But we all got there, safe and sound.

Then we headed back to the studio, taking a more urban rout.

Back inside, there were plenty of wheeled things to play with, including a trials bike, the giraffe, and the ultimate wheel.

F-ing sick, Mike Parenteau. Finally some Muni worth posting. I heard about this a couple of weeks ago…… I think I speak for us all when I say “we want to see more”.

with Justin Kohse

So, the “What’s your take on…” feature, will be short one question interviews, with riders that most of us know or should know by now, enjoy.

I threw the first one at Justin Kohse, and it’s his take on art in unicycling…

“Well i started unicycling about 8 years ago…holy i didn’t realize its been that long!, but if it wasn’t for unicycling then i definitely wouldn’t have moved in the direction of motion graphics and

graphic design. I think it was when i got my first camera that had video recording capabilities that made me think hmmmm, i like this video business. My parents saw this and bought me a

video camera, the camera and my mother being an artist both sent me to VFS (vancouver film school), to pursue some type of career in this field.

We do something really unique here and we need to take advantage of it!  i don’t see why we need to copy skateboarding and biking. We’re our own thing, so we should be designing things in our own way. I think this is what a lot of the older riders are worried about and i know i don’t want to see us get washed out under the shadow of these super giants of the “extreme” sports world, but with company’s like UDC not  taking into consideration what riders are looking for in unicycle design, logos, stickers, tshirts, posters. etc…then this very well may happen. Koxx-one is taking a good step towards it with the manor in which they choose to market themselves ,which is why i think they’ve been able to stick around for so long and with people taking the time to learn a decent editing program and filming with half decent cameras then i think we have a solid starting point for the future.

As for riding style, I feel like unicycling is just starting to become more “stylish”. I see kids around 15 years old busting trey-flips down 5 sets and they’ve only been riding for maybe a year or 2?

with the recent advancement in equipment its so easy these days to get those unicycle fundamentals down and start working on your “style”, and style plays an important part on where

we will see unicycling go in the next couple of years. Its going to take all of us to chip in and help this sport grow, let your opinion be heard and don’t be afraid to throw your work around the web you never

know who might see it….”

–
Justin Kohse

www.justinkohse.com
www.jkohse.blogspot.com

Thanks Justin. Keep it up, man. One of the few that see a future if we help it grow.

Picture by Justin