Unicycle history???

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicycle

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dunawan
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Yeah the wiki sums it up pretty well, essentially there are some
educated guesses as to how and when, but I'm afraid no-one knows who or
where.

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kington99

Dave

- what a thoroughly post-modern subversion of the cycling genre -
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The history portion of that Wikipedia entry seems very strong on the
bicycle part but a little weak on the unicycle part. It fails to
mention *why* penny-farthing bikes wanted to go up on their front
wheels. Because the rider sits so nearly above the front axle, sudden
deceleration or small, sudden bumps could be enough to lift that rear
wheel off the ground, often resulting in what was then called a
"header." This was because the wide handlebars on the penny-farthings
were not designed for passing over, or under, or around, so the rider
tended to get hooked on them and go down on his head.

If you managed to pedal hard enough, in time, you'd get a brief
one-wheeled ride before your back wheel would return to the ground.
Daring riders must have experimented with this concept, and learned to
keep the rear wheel off the ground while staying balanced.

The earliest unicycles were probably penny-farthing bikes with the
frame and rear wheel removed. That means they had wide handlebars and
no seats. Those came later.

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johnfoss

John Foss
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Sebastian Hoher's book "Unicycling from beginner to expert" has a nice
section on the history of unicycling. It is available in German and
English although I think the English version is well out of print.
Depending on where you live your local library may have a copy or you
might be able to get it through an interloan system.

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peter.bier

-Peter Bier
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There are a few history related and general info related links in the
'links' (http://tinyurl.com/2mqaee) section of the site.

There isn't a lot of authoritative unicycling history information on
the Internet. At least from what I've been able to find.

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john_childs

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Thank you all for the info.
I´m sure he can use some of it.

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kristian

www.frb-uni.dk
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Didn't Al Gore invent the unicycle? Or was that something else he
invented...??

Keld

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