Responses to unicycling

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2151169/

by PaulHoule • 2 years ago

230 338 2 years ago

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

grumple3• 2 years ago

This mirrors my own experience as a unicyclist (both traditional and electric). Reactions are very common, and vary wildly. It's rare to pass someone and not get some sort of reaction, and if you stop near them it's always "was it hard to learn?" or "what's that cost?" for the electric one.

bradrn2• 2 years ago

OK, I’ll bite… was it hard to learn?

the_gastropod2• 2 years ago

Not the person you asked, but as a fellow unicyclist, I can say: not really?! I think most people could get the basics (staying upright, and turning a bit sloppily) in a few hours.

When I first learned, I setup a couple large garbage bins several feet apart, and just tried to get from one to the other, using the bins to keep up / turn around / go back. As you improve, move the bins farther apart, and rinse / repeat until you’ve got it.

grumple3• 2 years ago

The old school unicycle took maybe a few hours and felt kind of safe to learn. You just step forward to get off.

The electric felt a lot more dangerous to learn. I practiced going back and forth in a hallway (holding the wall), then practiced riding freely and turning in a parking lot, then started riding around my neighborhood.

It is dangerous, though. One wheel in contact with the ground, people don't know how to react to you, plus high speeds and poorly maintained roads mean a mistake by you or another person can mean a hospital trip with serious injuries. I think the risk is easily 10x or more than what it is to ride a bike around.

insickness2• 2 years ago

To be able to actually ride, it took me about two weeks, practicing 30 minutes per day. But then I was still pretty wobbly for a month or so.

amelius3• 2 years ago

One question: don't you miss the gears?

FredPret2• 2 years ago

On the other hand: no chain that can fall off

grumple3• 2 years ago

An electric unicycle is like an automatic transmission. It just works and goes the speed you demand by leaning. Gears are a bad user experience on bikes too imo; ideally we'd have automated or gradual gearing (in fact, I know some ebikes have this).

an1sotropy• 2 years ago

Also tracks my experience as a unicyclist. When you keep poking at humanity with the same but unusual prompt, you glimpse how similar people can be. To the quip about losing a wheel, my sadly habituated response is "that was the training wheel!", and then they chuckle, because it's new to them ...

ydant2• 2 years ago

Mirrors mine, too. Although I didn't get to the travel stage on unicycle (never got outside parking lots), so most of my experience with other people was on electric unicycle early in their arrival into our area.

(in the US) The one constant was that overwhelmingly older men and women were interested and impressed and had genuine questions or compliments without making jokes.

The younger you got with males, the more aggressive and posturing the questions and behavior. Younger females were non-memorable - mainly just looked or ignored. Pre-teen, kids of both genders are just curious.

There's a definite similarity in the behaviors of people as they get older and the very young in how they approach new and interesting things like a (e)unicycle. As people get older they seemed to lose all need to posture and prove themselves and they seemed more comfortable exposing the vulnerability of being curious and ignorant.

Men absolutely love to ask the cost.

insickness2• 2 years ago

I've been riding an electric unicycle for years and I don't think I've gotten a single negative comment, aside from riding somewhere (they thought) I shouldn't have. But those same comments would have been directed at a scooter or bike.

Typically when people marvel at my wheel, I tell them if they give me a few bowling pins I can juggle as well.

bradrn2• 2 years ago

(2007), though I suspect things haven’t changed much since then.

Freak_NL• 2 years ago

I wonder if he ever considered a follow-up for the penny-farthing.

nathancahill2• 2 years ago

We need a similar study for aggression against (road) cyclists too. I've never seen a sport provoke so much aggression from men.

soco• 2 years ago

Can't say much about the US, but around here I suppose if the cyclists would stick to the traffic regulations there would be somewhat less aggression against them.

ljf6• 2 years ago

If you've ever been around cars (in a car, as a cyclist or as a pedestrian) and sat and watched them for any period - you'll see a huge number of traffic offenses committed by those in cars - mainly using phones, but also speeding, red light jumping, aggressive under and over-taking. But for some reason most people are blind to this and don't get aggressive with drivers. Why might that be?

avianlyric3• 2 years ago

I wish. If drivers stuck to traffic regulations it would be safer for cyclists. The number of cars I see jumping red lights while cycling is obscene, the number of drivers who deliberately closed pass cyclists is also obscene. And that’s before we get to drivers who deliberately injure cyclists, like the guy who deliberately ran me down and hospitalised me for the crime of not wanting him to overtake me while passing through a narrowing in the road that wasn’t wide enough for both of us.

vdaea3• 2 years ago

The fact that even those who don't drive cars hate cyclists says something. As a pedestrian I see myself much more endangered by cyclists, which swerve everywhere (including the pavement), than by cars, which stay within their lanes.

pard68• 2 years ago

I don't know about where you live but often as not in the US (varies by state) cyclists have different laws to abide by then cars. Most motorists (and cyclists for that matter) are wholly unaware of this.

jabroni_salad• 2 years ago

Motorcycles get treated just as bad. Cruising in the right lane at normal speed? Minding your own business at a stoplight? Someone will take it upon themselves to make sure you are paying attention and the penalty for failure is that you die.

Car people see anything 'weird' and just lose their minds to the point that killing another human is an acceptable outcome to them. It's extremely reliable. Get a bike and you will find out exactly how many psychopaths are out there.

marcandre2• 2 years ago

If only the traffic regulations, and roads were actually designed for bikes. Check the amazing "Not Just Bikes" channel on Stop signs, intelligent traffic lights, and read on Idaho stop. Let's not take existing regulations like the "absolute truth and ultimate way of being". Jaywalking used to be illegal, and in my country at least, pot went from being a crime to being sold by state stores.

treyd• 2 years ago

The difficulty is that the design of cycling infrastructure in many cities (but to be fair, especially in the US) is so poor that it's actually more dangerous to follow the standard cycling rules than it is to take certain liberties away from them.

Lio5• 2 years ago

That's a strawman argument.

EDIT: I make it a point of honour to try to stick to the Highway Code whether on my bike or in my car. Still random drivers harass me when I'm on my bike.

I had someone lean out of a car and try to put a plastic bag over my head when I was cycling once. I would love to hear what I was supposed to have done to justify that.

You just have to look at how the press drone on about "lycra clad louts". There's an obsession with identifying us by what we wear as a justification for violence.

