Gangway Unicycling

More than a dozen years later it’s clear what an ill advised idea gangway unicycling was. Still is. Forever will be.

But on July 11, 2010 we brought Susan’s unicycle down to the boathouse for some lakeside pedaling. I no longer recall exactly why, but it had something to do with the realization that

1. I had never learned to ride a unicycle despite Susan’s having done so most of her life, and
2. the boathouse gangway offered the only place at Rosslyn that combined a flat hard surface with a railing.

And so our gangway unicycling debut took place with plenty of laughter and wobbling and tumbling. I survived. Susan excelled. Eventually we both acknowledged the outsized risk and foolhardy logic to our antics. We chalked up the challenge as a success mostly because we escaped broken bones, cracked skulls, and chipped teeth. As for my gangway unicycling skills (or, frankly, any unicycling skills for that matter), they don’t exist. For one wobbly foray pedaling while balancing atop a single wheel does not a unicyclist make.

Hive me two wheels, and I’m a confident pedaler on roadways and single track. But my unicycle days are still ahead.

Susan, on the other hand, had taught herself to ride a unicycle in her childhood basement. She rode around town, and she participated in parades. A Christmas or two prior to the summer these photograph memorialize I had gifted her a unicycle in the hopes of re-cultivating her hobby (and hopefully receiving a lesson or two myself.) She returned to single wheel pedaling as if she’d never taken a break. I, well, I’m still in need of a few more lessons…

Perhaps next summer, I’ll be ready for lesson number two! But this time we’ll be older and wiser ergo we will swap boathouse unicycling for something safer. Maybe a gymnasium with the padded floor?!