How many uni'ists ARE there?

In a ride of 5000 bicyclists recently we had 10 Coker riders or 0.2% of
the total. Of the total Coker riders in the area I would say that close
to all of them showed up. Of the total bicyclists in the area, probably
only a small fraction showed up. This makes the 0.2% number meaningless
because the cross sections were probably not equally represented.

I think Coker riders are real unicyclists according to your loose
definition. If 0.2% of the population of the US were real unicyclists,
that would be 50000 riders. But these numbers again are totally
meaningless. There are WAY more than 5000 bicyclists in the Seattle area
and WAY more than 10 unicyclists. In addition, the fraction of people in
the US who are real bicyclists is probably quite small.

USA membership total might give you a better handle. There are certainly
quite a few real unicyclists who are not USA members, though. You have a
fairly large club. Find the ratio of the total membership of your club
to the ones who are USA members and multiply by that by the total USA
membership. That will get you closer but will still be inaccurate.

I trust I haven't helped you at all?

--
harper - TANKED at GASWORKS

-Greg Harper

B L U E S H I F T

JC is the ONLY main man. (except for Ken Looi)
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There should be a question on the next census. This is pretty important
stuff. I think we all agree.
-c

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I agree.I also think we should start a count.

Im ONE.

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forrestunifreak - whats up the heck with yams?

"Its all fun and games untill sombody gets hurt.then its freaking
hilarious."

~real tv guy
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'The unicycle roster' (http://www.unicycling.org/roster/) lists 1812
unicyclists in the US. There's your low number. How many unicyclists
know the unicycle roster even exists?

--
harper - TANKED at GASWORKS

-Greg Harper

B L U E S H I F T

JC is the ONLY main man. (except for Ken Looi)
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harper said:

*'The unicycle roster' (http://www.unicycling.org/roster/) lists 1812
unicyclists in the US. There's your low number. How many unicyclists
know the unicycle roster even exists? *

Im in there twice.beats me why.And my freind brandons in their
twice.😕 😕

and Dwight Bishop,My freind,from montana,has died.🙁

so thats 3 less.

--
forrestunifreak - David Lowell fanclub wannabe

Old school.new school.Im the bus driver.

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I'm sure John Foss and Tom Daniels have tried to guesstimate the number
of unicyclists in the US and in the world. The numbers would still be
just a guess.

Often when they count the number of bicyclists they use some low
standard like have you ridden a bike within the last year. That catches
the very casual riders.

How low of a standard should be set for counting a unicyclists. Is it
good enough just to know how to ride even if you haven't ridden one in
several years? Count just the people who have ridden a unicycle at
least once in that past year?

There are lots of school programs in the Seattle area and elsewhere that
teach unicycling. So there are people who have learned to unicycle in a
school program and don't have their own unicycle and haven't ridden a
unicycle since getting out of school. I'm sure most of us have met
people who learned to ride when they were in school but haven't ridden
since then. They ask if they can try your unicycle, they get on a bit
unsteady but manage to ride away. Are those people still unicyclists?
They know how to ride.

You can break that down by asking two questions. "How many people in the
US know how to ride a unicycle?" and "How many people in the US have
ridden a unicycle in the past year?".

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im a uniist!!! And proud of it!!

--
musketman
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I bet that most unicyclers that are really into unicycling and have
awesome unis, are probably on this forum. Otherwise, how would they know
that all that cool stuff existed? As for the people that have low tech
gear that might not be classified as a uni'ist, have never even heard of
Kris Holm.

-Lee

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leeman180 - I should be out unicycling
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john_childs said:

*How low of a standard should be set for counting a unicyclists.*

Now that's the *real* question, the one that usually doesn't get asked.
And thus we enter into the magical world of statistics, where nearly
anything can happen.

I have read that bicycling is the most popular sport/recreational
activity in the USA. Based on what? I think the criteria was that you
participated in the activity at least twice a year. So perhaps this is a
good metric to use if you want big numbers.

I think there are at least a million unicyclists in the United States.
Most of them are dormant, or "closet" unicyclists. Many may not want the
rest of the world to know they are capable of riding one. But if you
want to impress someone, that's the number to pull out.

Worldwide? It's a lot harder for me to guess, because some countries
have easy access to unicycles, while others have little to none. At
least they used to, but this continues to change pretty fast.

I have been asked the population question countless times by reporters.
Even they don't usually know "what kind" of unicycilists to count. So I
give 'em the big numbers.

As for the original estimate of around 10,000, this may be pretty
accurate, but it still depends on ones' metric. Riding once a week (or
52 days out of the year) would surely cut it way down. How about once a
month? Or owning more than one unicycle? If we're comparing to bicycle
numbers, we should use the same metric that's being used for those
numbers.

Quoted message said:

*There are lots of school programs in the Seattle area and elsewhere
that teach unicycling.*

Interestingly, many of these school groups/programs are completely
invisible to us here on the forums, or the Unicycling Society of
America. Either they don't know about us, or aren't interested. Most
elementary school programs are unlikely to get involved in our
organizations, because the kids are still living fairly insulated lives.
And perhaps because the USA has little to offer them.

