Showing posts with label Wheely Jones. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wheely Jones. Show all posts

Sunday, 7 October 2007

A yikecycle made for who?.....

It was my brothers birthday, and what did he want? A uni-cycle! Of course not just an ordinary unicycle.... a mountain unicycle. Cos as if it's not difficult enough to master the art of one wheeled perambulations, what you really need is an extra large wheel to make things even more unstable!

Initial attempts required some additional support. Jenny isn't actually 3 foot tall.


It's a little known fact that the unicycle was invented in response to the steel shortage crisis in 1907. Workers desperately required economical transport to the coal mines of south Wales. The unicycle was invented by a local entrepreneur, who would recycle pram wheels to make four cycles per pram. ' Wheely Jones' became famous in the valleys of Wales and his statue can be seen in the 'Uyp-Y-Pant' museum of transport.



My brother quickly developed a style of his own...here we see 'The Ballerina'.




The 'Fiddler on the Roof'....





And now being really ambitious, he demonstrates some 'semaphore'.







Jennys attempts were tentative...







...but she soon proved to have a natural aptitude.







Learning from past experiences, I donned appropriate safety gear.









To my cost, I later discovered that it was the lower regions that required protection and developed a nasty case of 'girlfriends lap'!!!