Feature: The Cal Poly Unicycle Club builds community, skills, and a passion for all things on one-wheel

The reverberation from a bicycle wheel hitting the pavement is constant. A vibration that moves from the bouncing rubber tire into the metal spokes.

“These can take an absolute beating,” Cal Poly third-year Jacob Hinshaw says as yet another unicycle hits the basketball court in front of the Sierra Madre dorms and a student jumps free. “They can take a beating. As long as it’s the unicycles and not us.”

Beginning unicyclists learn how to fall off a bike without also hitting the ground pretty quickly, he adds. Although, they’re not always successful.

At this particular Tuesday’s weekly Cal Poly Unicycle Club practice, first-year student Audrey Haindfield sits with her left leg outstretched. Braced in a plastic cast, Haindfield nurses a broken fibula—something she accomplished coming down the Rock Garden at Cerro San Luis’ summit on her unicycle.

Unicycles of varying sizes litter the ground next to her, as club members eat, pump up tires, and chat. A couple of unicyclists hold onto the chain-link fence next to the court. Others hold onto their seats, spinning, cycling, and hopping around.

“I had trouble crossing the street on a unicycle before I got here,” Hinshaw says from underneath his helmet topped by a rubber duck. “They took me mountain [unicycling] and rock climbing at Bishop my first week, and I was hooked.”

That’s how a lot of members feel.

But it’s not just the challenge of unicycling that hooked them. It’s the camaraderie and sense of belonging that keeps them coming back. Hinshaw got involved in club leadership to share that with the greater community, to grow the club, and to give back to the people who gave to him.

Three years ago, when Hinshaw got to Cal Poly, the club had about seven members. This year—the 2024-25 school year—with approximately 25 to 30 club members, it’s one of the larger collegiate unicycle clubs (if not the largest), according to Hinshaw. Over Memorial Day weekend, the club hosted its second annual SLO Uni Weekend, inviting other colleges and unicyclists to participate.

“I just love the community that unicycling gives,” Hinshaw said later. “I really connected with the people. I connected with what unicycling is all about. It’s connected and inclusive, and it’s really fun, and I just want to get people involved in it.”

Building community

Hinshaw found unicycling during the COVID-19 pandemic. He put a unicycle on his 16th birthday list for fun, he said. And his parents got him one.

“Before Cal Poly, I’d never met another unicyclist,” he said. “So I just taught myself on a fence out in front of my high school.”

It was a chain-link fence, very similar to what lines one side of the basketball court the club uses as a practice space.

“Usually when people start here, we have them up on the fence as well,” he said. “You need it for balance at first just to keep yourself up, either that or another person.”

He went to high school in Lompoc and eventually became known as the “unicycle guy.” During COVID-19, he also started working in the Cabrillo High School Aquarium, which eventually led him to study marine biology at Cal Poly.

He didn’t know the Unicycle Club existed before he applied to school, but he was anxious about finding an extracurricular activity that worked for him. So he started with a list of clubs—including the unicycle, juggling, and marine science clubs that he currently participates in.

“I wanted to find something that I could just fit into. I was paranoid about not finding my people,” he said. “What got me hooked and keeps me coming back is probably the process of learning something new, almost constantly.”

A.J. Kinsella-Johnson, a past president of the club who recently graduated with a chemistry degree and still shows up to practices, helped teach Hinshaw that first year. Kinsella-Johnson also didn’t know about the club prior to applying to Cal Poly. But he’s been on the one-wheel express since he was a second grader in Washington state.

Snoqualmie, Washington, had a unicycling after-school program and community club. By the time he reached middle school, Kinsella-Johnson said he had already taken on a leadership role in the club and was teaching riders from elementary to high school.

“I guess for me, the biggest part is the community. The group of people that self-selects to be in unicycling is a really cool group,” Kinsella-Johnson said, adding with a laugh: “You’re willing to be really bad at something over and over again.”

Most of his background is freestyle, or tricks on flat ground, but he—like other club members—also does a lot of mountain unicycling and uses his road unicycle as a commuter.

Teaching others, he said, is in a unicyclist’s blood.

“Part of unicycling culture is you teach things immediately, and you’re always willing to teach people. The groups of unicyclists that don’t do that within their group of people don’t last very long,” he said. “How else are you going to keep people? … You have to make more unicyclists.”

That’s especially true of a college club, he said. But it was also true for the club in Snoqualmie, which lost its leader and eventually its practice space. What was once a program that constantly brought new, young people into the unicycling fold and taught them the skills they needed to learn became more of a program for the people who already knew what they were doing. And those people eventually aged out or moved on.

That club ended up falling apart while Kinsella-Johnson was at Cal Poly, and it donated many of its unicycles to Cal Poly’s club, which now has its own bike locker and communal cycles for everyone to use and learn on.

“A lot of what the club has done since I’ve been here is growing and becoming a more public part of campus,” he said. “A small group of riders that was trying to recruit and trying to teach.”

KJ Johnson’s first club practice last September had so many people attend that it was split into the upper and lower basketball courts. Luckily, the club has an abundance of unicycles, Johnson said.

“Technically, I had touched a unicycle before,” said the first-year, who prefers they/them pronouns.

The soon-to-be club president said they first learned about unicycling while attending circus camp. They attended the camp to learn more about juggling and other performing arts. Juggling eventually led Johnson back to unicycling at Cal Poly.

“When I was applying to schools, I was looking for juggling clubs, and I knew I was going to show up to the juggling club at Cal Poly,” they said.

Incidentally, the juggling and unicycling clubs shared the same booth at the club showcase and many members participate in both. Although they’re still very much in the learning stage of unicycling, Johnson said they really enjoy mountain unicycling.

