Remarkable unicycle riding (video)

Video link. This footage prepared for the North American Unicycling Championships and Convention contains some pretty unbelievable footage, including jumping over a picnic table, up a flight of 7 stairs in one hop, and the you-gotta-see-it-to believe-it "maxwhip." Also some amazing Kris Holm vids here and here.

Andrea James is a writer, director, producer and activist based in Los Angeles. Her work often focuses on consumer activism, the free culture movement, exogenous mysticism, humor, and LGBT rights.

MORE: Entertainment • guestblog • High Energy • skill • unicycle • Weird

More at Boing Boing

Ants and Stars: Bruce Sterling and Jasmina Tesanovic visit the Sardinia Radio Telescope in Italy

The Snowden Principle

catsford

Just FYI, San Marcos Texas has a Unicycle Football League…You can check it out under “Sports” at smtx.tv/hd/
Anonymous

I ride a unicycle and am a big Kris Holm fan and it still pisses me off to see him grinding on rails and concrete that he won’t be paying to fix and jumping on public structures that were never designed to handle the load or impact of these tricks. A great Holms on snow video can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VBdXeVtjXw but it doesn’t have a blaring hip-hopped sound track so you may want to crank the volume down…
nixiebunny

I have a nephew who does this, but he’s not as good as these guys because he took time out from his unicycling career to get a college degree.

He built a BC wheel and can ride it. A BC wheel is the thing that the caveman in the comic strip BC rides. No pedals.
Anonymous

Alright, I’m not one to usually comment on idiotic posts in threads, but to all of you who keep insisting that nuts are getting crushed: have you ever even ridden a unicycle? Or are you so clumsy that you constantly sit on your nuts every time you sit down on anything? I can drop from a 4 ft. height on a unicycle and not even feel any impact in my nether regions. It’s called skill and finesse.

Also, who cares so much about “looking cool”? Are you guys in high school?! Developing skills and being physically fit are a hell of a lot cooler than being a timid piece of shit that isn’t brave enough to take any risks or try anything difficult. Go listen to Lady Gaga and drive a Mustang if you’re so caught up on looking cool and not doing anything different or worthy of respect.
Grumblefish

That looks… painful. Couldn’t help recalling that William the Bastard allegedly died of injuries he incurred from his saddle pommel.
TomDArch

dculberson said, “I’m referring to the stone work he grinds down (next to the steps)…”

1) That’s concrete, not stone.

2) More importantly – that’s a SKATEPARK. Several clues: there are no expansion joints in the concrete, the edge is beveled, there is no code-required handrail along those stairs….

All the handrails he slides down are more than 20 years old – they don’t comply with the ADA requirement that handrails terminate with a horizontal runout, and the ADA went into effect in 1990. They’re clearly not being worn down to nubs.

dculberson – you generally have a point, but rather than doing the same thing over and over again and muttering about it, look for ways to improve the situation.
GraemeM

Too many party poopers
JasonsRobot

This proves it: No matter what you do, it’s impossible to look cool riding a unicycle.
Art Carnage

I don’t care if he were able to get the unicycle to make a ham sandwich – unicycles will never be cool.

But at least it’s a skill he can pass on to his children. And, of course, I mean his *adopted* children, for obvious reasons.
delilah

I think this is the first time I’ve seen anyone do these types of tricks with their shirts tucked in and a belt properly keeping their pants at their waist.
Paco

Firstly, may I just say that that Rusko mix is absolutely hype. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that he’s getting so popular lately.

Secondly, @dculberson: It’s not like you’re paying for the repairs solely out of your own pocket. By “other people’s property” I assume you’re meaning the few shots in parking lots and parks (ignoring the backyards and warehouse setups that were used, which appear to exist solely for the purpose of trial riding). How do you know he didn’t get the owner’s permission beforehand? And if those parks are public places, then they should be used by people. If my tax dollars are going to building/maintaining the parks I would rather them need maintained from too much use than be completely empty and pristine. Plus, that just created a job for somebody to come and repaint a railing. I guess you would rather he just sit inside watching american idol and eating doritos all night?

Yes, there are asshole skaters/bladers/exxxxtreeeeeme sports wankers that cause trouble. But you’ll have to excuse me if I don’t care that a unicyclist put a little scratch in the pavement of a walmart parking lot.

…and yes, the fisheye was overused…
- dculberson
  
  I’m referring to the stone work he grinds down (next to the steps) and to the metal railing that he grinds down. The “jobs” “created” is a fallacy – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window – it’s waste and destroyed value.
  
  A parking lot is not “nobody’s property.” I happen to own a property with a parking lot, and have had skaters damage stone work that I personally spent a lot of money on. It’s not their call to damage my property any more than it’s my call to damage yours. If you don’t mind this, then you shouldn’t mind me breaking your car window and stealing your GPS and iPod. After all, that’s creating value for Safelite Auto Glass, Garmin, and Apple.
  
