A fellow grad student in math who is a real blowhard said to me that unicycling can't be that hard and said he could probably ride within one hour. I'm fixing 'ride' as passing level 1. I'm level 4 and have been riding for a few years.
As a statistician I think a guy who has never riden before in his early 20s has a probability very close to zero of pulling this off. So I put a large sum of money on it. He hasn't yet decided if he's going to follow though on his arrogance.
I'm most interested in who the type of person is who could pull this off, namely, level 1 within 1 hour of touching a uni. For fun I'm going to ask him to try the 'balance on one foot with eyes closed for 2 minutes' challenge that we had recently. I was able to do this with both feet, bare, on a crooked floor, but realize it is not easy. So I'm interested to test his confidence with just this relatively simple exercise.
I'm most interested in who the type of person is who could pull this off, namely, level 1 within 1 hour of touching a uni.
In my database (original dataset only) of 66 people, only one claimed to be able to ride (50 metres) within one hour. See the table in <www.xs4all.nl/~klaasbil\agelearn.htm>. A full level 1 (including the freemount and graceful dismount) is even more challenging. Not impossible but I would bet on a failure. Just make sure he has no prior experience.
Klaas Bil - Newsgroup Addict -- I think profile should make some stronger 145mm cranks - Ryan Atkins