“The learning process involves falling, which is scary,” Johnson said. “You really have to want to keep trying because it’s not easy, but it is fun once you get it.”

The civil engineering major wanted to move into a leadership role because of how much the club has helped them grow. Johnson said they were anxious in high school, which prevented them from being themself and made it harder to make friends.

But that’s not the case anymore.

“I feel like I have a connection to these people, and I feel like I can be myself,” Johnson said. “Hopefully, we keep diversifying our people.”

Down the mountain

No one goes mountain unicycling alone.

That’s the club motto when it comes to what Hinshaw said he describes for beginners as a “hike with a unicycle.”

Most unicycles are fixed wheel—you pedal forward, it moves forward; you pedal back, it moves backward. There aren’t any gears, and the brake is generally located underneath the cycle’s saddle.

So unicycling uphill is extremely difficult.

“Some people have quads of steel,” Haindfield with the broken foot said.

“If you’re going uphill, you need some momentum,” Hinshaw added. “I’m in it for the downhill.”

Even with momentum, a unicyclist isn’t likely to pedal all the way up Cerro San Luis or Bishop Peak. At some point, that cycle goes up on their shoulders and they hike. Then, they ride down.

“That’s the fun part,” he said.

Beginners, Hinshaw said, can’t ride all of the terrain. So they often also do some hiking on the way down, too.

“On the way down, you’re looking for fun features, basically,” Hinshaw said. “I’ll ride every inch of trail.”

He actually rides every inch of trail multiple times. It’s called sessioning—where a rider will repeatedly ride a section that may be difficult or especially fun. Hinshaw describes the tough or rockier sections as puzzles for him to figure out.

“I like just thinking through what I can do better, what I can change,” he said. “And then, once you figure it out, it’s usually a lot easier to repeat it. Because you’ve figured out what path you need to take, what the mechanics are to get through it.”

Most weekends during the school year, the club heads up one of the local peaks, goes to Montaña de Oro, or rides the Cuesta Grade. Using those as practice hills, club members also travel to participate in mountain unicycling, or muni, events.

About 14 students headed to Moab MuniFest over spring break, and a similar number joined for Arizona Muni Weekend in February—which included a trip to Sedona.

In Moab, Kinsella-Johnson said, everyone stayed at the same campground and participated in the same activities. The first day was an easier unicycling day, not too technical, while the second day involved a 15-to-17-mile ride along the Porcupine Rim Trail, which they were shuttled to the top of and rode down.

“For a lot of riders, those weekends are kind of their only time they’re interacting with other unicyclists,” he said. “I really wasn’t into muni weekends until I got here.”

But he likes them now.

“Part of it’s the challenge, and just kind of like seeing if you can get further up that trail than you have before,” he said. “You feel really connected to the trail in a way. … On a mountain bike, you don’t feel every bump in the way that you do on a uni.

“You constantly have to pay full attention, and I like how meditative that is.”

Unicycles don’t have shocks to ease the impact of a jump. The unicyclist’s legs are the shocks.

“The fanciest thing I have on any of my unicycles is a brake,” Kinsella-Johnson said. “You’re in complete control of everything that it does, for better or worse, and that’s really cool.”

Heading to the University of Utah for graduate school, he said he already knows people in Salt Lake City’s unicycling community—thanks in part to regional unicycling events, muni weekends, and connections between unicyclists.

“I’ll definitely be riding with them,” he said. “It’s a very kind of cohesive group. Everyone knows everyone. … You know you found your people.”

SLO Uni

Cal Poly’s H-16 parking lot was mostly empty on May 24, except for some orange cones, chalk arrows, and a group of unicyclists preparing for the first event of the SLO Uni Weekend: the criterium race.

Hinshaw, who helped organize the weekend with other club members, was laying out cones as people chatted and pumped up bike tires near open car trunks.

Kinsella-Johnson cycled up on a unicycle he called “Squeaky.”

“I didn’t bring any pads … just a helmet,” he said. “It’s OK. As long as I don’t crash, it’s fine.”

The race across old, bumpy pavement consisted of six laps, starting with a slight downhill that led to a slight uphill climb, 180-degree turns, straight sections, and zig-zags.

Every time another group of unicyclists pedaled up, the gathering crowd greeted them with a yell. Many were Cal Poly club members; others came from places like Los Angeles.

One woman was attempting to learn how to ride a non-fixed hub unicycle. It’s similar to an actual bicycle, different from the fixed hubs that most unicyclists are used to. She was having a hard time keeping the unicycle upright, but she managed to leap off and land on her feet repeatedly as the unicycle skidded across the ground.

Although the event was scheduled to start at 1 p.m., it didn’t get going until after 1:30. As many club members have said: Unicycle time is a thing.

“Well, I guess we’re ready,” Hinshaw said.

The first heat set up with seven cyclists at the starting line. As they raced, more unicyclists trickled in and they joined the crew already there, hollering and cheering at the racers.

Hinshaw was in the lead for all but the final lap, when Kinsella-Johnson pulled ahead on the downhill stretch and kept that lead until the end. The race took a little longer than eight minutes to finish.

Each racer left their unicycle where it lay and struggled to catch their breath, as others prepped for their turn at the criterium.

Unicycle basketball, capture the flag, a trip up Cerro San Luis, and a few hours at the skate park on Santa Rosa Street were also on the agenda for the weekend.

Later in the summer, some club members will head to Michigan for the North American Unicycling Competition and Convention. But not everyone has the ability to travel.

Hinshaw believes the club will host a third annual SLO Muni Weekend next year and hopes it will continue after that.

“We go to a lot of events elsewhere, but not everyone gets to go,” he said. “So we wanted to bring a bunch of unicyclists to Cal Poly so everyone could experience it.”