When I told my grandmother years ago that I’d go back to Uni one day I don’t think this is what either of us had in mind!
I’ve got to admit that while I absolutely _love_ mountain biking to bits I have missed being out in the bush on a mountain unicycle from time to time. It’s a unique feeling – excuse the pun.
Blame it on the growing popularity of MTB Fat Bikes, but the uni I’ve had my eye on for a while is the Nimbus Oregon – a fat tyred mountain unicycle based around the Surly Marge Lite rim. Add in the big Surly Nate 3.8 tyre and stuff like a disc brake and handlebar and you’ve got a cool and crazy one wheeled hummer.
The Oregon has been hoot to ride so far, but I tell ya – one off road ride on a uni and you remember just how much more difficult trail is on one wheel vs two. It is great fun though, trying to negotiate stuff you’d hardly notice on an MTB. I ended the ride with a few creek crossings, getting pretty well drenched in the process. That’s another fun thing about uni’s – you fall off a lot!
I haven’t mountain biked seriously in 15+ years, and have muni’ed for 5, without riding a bike on a trail at all. I’ve been “racing” in local mountain bike races on my muni, and of course coming in last… or maybe first, hard to say. Sometimes I wonder if I just showed up to a race with a bike, would I do well? Has the difficulty of muni made me an awesome mtber? There’s no way to know.
Dunno Buzz, my experience is that there isn’t a great deal of cross over between MTB and muni. YMMV of course. Try it and see I guess! 🙂