That's not hurt feelings but actual broken bones and blood violence.

Off the top of my head I can think of several newspaper articles calling for barbed wire to be strung across cyclepaths in the UK (Hahaha, joking of course!) and reports where that happened and someone was seriously injured. All in the same paper (Hahaha, no connection obviously!)

YouTube is full of people in cars attacking cyclists and it's got fuck all to do with breaking traffic regulations.

the_snooze• 2 years ago

Even when there's dedicated bike infrastructure, cars seem to love encroaching on that space, in a completely unpredictable, selfish, and dangerous manner. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0w4mfGa22ZY

Kalium• 2 years ago

Where I am, I get a lot of aggressive behavior from drivers because I am sticking to the traffic regulations and they don't like it. The laws here very explicitly give me a clear right to use almost all roads.

Many drivers imagine that bicycles are not permitted in roads and some take it upon themselves to make my life dangerous in an effort to enforce that.

evantbyrne2• 2 years ago

No, not in my experiences at all. Road rage against non-car traffic seems to be mostly based on the fact that they mildly inconvenient and easy targets. Unfortunately, psychopaths and people with poor impulse control live amongst us and are allowed to drive. Let's be absolutely clear about what's going on here: motorists murder cyclists all the time.

PaulHoule• 2 years ago

I dunno, if they could take whatever makes bikes invisible and apply it to tanks and military aircraft they'd have to make it a secret.

gonzo41• 2 years ago

Bad mirrors, and inattentive drivers. I'm not sure how you packaged that up.

FredPret2• 2 years ago

Bikes are really hard to see past the A pillars of a car

Dah00n2• 2 years ago

It would likely show better results if it looked at non-sporting events instead. What happens in everyday traffic is likely the cause.

Now I think about it, I'm in doubt if you actually categorized cyclists training on open roads as participating in sports? Swap out "cyclists" with "car enthusiasts". That's nonsense.

ETA: I'm a cyclist myself.

nathancahill2• 2 years ago

Definition of the English word sport:

- a game, competition, or activity needing physical effort and skill that is played or done according to rules, for enjoyment and/or as a job

- all types of physical activity that people do to keep healthy or for enjoyment

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/sport

piva002• 2 years ago

In my limited experience biking in different cultures it's quite directly correlated to how much emphasis car culture has in society. Limited experience because I've only cycled in a few countries but is my main mode of transportation.

In Brazil and the USA quite often I experienced aggressive drivers when cycling, actively driving closer to me on a bike while shouting to get off the road, and twice in São Paulo I got hit by a car purposefully (waiting for traffic lights and got bumped from behind by a car once, cycling uphill and a car passed me and swerved onto my side on another).

While in Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands I never experienced a single aggressive driver when cycling. In Germany I had a couple of drivers shouting at me in Berlin but given it's Berlin I can't generalise if German drivers are more adversarial against cyclists, it's a very car-centric culture though so I guess it will correlate.

Just some anecdotes, unsure how much of a pattern it is, would be interesting to compare with other people in car-heavy cultures (Australia perhaps?).

oh_sigh• 2 years ago

I've only gotten respect as a road cyclist in Spain, Portugal, France, and Italy. I did a 2500 mile trip roughly on the path Paris->Porto->Barcelona->Rome, without a single bad experience. I got home to New Jersey, the next day I went out for a ride, and a dude in a truck threw multiple batteries at me as he drove past.

ab71e5• 2 years ago

Noticed this too, there is some rational annoyance with 'impeding traffic' (perceived or actual) or breaking rules but the impact there is so small that it doesn't explain the negative response. I've had people literally threaten to kill me for making them make a minimal adjustment to drive around me?

My theories about this:

* A cyclist forces the driver to go out of 'auto pilot' and actively think about driving for a few seconds, which annoys people disproportionately

* Cyclists represent a sort of 'others' that we project all kinds of negative feelings on.

* Cycling for transportation in North America is only recently taken seriously and this can be used to blame them for any kind of new societal changes that are perceived negatively (liberalism, inflation, political correctness, higher taxes).

michaelt• 2 years ago

After 20 years of daily rush-hour road cycling in and around London, Cambridge, Coventry, Bristol, Hertfordshire and Surrey, I can report the following verbal responses:

Early years: No reaction

Inquisitive 5-12 year olds: No reaction

Adolescent boys: 1x "Nice bike", 1x trying to race me while doing a wheelie (but no verbal response)

Adult women: No reaction

Adult men: 1x started exchanging nods with me after passing each other going in opposite directions daily for ~3 years (but no verbal response)

LeifCarrotson2• 2 years ago

Wow, that sounds nice.

After 5 years of 3-season daily commuting in the midwestern US, I can report 2 instances of being struck by side mirrors, one instance where the driver matched speed and pushed me off the road and off the shoulder into the ditch before speeding away, 4 times getting hit by thrown beer cans or other trash, twice had tires chirp when someone on their phone noticed me only at the last second, 3 times someone in a diesel has stood on the brake and accelerator simultaneously to "rolled coal" on me, and I've received more middle fingers and curses of the general form "Get off the road, asshole/fucker/idiot!" than I can count.

The other big danger is a lot of new or timid drivers are afraid to cross the center line even in passing zones, and instead of giving the legally mandated 3 feet outside town/5 feet in city limits, will try to pass very slowly in the same lane. This causes a line of traffic on the 35 MPH (nominally ~55 km/h, actually driven at ~45mph/70kph) street, which provokes the drivers caught in the line.

The more physical assaults went down significantly after I mounted a highly-visible action camera on top of my helmet, but verbal assaults seemed to go up.

s1artibartfast6• 2 years ago

Road cyclists infuriate me - Ask me anything.

I think most of it comes from shockingly dangerous behavior, which I am concerned will blowback on me.

I've seen cyclists in the freeway slow lane, cut across 8 lanes of busy traffic, and they seem to love windiest roads with hairpin turns and no visibility. Perhaps most brazenly, in the middle lane of 65 mile road, in black at night, with no reflectors.

velcrovan• 2 years ago

I've seen none of those things, ever, living most my life in what passes in the US for a bike-friendly city (Minneapolis). For sure, if I did see those things while driving, and if I could do so safely, I would be rolling down my windows and yelling.

