Life through the eyes of a unicyclist (Part 1 : The beginning :P )

About a year ago, when I moved to this beautiful city of Wollongong, I saw this guy riding through the university on a unicycle. I was like "WAT!" (*jaw dropping*) and I decided that I was going to get one for myself. Now my dad had given me $200 to buy a bicycle, and when I told him about the unicycle, he told me in his usual manner to do whatever I wanted to do(I don't think he understood completely when I said one wheel), but $200 was all I got (the unicycle costs $160) and that if I wanted a bicycle, I'd have to pay for that out of my pocket ( which I did just a week back)

Anyway as luck would have it, there was a unicycle convention in Wollongong, a week after I decided that a unicycle was what I wanted. Now you must be wondering - "What on earth is a Unicycle Convention ?!". Well, its exactly as it sounds - People with unicycles meet, and there are games, competitions (unicycle related,of course) and because its Australia, you have plenty of beer and barbecues. Sadly I didn't go for any of those, as I hadn't registered to be a part of the event, and um,yeah, I didn't know how to ride a unicycle. I just went in to see what kind of competitions unicyclists take part in, and you'll be surprised by what these guys do. The stuff they do is like a combination of what skateboarders and BMX bike riders do. I started talking to some guys about wanting to get into unicycling, and one of the guys got out his unicycle from the back of his van (he had 5 unicycles) and let me try it before I made my decision. Unicycling is quite tough the 1st few times you try riding, so I must have looked like an unbalanced top, but the guy assured me that I would be able to get the hang of it. I took his word and about 15 mins later proud owner of a lovely 24" unicycle.Got to meet some great guys there too- the oldest guy there was 75 and he showed me his unicycle which he'd built himself, and better yet, his unicycle had a set of gears which he'd designed himself. The youngest there was a little girl aged 6 and her riding wasn't half bad. Spent about 2 hrs just watching all these guys to gain some inspiration, and then decided to head back home to try out my new one-wheeler (as my sister calls it). Now in a city where there are only 5-6 other guys who ride unicycles, you get a lot of stares, honks, people waving, people cursing , kids staring at you and that started the moment I walked out of the convention. (more about peoples' reactions in my next post)
To make a long (and rather boring) story short, it took me about 3 weeks to learn the basics of unicycle riding, and I started using it for commuting over small distances. To clear one doubt people generally have- contrary to what you might think, unicyclists don't keep falling on their faces while learning. The unicycle falls a lot (takes quite a bashing actually),but the rider is always in a position to jump off without falling down him/herself .I know guys doing crazy stuff on their unicycles, including mountain unicycling (yeah, you heard that right). I'm one year into unicycling now, but I'm still a beginner compared to the other guys I know and just to give you an idea of stuff that people are doing,I've pasted a link to a youtube video (was too much of a pain to upload the video). Its an awesome sport, and I'm glad to be a part of it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHMyrN1F_AA&playnext_from=TL&videos=d_kA76MudvQ&feature=rec-LGOUT-exp_fresh%2Bdiv-1r-2-HM