  There is no way he had the property owner’s permission to damage both stone and metal railings. That’s an absurd attempt at justification.
  - Anonymous
    
    Erm… you do realize the the “stonework” is at a skatepark? And skateparks are built for grinding and other tricks, if you weren’t aware. Also, I’m fairly sure that scratching the paint off of a rail isn’t hundreds of dollars of damage.
  - paul
    
    dculberson,
    
    While I have some sympathy for the damage caused to handrails and stone work, MOST of the video didn’t involve anything that would damage anything. The video demonstrates what the kid can do, and I’d advise you take it for that. You project that the kid didn’t have permission for the stunts he did, but you don’t know that. You might be right, but you just don’t know that.
    
    For example, my brother used to do stunts in the parking lot of a shopping center near his house on Saturdays. They started giving him free movie tickets, (totally surprising my brother) because he was drawing in customers.
    
    Obviously another shopping center might have told him to go away. You just don’t know everything by watching a clip.
    
    There ARE other solutions besides coming across as intolerant and self centered. Hand rails and stone work can be designed to prevent such use, or to stand up under such use, and/or Stunt parks for skateboards/unicycles can give better alternatives, just to name a few.
    
    On the other hand, cars damage parking lots and buildings and kill 37,000 people per year, yet we tolerate cars. Skateboards and Unicycles don’t even touch that level of damage, and allow kids to get outside and to exercise and be healthy.
    - dculberson
      
      I’m taking the video at face value. That face value includes obvious shots of damaging property.
- Anonymous
  
  Anyone happen to know the name of the track? I’m a little vexed they didn’t credit it.
Phikus

My brother knows Max well. He says he’s a really nice guy. Max came to a local event in April (in MN) as the special guest. He was the National 2009 and 2010 Trials (think obstacle course) champion. He is also the world Trials champion completing about 98% of the obstacles at Unicon in New Zealand (where my nephew won the 10k, becoming a world champion unicyclist!) Max is the official high jump champion at 110cm. A Brit cleared 114cm at Nationals in Berkeley (but my bro can’t remember if it was official or unofficial.)

Even my niece is into it, and when my brother comes down from Wisconsin to Austin, he always brings his uni to pedal around town. Me, I can’t even get up on the damned things. Two wheels are as minimal as I get for cycling. Exciting to watch though.
Vorn

And here I thought Uniracers was complete fiction.
Compulsion

Max often rides with plastic pedals.
You can see them clearly in his other videos.
How exactly does plastic hurt steel?
Anonymous

@dculberson, I remember a friend of mine coming back from a shoot in Switzerland (he’s an extreme sports videographer) commenting that rather than bolting things on the public structures to stop the skaters, they bolted replaceable metal edges on to encourage the skaters.

Apparently they wanted to foster fit energetic kids or something totally un-American like that.

So maybe the thing to be asking is why your architects, builders and public planners aren’t trying to embrace the whole community and make teens and twenty-somethings feel welcome in it?
Bender

A fantastic real-life mash-up of people doing really cool things while also looking incredibly dorky.
Quaternion

Unicycles and testicles. The Man Upstairs must still be laughing about that one.
holtt

He should be a Fox news commentator.
Anonymous

Max was also won the world championship in unicycle trials this year in NZ.

He’s a local los alamos NM kid – graduated HS last year and now driving the campus cops nuts in Golden, CO.

Lotsa’ free time up here on the hill. It looks like he put it to good use.
DSMVWL THS

IIRC, there’s a race of characters in one of L. Frank Baum’s Oz books that travel around on single wheels, which are actually part of their bodies. Doesn’t seem so fantastic after watching this.
dculberson

Why is it impossible for people like him to do cool stunts without damaging other people’s property? I’ve spent many hours of my life repairing damage from jackasses like him, and it’s frustrating. They make deep, long scratches down stone and metal work that otherwise would have lasted a life time. Apparently I now have to chase off unicyclers, in addition to skateboarders. I would rather just let them do their thing but once they start causing hundreds or thousands of dollars in damage, it’s not “fun” but instead is vandalism.

(Hint: You can NOT slide down a metal rail with your metal device and not cause damage. It’s just not possible. So unless you own it, you should not do it.)
- nwimpney
  
  I can’t say for certain what he’s using, but some unicyclists use plastic pedals for grinds.
- Pantograph
  
  That’s because this kind of thing is EXXXTREEEME. The fisheye effect gives it away.
- Anonymous
  
  Are the stone and metalwork items damaged such that their engineering properties have changed or only their appearances?
rawdiant

Clearly, he’s got magic boots.
Anonymous

That is a “Municycle” not a unicycle. More durable and it has brakes. The break handle is just under the seat front which is one reason why his hand is placed there. Think Mountain bike unicycle . . . Municycle.

You also do not “crush your nuts” when landing. Notice that he has the pedals at a horizontal position and lands standing on the pedals, not sitting on the seat.