So my favorite way to count unicyclists is to count everyone who has
learned how to ride. This includes all those aging unicyclists who "grew
up" and forgot all the fun. Some of us have come back. I used to meet
them all the time on Long Island, the many students of USA founder Bill
Jenack.

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johnfoss - The wilder Wilder

John Foss, the Uni-Cyclone
"jfoss" at "unicycling.com" -- www.unicycling.com

"Read the rules!" -- 'IUF Rulebook'
(http://www.unicycling.org/iuf/rulebook/) -- 'USA Rulebook'
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leeman180 said:

*I bet that most unicyclers that are really into unicycling and have
awesome unis, are probably on this forum.
...
As for the people that have low tech gear that might not be classified
as a uni'ist, have never even heard of Kris Holm. *

I'm afraid I'll have to disagree with you on both of those.

This forum is read by only a tiny fraction of the English-speaking
unicyclists out there. Certainly less than 10%. There's a big world out
there, and most of the unicyclists either don't know about us, or aren't
that interested.

As for Kris Holm, Most of the people who "have heard of" him are not
even unicyclists! Apparently he was on TV again somewhere the other
night, on Ripley's Believe it or Not. He's been seen by millions. I run
into people all the time, usually on trails, who describe Kris'
cliff-riding or bridge-riding activities. They may not know his name,
but they sure know who he is.

Many other unicyclists here know who Kris is, but buy low-tech gear
because that's all they need. There are threads about this all the time.
"I know I should get a KH, but I only have this much money..." Plus,
beginners don't need a KH (yet).

The "market" continues to develop...

--
johnfoss - The wilder Wilder

John Foss, the Uni-Cyclone
"jfoss" at "unicycling.com" -- www.unicycling.com

"Read the rules!" -- 'IUF Rulebook'
(http://www.unicycling.org/iuf/rulebook/) -- 'USA Rulebook'
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Dave,

According to the USA records there are currently 1274
registered people (623 households) in the national
organization.

-Karen

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Greg,

The USA, Inc. currently has exactly 1274 paid members in good standing
in 623 distinct households (i.e., at 623 distinct mailing addresses). I
agree completely with John Foss when he says this represents a very
small fraction of unicyclists in North America.

Tom Daniels
Former President
Unicycling Society of America, Inc.

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In article <[email hidden]>,

David Stone said:

I was just asked to consider about how many uni'ists there are nationwide.
My guess was no more than 10,000. By 'unicyclist,' I took the term to mean
'someone who is a uni enthusiast (owns a uni, rides it reg'ly) -- not just
someone who CAN uni.

Another Q: How many different makes of uni are there? This was hard to
answer since many of us own unis that comprise several parts (my trials
uni has parts from United, Miyata, Euro, Koviatchi (sp?), and some cheapo
pedals). But how many uni or uni-parts makers ARE there?

Thanks for your guesses and other answers.

David

I would take the number of sub-$100 plain old unis (like my Sun 20" er)
sold in a 2 year period and multiply it by a "success fraction"...
nominally i'll posit the SF to be ... 0.3. Then, i'll take the number of
fancy uni's bought by people not here-- the giraffe's, MUnis, anything
bigger than 26", anything with a person's name in (KH, DB) and apply a
factor of 1.7 prosletyzing factor+ number of posters times times years
experience (call it four) here times 2 (prosletyzing factor again).

Cheaps/year X last 2 years X .3 success-fraction
Fancys/year X last 3 years X 1.3 prosletyzing
Posters X 4 years X 2

The answer, which is intuitively obvious to the most casual observer,
shows itself to be 203,395 people in this country.

..max

--
brave sir stupid is played by max monningh, <[email hidden]>
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My local LBS claims he sells unicycles at about 1 per week.

In the thread "Unicycle articles (but wait there's more...)" Roger
Davies (of unicycle.uk.com) was quoted:

"it has been estimated that
one and a half per cent of the UK population can ride a unicycle"

Klaas Bil - Newsgroup Addict
--
"When it comes to the family jewels, you won't be having fun until they're having fun. - Jake D"

It is very easy to underestimate the number of unicyclists. At Indiana
University, I am the only person that I have ever seen riding a unicycle
around campus. So someone who didn't know better might conclude that
only 1 out of 35,000 students is a unicyclist. However, just about
every other day, someone stops me and tells me that they know how to
ride. Most of them give it a whirl and manage to wobble around for a
few meters before falling off. By the 3 or 4th try, they usually can
manage a respectable ride of 20 or 30 meters. Occasionally, I meet
someone who really knows how to ride and we trade stories about breaking
hardware.

Anyway, If I were going to hazard a guestimate based on no evidence, I
would guess that 1 out of every 150 university age students know how to
ride a unicycle in the US. Unfortunately, noone here at Indiana U.
seems to be interested in unicycling with me. :-{

--Amos

--
Amos_And_Ego
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