The way I see it, it’s only a matter of time. I haven’t met someone yet that doesn’t at least like the idea of freeing themselves of handlebars and even being able to ride in reverse. Put that together with a swimming in clown costumes instead of wet-suits and carny music in transition… sounds like what dreams are made of.
I figure it hits the perfect “balance” of adventure and spectator fun, something the whole family (from cheering toddlers to heckling drunk uncles) can enjoy. I’ve always felt that the reason Xterra, gravel, and fixed gear triathlon never exploded is because buying the Nth bike costs too much money and takes up too much space in the garage. Unicycles on the other hand can be purchased cheap from deadbeats selling their circus equipment to buy heroin and unicycles are small enough to store almost anywhere. Ripping through town or through an otherwise normal place can be transformed into a magical carnival like experience on this one-wheeled form of locomotion.
Anyway, philosophical rant aside, I did a quick search of “Clown Riding a Unicycle” on Google, and found the stock video below. Ultimately just seeing how much fun that clown is having made me realize unicycle triathlon is the future could be coming soon, to a location near you.
This will be the biggest thing to hit the county fair scene since mutton busting had it’s breakout year in 02. (back before all the big companies came in and made it so corporate)
Rotor is expected to release their unotwinpower crank in late october.
I haven’t met someone yet that doesn’t at least like the idea of freeing themselves of handlebars
Unicycle versus bicycle is not a handlebar versus no handlebar discussion. It’s possible to ride bicycles without handlebars, and lots of unicyclists use handlebars.
There is a very low key local sprint triathlon in western Montana that I do most years. Maybe 100-sh people, volunteers bbq burgers and hotdogs for fans and athletes at the finish line, you will find more hybrid bikes than aero helmets. You get the gist…
Anyway, in either 2011 or 2012 two guys decided to do the triathlon on a unicycle. They were the last two people to arrive in T2 (in fact most everyone had finished the race by the time these guys completed the 10 mile bike leg), but they had a lot of fans cheering them on
Now all we need is our mate from Swiss Side to confirm if it is best to run a disc, tri spoke, deep spoked, shallow spoked, 23mm Continental 4000 with latex tube, Shwalbe One tubeless, tubular unicycle??? The mind boggles with the new data we will need!
Awesome community vibe too. Very chill and laid back people.
Hard to destroy the finish line tape and jump around like a maniac after getting off a unicycle… Just doesn’t feel right.
There will be the standard 5-year age group brackets, and moreover, in the spirit of inclusiveness, there will also be a “non-binary” gender category.
Sounds like a way for some of us to podium in our age group, gender or non-binary way(s) as long as we communicate with each other before we register and start the race. Thank you for virtuous consideration.