Yep, plastic edged pedals, so as not to grind the world around him down into dust.

It is amazing all the griping going on in here. Kris is a master at his craft and is not just some punk thrashing for lulz.
nwimpney

As a male unicyclist, there’s a couple things I would like to point out.

1. You don’t sit on your testicles. This gets repeated a thousand times on every thread, but I guarantee you that if it were the case, I wouldn’t ride one.
Does everyone spam mountain bike videos with “OMG he must smash his balls”? Of course not. They stand up on their pedals when they land, same as a unicyclist.

2. looking cool is in the eye of the beholder. I’ve had plenty of people tell me I’m awesome, and I just ride, no crazy tricks. I guess if you think it’s dorky, you can find something else to do.
drewand1200

Respect for others property and teen/twenty something fitness aside, asking owners for additional monies to design and develop solutions to sitework that meets the needs of skateboarders is a tough sell especially so on a private project.

Secondly, given the litigious society that we have here in America (yes Anon, America), designing “Activity Friendly” retaining walls, railings, planters etc. is opening up what I assume would be a can of Tort law that most owners both public and private would be squeamish to embrace.
Anonymous

That’s off the chain!

Literally.
drewand1200

Respect for others property and teen/twenty something fitness aside, asking owners for additional monies to design and develop solutions to sitework that meets the needs of skateboarders is a tough sell especially so on a private project.

Secondly, given the litigious society that we have here in America (yes Anon, America), designing “Activity Friendly” retaining walls, railings, planters etc. is opening up what I assume would be a can of Tort law that most owners both public and private would be squeamish to embrace.
- Paul
  
  “Respect for others property and teen/twenty something fitness aside, asking owners for additional monies to design and develop solutions to sitework that meets the needs of skateboarders is a tough sell especially so on a private project.”
  
  Meh. You have to design to deal with all sorts of public abuse with public facing (even private facing) facilities. Kids jump on things and throw rocks, yeah? Hang on handles, push buttons over and over, and put their feet on walls, yeah? Scrape stuff like sticks against railings and across fences, yeah? Climb all over stuff, yeah?
  
  You have bumpers on your car and maybe side impact air bags? You paid for those yourself in your private car, yes?
  
  As others have pointed out, much of what this guy did isn’t as destructive as you make out. Much of the obstacles are designed for the purposes shown.
  
  And besides! The number of unicyclists that might be “inspired” to damage property by replicating the stunts in this video are vanishingly small. Maybe 20 guys in Texas have any hope of doing half these stunts. Our Juggling/Unicycling club has quite a number of great unicyclists in Austin, Texas, and maybe two or three guys might be able to do some of these stunts. And none of them are going to jump out and start sliding down rails on their peddles because they saw this video (if for no other reason than this trashes peddles far faster than it trashes rails or stone work).
  
  So throw all the cold water you want, your posts are ridiculously petty, insinuating we condemn this video over damage that best I can tell is so insignificant as to be undetectable in the noise of damage that occurs for thousands of other, more significant, stupid, and avoidable habits that are none the less tolerated because it is “us” that does them, not “them” unicyclists (who just happen not to be “us”).
Anonymous

OMG, won’t anyone think of the poor handrails. :P

The skaters (and unicyclists) are actually doing a service. Polishing the handrails and ledges smooth so they are nice and shiny and comfortable to run your hands along.

Skate trucks also make great bird crap removers.
ZippySpincycle

Unnecessary fisheye lens is unnecessary. And distracting.
Pablissimo

Also – get that unicycle off my lawn you young punk!
Anonymous

What I love to do of a weekend is repeatedly slam my groin into hard objects.
Phikus

*sobs* Won’t someone think of the railings!
Pete

It seems that one of the major dangers of extreeeeme unicycling is crushing your testicles with your own body weight.
- GauchoAmigo
  
  I agree. The trade off between looking awesome and the potential for crushed testicles is just not worth it.
MrsBug

Wow, this is like parkour with a wheel.
artaxerxes

That background track is indeed hype. So it’s Kid Sister’s Pro Nails remixed by Rusko. In case anyone else was wondering.

This video is inspirational despite the irritating fisheye. And since I don’t have testicles, I’m gonna borrow my neighbor’s unicycle and start practicing at the b-ball court in the park. I live in a neighborhood at the top of a very steep hill, so I learned to skateboard at the court before I took it to the streets. Nobody’s on the thing at night and I can look like an uncoordinated fool to my heart’s content.

anon #30, thanks for posting about Switzerland’s sensible policy of designing with skaters in mind. I am 40 year old and if I have the time, I’ll always stop to watch kids practicing their tricks. I’ll also stop to watch a kid take one of the long, steep descents from the top of our hill. Breathtaking. I find it inspirational to watch them and it makes me happy to see kids practicing, learning patience, using their bodies and just being outside.

With all of the unhealthy shit that kids could be spending their time doing indoors, it’s idiotic that our country fights to keep kids from skating.