monocycle wonderland

It's that time of year again! Salt Lake got its first snow this morning. About two inches of it. It was a nice surprise to wake up to. Got me to thinking about how I coped with the snow last year. Well, at first I was discouraged. "How the heck are you supposed to unicycle when it's snowing?!?" Hmmm, I thought. "Maybe I'm crazy, but I could unicycle on the snow". So I rallied up my buddy Irwin, and headed for Brighton, one of Utah's many massive ski resorts. We walked up to the ski lift as casually as possible, unicycles in tow, and attempted to board. No passes, and no boards or skis. A shot in the dark at best. We were hoping to get by on amusement factor alone. Yeah, fat chance. We got shot down without a blink of the eye. That sucks, you're thinking. Well yes, but not really. Only one resort in the area actually owns the mountain their lifts are on, and that's Snowbird. The lift attendant actually told us we could hike the mountain if we wanted, since BLM actually owned the land, and Brighton just leased it. They just own the lifts and lodges.
So, off we went. Trudging up a relentless, unforgiving mountain. Of course, I'm in sneakers, since they're better to unicycle in. I cringed like a cat every time my feet broke through the groomed trail, and snow poured into the sides of my shoes. So we hiked, and hiked, and hiked some more. finally we made it to the bottom of the board park which is about the 3/4 point of the mountain. Good enough.
We had experimented at the bottom of the hill a bit, so we knew we could stay up on the most frequently skied parts of the groomed trails. But, we hadn't accounted for one important factor. The grade of the slope. I can ride down a pretty steep hill, probably steeper than you think. But there is one essential factor in that endeavor. Braking power, or pedal resistance. A unicycle can only go so fast. When riding a dirt hill, once going fast enough the pedals will just throw your feet right off unless you can give resistance, and slow to a manageable pace. On a snow hill there's no grip, and consequently no braking. On the steepest hills we attempted, we'd hit max speed in about 10 feet, and the unicycle would just slide right out from underneath, and there'd be me, dumped on my ass.
It wasn't all bad though. On medium grade hills, we'd hit max pedal velocity, and the slant of the hillside combined with the lack of grip would give another few mph to the equation. Basically, from the spectators point of view, it would appear that we were riding geared unicycles since we were going faster than we were pedaling. Pretty much skiing on a rotating wheel. Lots of fun. Since modern trail and trick unicycles come with a heavily treaded squared out tire, carving was completely attainable. Just lean into the turn and the tire edge digs in. Neat!
Eventually, we acquired larger diameter tires, and went back to really conquer the mountain. We did too! A 24" tire is very effective on the snow hill. It made for less walking, and more enjoyment. If you want to see some footage of the snow riding, just check out my unicycle video on youtube. The last clip of the video is some epic air off of a snow burm. You'll like it.
Well, thanks for checking in on Danger's Circus Adventures. Don't be a stranger!