What I have seen, often, is drivers on residential or downtown streets bearing down on law-abiding cyclists with murderous aggression for no apparent reason than simply having to share the road. General statements like yours kind of support the notion that many drivers who have had a crazy experience with a poor cyclist feel justified in taking out the anger from that experience on any and all cyclists.

Ajay-p• 2 years ago

The amount of ignorance and pure aggression against road cyclists in America is rising to the level of a hate crime, IMHO. Mostly male, it seems, drivers are not willing to accept that not only must they share the road with cyclists, they must do so in a safe manner. The number of memes and comments promoting violence against cyclists must seem to only come from the most ignorant of society.

dgfitz4• 2 years ago

The number of cyclists I see on a daily basis completely IGNORE traffic signs, lights, signals, and no-turn-on-red leads me to believe the cyclists must hate themselves more than any driver possibly could.

autoexec4• 2 years ago

Drivers "hate" cyclists because the lives and safety of both themselves and their passengers depend on everyone else on the road behaving in ways that are safe and predictable. It doesn't matter if the other person is on a bike or in a car, if they're not following the flow of traffic, if they're not following the rules of the road, and if they're acting in unpredictable/unsafe ways they will be seen as a threat, as being irresponsible, and as being rude. That's where the hostility comes from. Many people are going to be hostile to other people who threaten the lives/safety of themselves and their loved ones.

evantbyrne2• 2 years ago

I experience this frequently when riding my electric longboard down the side of a particular block of 25mph road downtown. It isn't just men either, I've had quite a few women yell obscenities or throw me off my board by cutting me off and brake checking me. Nothing about this particular block of road seems inappropriate to ride down compared to others, but people fucking rage when they see someone on a board. Not a big city either and just a block away is a thriving area that is designed to have cars frequently stop for walkers.

goostavos• 2 years ago

Nothing to do with cars. I commute via bicycle and actively hate road cyclist, too. Once a person starts donning spandex they seem to lose their personhood. They become something else. Angrier. Impatient. Self important. Impervious to the rules of the road.

mellosouls4• 2 years ago

Tbf you only have to go online to the cycling forums, or walk any country shared trail to see plenty of aggression, dangerous control and obnoxious, blinkered behaviour and comments.

Cyclists are just as bad as drivers when it comes to contemplating The Other.

eropple• 2 years ago

I'll support this comment from a pedestrian, to whom bicycles present some nontrivial danger. Drivers, however, choose to The Other themselves via driving increasingly larger masses of steel, and IME at least seem to be driving ever more incautiously over time in ways that have consequences further down the weight classes. Almost got creased today, even, crossing a quiet suburban street because somebody blew through a four-way stop without looking dead ahead of them. It's supposed to be a 25mph zone.

"They're talking mess at the poor benighted car havers" isn't going to fly. (Signed, a car haver who walks ~five miles a day; you are all full of sin.)

uses• 2 years ago

Cyclists can't murder motorists with their bikes though, can they?

angst_ridden• 2 years ago

As a frequent pedestrian in Los Angeles, the hierarchy of people being absolutely furious at me for walking on the sidewalks or using crosswalks goes (in decreasing order of rage): 1. Pickup/SUV drivers 2. Luxury car drivers 3. Other automobile drivers 4. Cyclists with fancy bikes and cycling gear 5. Dog walkers who are paying attention to their phone, not their dog 6. Ordinary cyclists 7. Pedestrians staring at their phones

sagarm2• 2 years ago

Drivers are killing 50% more pedestrians per year than 2019.

arp2427• 2 years ago

Some of my most aggressive encounters have been with women. It's about 50/50 I'd say. This has been in England, Ireland, and New Zealand.

Of course n=1, my experiences may not be representative, etc.

dang• 2 years ago

Please let's not go into the car vs bike flamewar topic - it's one of the worst and most repetitive.

(Dogs vs cats is bad too)

rob74• 2 years ago

TIL that the well-known stereotypical "circus music" is actually a march called "Entrance of the Gladiators" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entrance_of_the_Gladiators).

number6• 2 years ago

Changed the name because of personal interest in the Roman Empire... It was originally titled "Grande Marche Chromatique", reflecting the use of chromatic scales.

Throw849492• 2 years ago

It would be nice to include some context, like was driver on road or pedestrian walkway, were they wearing a helmet, how fast and safely they were driving...

Unicycling is nothing extraordinary that would deserve prize, pizza delivery guys do that all the time. I live in busy tourist city and I am very tired of inconsiderate unicycling drivers!

Different reaction from men can be explained in what would follow in case of crash. Men get far less help when injured. And if driver gets injured, men are expected to step up and provide help!

ydant2• 2 years ago

I assume you mean electric unicycle?

I can't imagine delivering food on a regular unicycle - it's a lot of work.

The linked article was from 2007. He was definitely talking about a regular unicycle, and I doubt speed was a factor. The "unsafe" perception from others would be from the inherent wobbling associated with someone learning how to ride - it takes a while to get really smooth.

Throw849492• 2 years ago

Electric or non electric does not matter.

And why would you put "unsafe" into quotes? Person who falls from unicycle is heavy, and can injure themselfs or another person.

Boogie_Man8• 2 years ago

I'm not able to tell: does the author imply the "lost your wheel?" type comedy questions are put-downs? I have trouble seeing it that way. I would call it more of a jest than an insult and more of a basic attempt at humor that notes the uniqueness of the situation. To call noting anything that is odd a put down stretches the limits of credibility.

vdaea3• 2 years ago

Same thing I thought. Really “I suppose it saves on tyres” is a put-down? Maybe it's the author who doesn't have a sense of humour.

OTOH he thinks women saying “You should dress up as Santa for the children” is praise and not a put-down.

pc864• 2 years ago

It's a pretty safe guess that a woman saying anything to a man on a unicycle should be taken as a put-down unless there is an astounding level of evidence to the contrary.

triceratops• 2 years ago

Of course it's praise. Any woman saying this to a man clearly wants to have his children. /s

(Seriously I think it really depends on the tone and context.)

kmoser4• 2 years ago

There's a reasonable chance "You should dress up as Santa for the children" is intended as a positive suggestion. There's very little chance "I suppose it saves on tyres" is anything but a snide remark, since nobody in their right mind really thinks unicyclists are trying to save on tires by not riding bikes.

