Oh, since I'm new to the list, I may as well give myself an introduction.
I graduated from Harvey Mudd College last year - some of you may know that
Mudd has a high proportion of unics (unicyclists). It was a lot more
striking Way Back When, but we still have a fair-sized club for a
600-student school. In my sophomore year, I purchased an old cotter-crank
Cyclepro uni from a friend (who had bought it from another unic, who had
bought it from yet another unic...I ended up selling it to someone who
wanted to learn, who gave it to someone else who wanted to learn - only
two people in this chain never learned to ride...and at this point, the
cotter pins have worn the axle down so far that the best you can do is
about a five-degree wobble in the cranks!). I learned to ride on that
beast, but it was too difficult to ride for day-to-day transportation.
Since then, I've borrowed people's Schwinns from time to time, and
ridden those. They are MUCH better, in general. The one exception was
"Torque Uni", which had no trouble turning right - that was easy - but just
refused to turn left. It was also relatively hard (and tiring) to keep it
going straight ahead. I think Torque Uni was the one we found in a dorm
storage room and claimed as Uni Club Property...
Anyway, later that year, I borrowed a friend's Schwinn and went along on
the annual Uni Club Foster's Run (you see, Foster's is this REALLY GOOD
donut shop about 8 miles west of Mudd on route 66...). That was really
fun, besides being quite an accomplishment. And of course, there
were the donuts. Presently, I'm at Cornell University and trying
desperately to locate a 24" Schwinn unicycle. I have met two unics, one
of whom is attempting to build a multiple-speed unicycle. I don't think
that there are too many more of us here, but I've heard rumors of one guy
who created a unicycle "snow tire" so that he could ride around during the
icy Ithaca winters.
John Stimson