A riding buddy brought this article to my attention. It ran in Nov., '06 in the "Christian Science Monitor" of all places! I don't subscribe to that publication, but found it online: http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1127/p20s01-alsp.html
The featured rider in the article is someone named Eugene Cathcart, who is termed, "a pioneer of the 'impossible' sport". I haven't heard of ths person before, but I certainly had no idea that he was the pioneer of MUni.😕 Anyway, there are the usual bits of misinformation, like:"Though top speeds in unicycling reach only 3 m.p.h." Haha! Anyway, check it out..and someone please enlighten me on WHO Eugene Cathcart is!
-- MuniAddict
"On Earth it would be...12 noon" (Twilight zone episode, "To serve man."😉
the MUnicyclist, who tends to be a daredevil, a geek, or both...
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the mild- mannered and ponytailed Cathcart - whose earnest geek vernacular is flavored with words like "gyroscopic" and "near-frictionless"...
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he probably looks like a geeky, over-padded failure of an athlete...
They really seem to think that we are wierd geeks, don't they?
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To anyone else, he probably looks like a geeky, over-padded failure of an athlete, sliding and falling and scrambling after his wheel. But this is peak performance MUni.
Not really "peak performance Muni", and probably not what he actually does...
It looks like the Uni that Eugene Cathcart was riding was a Dirt Uni. They have a very unique frame design and are suposed to be very good albiet expensive hand built unicycles. ($900 a unicycle.) Thier slogan was "Dirt Uni - Unicycles that shred." An interesting fact about them was that they were the only Uni that I have ever seen that puts V-brake posts on the frame instead of Magura 4 bolt brake mounts. Dirt Uni is or was based in Oregon so everything seems logical.
I can hit speeds of up to 9mph on the road on my 24" unicycles with 165mm cranks. On single trails though when the riding is technical I doubt that I go over 3MPH so maybe they were talking about top speeds in technical terrain.
Anyway if anyone knows what happened to the Dirt Uni company please let me know. Their website has not been coming up for the past half year.
Yes, I was correct earlier this morning in identifying the Dirt Uni frame in the article. Eugene is even listed in UDC as a distributor. I do wonder though what happened to his website. I guess that after disigning such shredding unicycles Eugene has the right to be called a pioneer of the muni sport. I remember the website photos and the Dirt Unis were very impressive with original desings very different from anything else on the market.
Unicorn
Dirt Uni Contact: Eugene Cathcart 1940 Southwest Forest Ridge Avenue Bend, OR 97702 541-350-3196 phone 541-382-2444 fax Back to top