Any question which isn't asked with the intention of receiving a response can be considered snark, which while it may not directly be intended as a put-down, is still insulting because it is making light of the author who is not obviously partaking in unicycling to make people laugh.

bogwog2• 2 years ago

If they sent him that comment as a text message, then maybe it's not a put down. Obviously, there's body language and tone of voice that can't be represented in the paper.

Boogie_Man8• 2 years ago

Unless they're flexing their 24 inch pythons and asking me what I'm gonna do brother when Hulkamania takes my other wheel it'd be hard to take it as aggression.

HanClinto8• 2 years ago

I rode a unicycle to class in college for several years, and in my experience, it was generally done in a mild but jeering tone. "Hey buddy, lost your wheel! hahaha" -- while it may occasionally have been delivered in a sympathetic tone, it usually felt analogous to when people would yell at passing joggers "run Forrest, run!"

Boogie_Man8• 2 years ago

It seems like this is an either-or. Either sympathetic or jerring. I think that cracking jokes can be neutral.

d0mine• 2 years ago

Jokes/jabs is how men make friends.

callumw13• 2 years ago

There's a lot of the rider's bias leaking through here. "Men who seemed to be of higher social class", "Middle Class Men", complete assumptions and biases that aren't used to form any sort of conclusion. Frustrating in an otherwise enjoyable and interesting essay.

Ographer• 2 years ago

I imagined it to be similar to how some "blue collar" professions attract mostly men who openly discuss women in sexual ways with each other while at work and will cat-call a pretty woman walking by.

Likewise, a group of business men in suites are less likely to engage in this behavior. It's impossible for the unicyclist to measure people's class standing but you can get a lot of context clues by their appearance and behavior. Maybe it includes some bias, but for the purpose of logging all interesting responses I thought it was approximate enough.

bongripper• 2 years ago

I imagined it to be similar to how some "blue collar" professions attract mostly men who openly discuss women in sexual ways with each other while at work and will cat-call a pretty woman walking by.

Bro if you're trying to count those responses by class you can't use those same responses to put them into the bins in the first place, and reproducing a classist stereotype for no reason doesn't make the point any more valid.

lupire5• 2 years ago

Blue collar men chat up women passing by. White collar men in suits rape their subordinate women. Those nasty low class blue collar men!

ImprovedSilence4• 2 years ago

From his writing he sounds British, where class has a somewhat different context and from what I gather, can be inferred from speech/dress.

defrost• 2 years ago

From his writing:

     Social and ethnic differences seemed to soften the male response, and such a softening was also noted when unicycling in Framlingham, a small Suffolk town to which I had moved from Newcastle.

responses varied between a large hard industrial northern England city and a softer more rural and idyllic town.

wiredfool3• 2 years ago

Middle kid has a couple unicycles -- he's the only one around, and rides often. (And he's pretty good, can jump mount, do 180 jumps, ride up and down stairs, and generally he's a comfortable as on a bike. He has played the Emperor's March on a trombone while riding as well. He insists that he's not practicing for the circus).

Most common comment by far: "Do a wheelie", second -- "Where's your other wheel/You've lost a wheel" (which is answered by the tshirt -- "My other wheel is on my other unicycle".

pc864• 2 years ago

I never had the athletic ability to do anything like this as a child but this definitely would have made your son 100x cooler to me as a (what I assume is) elementary/jr. high peer.

SteveDR• 2 years ago

He’s 33 but thank you for saying so

matthew-wegner3• 2 years ago

I mountain unicycle[0]. My favorite replies to "you're missing a wheel" variants are:

* It was a half off sale (to hikers)

* I took off the training wheel (to bikers, if they seem smarmy)

These days most of my responses are very positive, almost universally. 15 years ago this wasn't the case, especially on the street--lots of people yelling "FALL!" out their window to scare you, etc. I think a big part of the long term change has been "extreme sports" becoming a very broad umbrella.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koWzoCUUIbE

drc500free• 2 years ago

I took off the training wheel (to bikers, if they seem smarmy)

This is a fantastic retort.

edanm• 2 years ago

That's awesome! My friend and long-ago business partner was a unicyclist, and did mountain unicycling for a while as well.

He recently switched to going around with free skates - I'm trying to learn them as well (I never did get around to picking up unicycling unfortunately).

taternuts• 2 years ago

Curious as to why people gravitate towards unis, are they more fun to ride? Is it just more of a challenge and therefore more rewarding? Better workout I'm assuming?

cwillu• 2 years ago

“My other bicycle is a tricycle.”

Hasu2• 2 years ago

Somewhat off topic, but I run barefoot (when I run, which isn't as often these days), and the responses are very similar. Mostly repetitive insults from men, ("did you forget your shoes?", "be careful, you'll cut your feet"), some curiosity, ("doesn't that hurt?"), some envy ("wow I wish I could do that") and a small amount of praise.

It's interesting how many people feel free to say the damnedest things when they see someone doing something they don't understand.

vdaea3• 2 years ago

The fact that you don't like what they say doesn't mean they don't understand what you're doing.

Hasu2• 2 years ago

No, the things they say mean they don't understand it. "Doesn't that hurt your feet?" is a question that no one who understands barefoot running would ask.

Also, I don't care about what they say. If you don't have a thick skin and the capacity to shake off random comments from strangers, you won't do something unusual that attracts that kind of attention for > 10 years

Ensorceled3• 2 years ago

I used to run in a running group that had a barefoot runner as a member and the number one comment I heard made was "I don't understand why [the hell/fuck] you would run barefoot".

mitthrowaway22• 2 years ago

"be careful, you'll cut your feet" seems like something I would say, but it would be out of well-meaning concern, and not in any way intended as an insult.

dimatura• 2 years ago

Yeah, I'm middle-aged and ride around on an electric skateboard, including a daily but very short commute. I go out of my way (literally) to not inconvenience either pedestrians or drivers, so have had only a couple of drivers yell at me (much less than on a bike). But I do get questions and comments often.

asdfasvea• 2 years ago

I use mine to walk my dog and get nothing but amazement and joy from people of literally all ages. People over 4 years old smile, point and say 'that guys unicycling, awesome'. People 4 and under smile, point and say 'doggie, doggie doggie'.

Never a bad word, but I don't ride it like I'm an A-hole bicyclist.

Ensorceled3• 2 years ago

Never a bad word, but I don't ride it like I'm an A-hole bicyclist.

Your experience differs markedly from the authors ... are you claiming they are an "A-hole bicyclist"?

zem• 2 years ago

About 1-2% of people expressed anger, distaste, or fear of collision, mostly elderly women and some men walking with sticks.

fortysomething able-bodied man, but i suspect fear of collision would be my first reaction too. unicycles look hard to control and liable to crash into things, based on instincts developed riding bicycles. (i would also think it was a neat thing to do, though)

pc864• 2 years ago

They're also somewhat bigger and faster than you expect, which combined with the above would certainly worry me if I was walking and prone to serious injury or death from a fall.

roskoez4• 2 years ago

Unicycles are actually very safe. Since the pedals are fixed to the wheel, there is no free spinning. Either the rider is above it and in control, or they are on their ass and the uni next to them.

magicalhippo• 2 years ago

Recently saw a guy near work cycling on a Penny-farthing[1]. That certainly rised my eyebrows, as he navigated the pedestrians on the path.

Interestingly few others seem to take much note.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny-farthing

jkestner• 2 years ago

Amusing read. “These observations lead to the conclusion that humour evolves from androgen primed aggression.”

Ensorceled3• 2 years ago

I was going to say self-deprecation is not, but then realized self-deprecation is away of defusing "androgen primed aggression" that I used a lot in high school.

perlgeek• 2 years ago

My sister self-taught unicycling as a teenager, and then used it for short trips to the supermarket (in an area where pedestrians and cyclists are pretty common).

She got lots of attention, but only rarely talked about getting negative comments. (But she's not the type who would rate "I suppose it saves on tyres" as a put-down).

air7• 2 years ago

My interpretation is that this action, peformed by a man, is a show of force which is why it gets praise from females and envy/aggression from males.

cookie_monsta• 2 years ago

Are we still talking about unicycling?

hoseja2• 2 years ago

What other possible reason is there to unicycle than to be insufferably quirky and show off.

notnmeyer• 2 years ago

“And what were your other birthday presents?”

this is a particularly hilarious comment imo

adamredwoods• 2 years ago

The entire report was hilarious:

> Competing interests: None, apart from owning a bicycle as well as a unicycle.

skeaker• 2 years ago

"You park your bike for two minutes and that’s what you are left with" got me pretty good as someone who has had a bike stolen before.

magic_hamster• 2 years ago

This was an interesting read however it's clear the author is very far removed from conducting this "experiment" neutrally. For starters, it's not about "response to a sudden, unexpected exposure to a new phenomenon—unicycling" as the author suggest, but rather about exposure to the author on a unicycle. Can you imagine the responses were the same if we replaced the rider with a stunning female model? Would the men and boys still have challenging reactions? I bet not.

phyzome2• 2 years ago

Yes, but I have this nagging feeling that it has more to do with the unicycle than the rider... not sure where I'm getting that feeling...

layer8• 2 years ago

The author did note this limitation in the paper.

0823498723498725• 2 years ago

fwiw, my wife (who I at least think is hot) gets similar reactions (fake whinnying, "I don't play with my food", etc.) from younger men and boys when out riding her horses.

Edit: we talking about this article a bit; she reports older men (40+! we do eventually learn) have a clue about how to start a conversation with an attractive woman ("that looks elegant", "how old is your horse?", etc.) so I told her how my grandmother told me inappropriate male attention at school came in the form of dipping her pigtails in inkwells.

lupire5• 2 years ago

Where do you ride a horse in general public? That seems dangerous.

jhbadger• 2 years ago

"I don't play with my food"

I don't get that quip. Is the joker implying that they see horses as food animals? (Yes, I know that some places like France do sometimes eat horse, but it isn't common in English-speaking countries at least).

s1artibartfast6• 2 years ago

Two thoughts:

First is that some people, statically male, are simply aggressive, and looking for a target, and that target doesn't matter.

Alternatively, I suspect some amount of aggression is the result of perceived attention seeking behavior. Attention seeking behavior is a common adversarial action when competing for mates and social status. I suspect that unicycling taps in to this.

LanceH2• 2 years ago

First is that some people, statically male, are simply aggressive, and looking for a target, and that target doesn't matter.

I have thoughts on this as well. Are women not looking for a target or do they need a less physically challenging target? Girls' bullying certainly seems to exist. A single woman can't feel reel confident picking a fight with a guy, even 2-3 women can't be confident if things escalate.

Most of us can think of that woman who -- backed up by men -- finds her aggressive voice.

CapitalistCartr2• 2 years ago

The movie "Mean Girls" explores this: women bullying one another socially to attain social status.

s1artibartfast6• 2 years ago

I think the evolutionary behavior component comes down to reproduction.

Males compete with other males, not females for mating and offspring. Other males are competitors and threats in the way that females are not.

Women compete with other women, but the stakes are lower. Males can impregnate multiple females in a short period, while multiple males can not share the the same female to the same degree.

sdwr2• 2 years ago

I think you hit the nail on the head with that - jealousy / sexual attention-seeking.

At a simple biological level, women can co-exist, and men can't. Not to say men don't make it work, but it's swimming uphill.

s1artibartfast6• 2 years ago

yep. See also conventional beauty, sports cars, fashion, and bombastic personalities.

JoeAltmaier2• 2 years ago

I wonder if the men's remarks aren't often born of envy? It's common for men to say stuff like "That must have cost a pretty penny" or "He must have a small penis", regarding other vehicles.

And let's be honest, a unicycle is pretty amusing. My first impulse would be to make a joke.

Lastly, I'm not at all surprised that women, seeing a man performing a significant act of physical agility, might have some positive emotional reaction.

I'm most impressed by the systematic way the OP collected the statistics!

stagger87• 2 years ago

I wonder if the men's remarks aren't often born of envy?

Is there any other way to interpret it? (Genuinely asking!)

JoeAltmaier2• 2 years ago

Honest attempt at humor perhaps. Recognition of the absurdity of the act. Camaraderie done poorly.

mitthrowaway22• 2 years ago

I tend to implicitly associate unicycles with performative comedy. Probably due to a lot of circus and talent-show imagery. If I only had a split second to react to a unicyclist passing by, I might automatically assume that the rider is trying to be funny on purpose. And therefore (my subconscious leaps ahead) that the appropriate social reaction is to respond in kind with whatever humour I can come up with in that split-second, which will probably be an unoriginal and poorly-landing joke.

Ten seconds after saying it, my more considerate thought process will probably realize that the joke wasn't very funny, that the rider probably hears the same "joke" a hundred times per day, and that they might have just been enjoying their solitary unicycling hobby, rather than deliberately putting on a show to amuse the neighbourhood. But by that time they'll have long since passed by, and it would be too awkward to catch up and apologize.

roskoez4• 2 years ago

Indeeed, I feel there's a defense mechanism in there about the implicit menace in someone doing something beyond your own ability.

Unycicling is easy to put down, but take the message above about running barefoot.

Seeing someone doing something unusual like that, something that people "just don't understand" leads to uncertainty. "Why I don't do that?", "Why I can't do that?"

And since as men we're culturally primed to rubuff such doubts, the response is ridicule: "Because he looks silly, and I'm smarter than him", "Bet he'll get scared if I stomp", etc.

People are so insecure sometimes

iancmceachern• 2 years ago

I went to school at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden Colorado. It sits right beneath Lookout mountain and Mount Zion.

There were all kinds of cool things going on on the mountain. The "d Salute guy", longboarders driving up in a turtle van and riding down, mountain bikers like me riding down, paragliders (I even had a prof who did it!), and yes, a guy who rode a unicycle down the single track trail. Amazing.

lupire5• 2 years ago

There were a lot of unicycles over at the California School of Mimes.

mellosouls4• 2 years ago

Very interesting and original.

Seemed a little overly-defensive/uncharitable wrt the banter from men, most of them didn't seem snide or negative but perhaps you had to be there...

HanClinto8• 2 years ago

I rode a unicycle to class during college for 2-3 years. The author's experience matches my own very closely, and gives me a lot of flashbacks (positive and negative). This bit in particular stood out to me:

  > Almost 50% of those encountered, more often men than women, responded verbally (box). The sex difference in the type of response was striking. Around 95% of responses from women praised, encouraged, or showed concern, and women made few comic or snide remarks. In contrast, only 25% of the comments made by men indicated praise, appreciation, or neutrality, whereas 75% were attempts at comedy, often snide and proffered combatively as a put-down. Equally striking was their repetitive nature, even though given as if original—almost 66% of these “comic” responses referred to the number of wheels (the most common), the absence of handlebars, or a part having being lost or stolen (box). Less than 25% used less obvious snide humour, but often with stylistic repetition.

Everything that the author states matches my own experience -- almost to a T.

I often felt bad -- riding a unicycle is incredibly quiet (as there is no chain or gearing), and it's disturbingly easy to sneak up on a lone pedestrian at night and give them a scare when you announce that you're passing them on the left. I'm a rather large male, and recognize I can strike an imposing figure, and hated scaring people like this. I took up whistling whilst riding near people at night just so they could know that I was there.

This was also an interesting thing to read:

  > Aggressive boys
  >  “Do you want to knock him over?” “Yes I bet I could do it”
  >  While kicking a football, “Got a good target”
  >  Riding at me on bicycle, “Fall off granddad”
  >  Sudden loud shouts, then they threw small pebbles
  >  Loud noises, then “You’re gonna fall off . . . you’re gonna fall off”

This VERY closely matches my experience -- I was surprised at how much hostility I received from other guys. It wasn't always directly aggressive -- sometimes it was a bit tangential. Guys would often be playing pickup baseball (using a tennis ball) outside my dorm when I would arrive / leave -- and the ball would often come close to me. I only learned much later that they timed their games and would quickly run outside to try to play a few pitches only in order to try and hit me as I was riding by. On one level I thought this was kind of cool that they cared enough to do this, but it also made me sad inside in a way that I have never fully been able to put into words.

There were the regular jeering remarks, and even the more aggressive actions of going so far as to steal my unicycle a couple of times -- thankfully I was always able to recover it (a friend would call me and tell me it was found lying in a parking lot across campus -- clearly abandoned after they gave up trying to ride it).

It's an interesting case-study on how society reacts to outliers -- this was a beautiful set of data to read. Thank you!

arp2427• 2 years ago

it's disturbingly easy to sneak up on a lone pedestrian at night and give them a scare when you announce that you're passing them on the left. I'm a rather large male, and recognize I can strike an imposing figure, and hated scaring people like this. I took up whistling whilst riding near people at night just so they could know that I was there.

This is also a thing with these electric scooters and such.

It's just the speed difference that can really surprise you; I'm "scared" by that. I had this just yesterday where a kid passed me on a narrow footpath. I wouldn't have minded to step aside, but I do need to know they're there.

Really should have a bell. I don't know how that would work on a unicycle though.

kmoser4• 2 years ago

I've seen bells for skaters made with a metal or plastic ring you can pass through your finger. They'd probably work just as well for a unicyclist.

(In related news, Firefox's built-in spellcheck doesn't include "unicyclist" but Chrome's does.)

decohen• 2 years ago

I have a standard bike bell mounted to the back of my seat post. It took a bit of practice to be able to find the lever while riding, but it works quite well, and has helped me avoid more than a few collisions.

rokkitmensch• 2 years ago

but I do need to know they're there.

You may /want/ to, but you categorically do not /need/ to. I'm going to get by you on my bike faster than you will notice and react, and if I'm moving anywhere near commute speeds, I will have to holler against the wind, and pray you move predictably.

It's vastly safer for both of us (although perhaps startling for you) if I move through your reaction zone quickly enough to avoid you unpredictably leaping into the collision zone.

grecy• 2 years ago

It's an interesting case-study on how society reacts to outliers

And sadly, as you experienced, that reaction is often negative.

I've done quite a few things in my life that are "not normal", and the negative responses are utterly incredible. It would appear the more miserable a person is in their life, the more they want to lash out at someone doing something different to try and get away from that miserable. Almost like they want you to stay trapped in the miserable because they themselves feel trapped, and they feel cheated knowing someone else has (or is trying to) escape.

I find this shockingly true in Australia (where I'm from, but have not lived for almost 20 years). The national pastime is winging (complaining), but if you change your life to do something else, people will very quickly put you down and tell you to get right back into line. I always have a strong feeling that society says it's unacceptable for adults to just "play" or "have fun" for the sake of having fun. Everyone expects you to grow up and get a miserable job and be miserable like everyone else, and if you do anything that looks even remotely fun you'll be cut down like a tall poppy

CHB0403085482• 2 years ago

Misery loves company like crabs in a bucket..

p1mrx3• 2 years ago

Loud noises, then “You’re gonna fall off . . . you’re gonna fall off”

This one is pretty clever. Not aggressive or threatening, just good old psychological manipulation. Reminds me of John Mulaney's bit on 8th graders.

m463• 2 years ago

as there is no chain or gearing

I thought there were unicycles with gearing. And mountain unicycles. Which makes them all the more fascinating.

HanClinto8• 2 years ago

You're right -- there are some that do. I have a 6-foot giraffe unicycle with a chain on it, but I never rode that to commute.

Most regular unicycles don't have chains or gearing -- they're just direct-drive.

devilbunny2• 2 years ago

Equally striking was their repetitive nature, even though given as if original

I mean, this is pretty common. Most people aren't very funny, when you get down to it, and if they're trying to be humorous on the fly, they will almost always tell an incredibly tired joke.

You're a unicyclist; you hear it all the time. They rarely see unicyclists, so to them (and their friends) it's not a stale joke (though it wasn't very funny even when it was original).

p1mrx3• 2 years ago

they will almost always tell one tired joke

dinkleberg• 2 years ago

I suppose this is a meta question, but why is this in pubmed? While it is in the format of a research paper, this seems like more of a blog post coerced into that format.

I'm not an academic, so I'm curious, are papers like this just for fun or are they intended to actually contribute to our understanding of the world? Because I can't help but think that the methodology in the paper is dubious. Do we just the guy because he is a professor? I suppose ideally the reputation system is such that if it is revealed someone is just making things up they'll get booted out.

Not trying to hate on it, it was just an odd paper so it had me wondering.

macleginn• 2 years ago

Because it's in BMJ (a journal), which is indexed. It has things like letters to the editor, obituaries, and "observations", which are indexed as well. Cf. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30842093/

logifail• 2 years ago

why is this in pubmed?

[...]

because he is a professor

Ding ding, we have a winner!

(EDIT: to clarify, I'm not being snarky, if you've spent your adult life contributing to a certain class of publication [which happen to be those indexed by PubMed] perhaps it becomes second nature)

avs733• 2 years ago

It is an article from the bmj “Christmas issue”[0] which is meant to be light hearted or satirical. My personal favorite was about the efficacy of parachutes when jumping out of a plane[1] - which fails to clearly describe that the plane was on the ground. Their point was about replication and clear thorough explanation of methodology in science.

The Christmas issue has been critiqued for exactly the reason you made this comment - indexers don’t pickup on the differences of the Christmas edition making it functionally invisible if you see it in pumped unless you know about it

[0] https://www.bmj.com/about-bmj/resources-authors/article-type...

[1] https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C11&q=bmj...

sdwr2• 2 years ago

This is a fantastic research paper, better than 90% of the "real" ones. It's natural science in its purest form, grounded in lived experience.

1. Introduce novel stimulus

2. Observe response

3. Hypothesize about cause

So much of the statistical significance and p-values and citations is oppressive bureaucracy at best, cargo cult busywork at worst. This is the good stuff.

andrewflnr2• 2 years ago

Except that the conclusion is dogshit. It's such a wild leap that Superman would wonder if he could follow. There's a reason we use formal stats, and it's because our intuition for these things is not reliable.

perydell• 2 years ago

It would be interesting to contrast the unicycle experience with tandem bike experiences. When I ride my tandem bike with a partner I almost universally experience smiles and happy waves from people that see us.

I can ride a unicycle and rode it more often as a teenager. Lots of comments about getting lost from the circus. But they were meant to be funny. I think.

yjftsjthsd-h• 2 years ago

So... friendliness scales with wheels?

wiml• 2 years ago

New plan: build a custom cycle with 25 wheels. Become the most popular person in town.

wiredfool3• 2 years ago

1 wheel per person, good. 2 bad.

jenadine• 2 years ago

But better than 4 wheels per person

CapitalistCartr2• 2 years ago

In the United States, tandem bikes have a strong Norman Rockwell vibe.

AriedK• 2 years ago

My wife and I did a couple of tandem tours throughout the Netherlands, Belgium and the UK. By far the most comments we had were in the UK, the most common being: “she’s not pedalling!” jokingly informing me that my wife who sits at the back isn’t doing her part. The amount of comments were nowhere close what the author describes, and I can’t recall any negative comments. Just humorous ones.

I guess a tandem isn’t as uncommon / funny as a unicycle.

wharvle• 2 years ago

Anyone start singing/reciting the song “Daisy Bell” at you?

lmm• 2 years ago

I ride a recumbent and get my share of comments, mostly positive. (Others have talked of getting "one of your wheels is bigger than the other" comments, but I don't remember hearing that one yet)

uranium2• 2 years ago

Same--folks are generally interested and/or amused. It's been ages since I unicycled in public [I'm not great at it], but none of what's been posted here about reactions surprises me.

munificent• 2 years ago

I don't unicycle but I used to be an avid juggler.

My experience is that greatest predictor of what kind of response you get when doing something unusual in public is whether or not the activity is solitary. If you do a solitary activity that takes a lot of practice, it suggests you're some kind of weirdo loner who has to fill the empty days with hobbies because no one wants to hang out with you, and responses in public may reflect that.

If you're doing an activity with someone else, then at least one person doesn't think you're an intolerable weirdo, so people seem to be more accepting of it.

The responses I got between when I was juggling alone versus club passing with another person in a park were very different.

chrismorgan• 2 years ago

I get a similar experience with my recumbent tricycle, including surprisingly consistently positive reactions from other road-users.

Now I’m curious how the reactions would be for a tandem recumbent tricycle. (Yes, they’re a thing.)

Baeocystin• 2 years ago

I ride a recumbent bike, and honestly the random commentary is way more positive than I'd expected it to be. Kids go nuts for it, 90%+ of adults' reactions are friendly, too. Lycra-clad street bicyclists are the negative exception, but are easily enough ignored. And it's always fun when you come across another recumbent rider; a friendly wave is all but guaranteed.

porkbeer• 2 years ago

A unicycle is the least cool way of doung a wheelie.

Lio5• 2 years ago

Or endo depending on how you look at it.

xyzelement• 2 years ago

My mind immediately went to the evolutionary undercurrent of these things.

The unicycle can be considered something impractical and suboptimal almost uniformly. You can't go fast, you can't carry anything, there's no way to give a friend a ride. It is perhaps equivalent to a person not developing their body in a way that makes them a useful citizen/comrade/etc.

The response from men seems to mainly line up with how we'd react to such a thing in evolutionary context. We instinctively realize that unicycle ridding isn't a value-add to either the rider or society - both are less capable than when a more "appropriate" vehicle is used (we have "standardized" on bikes rather than uni-cyclers or trikes because those are clearly superior across almost all non-circus applications.)

Men react as they do because intrinsically we want society and its members to be stronger - as we shoulder the load of those who aren't. So there's sort of a "hope" that enough of these remarks will encourage the person to get their shit together.

Women are more focused on comfort - so they react the way they would to seeing someone physically weak and less capable than the average person - with kindness and almost a pity. I don't think they are lining up to sleep with him.

Obviously these are not exactly "helpful" reactions to someone riding a unicycle around the park but the underlying drives are still roughly right. A nation of unicycle riders is going to get conquered.

InCityDreams• 2 years ago

What absolute bollocks.

orf2• 2 years ago

You can't go fast, you can't carry anything. It is perhaps equivalent to a person not developing their body in a way that makes them a useful citizen/comrade/etc

This comment is obviously completely braindead, but I did want to jump in and say that I would rather have a unicycling, gun-toting comrade backing me up than one riding a road bike.

frankus• 2 years ago

I think your comment is a little bit off-target but adjacent to something interesting:

Putting a lot of time and effort into learning something difficult, but that isn't directly useful for survival, is a form of status signaling. Hence the stereotype of successful artists and musicians and athletes having countless fawning admirers while considerably fewer people are thought to be throwing themselves at accountants and teachers and farmers.

Unicycling is interesting because you could just be going about your day getting from point A to point B, while a hostile audience sees both conspicuous consumption ("I have so much free time that I can learn to unicycle") and conspicuous outrage ("I'm so secure in my status that I can do something nonconformist that maybe also looks kind of silly"), and feels like they have to take you down a notch.

Exoristos• 2 years ago

Just one weakness with your thesis: no one actually perceives unicycling as a status symbol.

jeffrallen• 2 years ago

Have ridden, can confirm: it's annoying. 'Nuff said.

AlbertCory2• 2 years ago

My main reaction to it is: if you fall off that thing, you're really going to hurt yourself.

I wouldn't say that, though. I just smile. I've seen unicycles before.

fritzo• 2 years ago

I thought the same, but it turns out unicycles are safer to fall off than a bike. When you fall off a bike, one of your legs is usually caught on the wrong side of the top tube. When you fall off a unicycle, there's no top tube to entangle your legs, and it's much easier to "jog off" like nothing happened. Also unicycles are much slower.

AlbertCory2• 2 years ago

Makes sense.

I practice balance on the Bosu. I've only ever actually fallen once. Usually I can just step off, no harm.

none_to_remain• 2 years ago

The one time I tried riding a unicycle, I couldn't even get on it sufficiently enough to fall off.

p1mrx3• 2 years ago

I found that I could land cleanly about 95% of the time, but the other 5% I would (e.g.) trip over the pedals and launch the unicycle off in some random direction. Luckily it never hit anything expensive.

aftbit2• 2 years ago

I get yelled at a lot when I ride my eBike on our trails. They are explicitly allowed, and I don't ride like a jackwagon. Some people just love to hate. A few of my friends ride OneWheels and various other eSkate devices. They get even more hate. There's one fellow we call "not allowed", who loves to shout "NOT ALLOWED" and try to clothesline my buddies as we pass him. Luckily so far they've been faster than him but one of these days he's going to seriously hurt someone, probably himself.

voakbasda• 2 years ago

Isn’t that “attempted assault”? If he makes contact, it sure as hell would be an assault. Might point that out to him next time you see him. Or not, if you want to see him get arrested.

c22• 2 years ago

I think it's just actual assault. Not sure what an attempted assault would look like.

tekla• 2 years ago

People hate especially since eBike riders fuck with stats on trails on platforms like Strava.

They also contribute to path wear since they allow people who have no business being on the tails due to lack of fitness to use them.

Also holy shit, the potholes from eBike riders more or less burning out from standing or trying to go up slopes they are unable to. Fuck eBike riders on trails.

floren• 2 years ago

Also, the "ebikes" that are just electric motorcycles with a couple fig-leaf pedals attached...

Lio5• 2 years ago

I've never ridden an eBike as they don't really appeal to me but I kind of think that everyone has a right to be on the trails regardless of fitness.

thot_experiment2• 2 years ago

I've been biking a lot more recently and I uploaded a ride to Strava and was super disappointed that they don't have leaderboards anymore. What even is the point? Is there an alternative? (I assume not because capitalism in [current year] shakes fist protocols not platforms etc etc)

PraetorianGourd• 2 years ago

I am not normally one to cry “ableism!” but seriously. If technology allows more people to enjoy nature and trails, awesome. Nature of all places doesn’t need your gatekeeping.

mock-possum• 2 years ago

people who have no business being on the trails due to lack of fitness

Yikes. you wanna rephrase that?

cruffle_duffle• 2 years ago

The best way to get people on board with more bike infrastructure is encouraging ebikes and escooters. In my city, 50% of the bike lane traffic downtown is Lime Scooters--people who would never own or commute with their own bicycle. Suddenly these people have opinions on bike infrastructure and will be more likely to vote and support improvements.

In short, if you want your cities bike infrastructure to get better... encourage the city to embrace point-to-point scooter/bike rentals.

jameslk• 2 years ago

In my US based upbringing, men making jokes at the expense of other men are either aggression or ways of building rapport, and context matters to decipher which it is. I have male friends who take as much opportunity as possible to turn something I’ve said or done into a joke, sarcastically or sometimes trollishly, and I’ll do the same. This mocking isn’t malicious however.

mplewis• 2 years ago

The recipient of the message, not the sender, determines whether it’s malicious.

Vegenoid• 2 years ago

No, the recipient determines if it is harmful. Malice is characterized by intent.

Boogie_Man8• 2 years ago

malicious

adjective Having the nature of or resulting from malice; deliberately harmful; spiteful.

malice noun 1. A desire to harm others or to see others suffer; extreme ill will or spite. 2. The intent to commit an unlawful act without justification or excuse. 3. An improper motive for an action, such as desire to cause injury to another.

4gotunameagain• 2 years ago

Hard disagree. Even if it is hurtful for the recipient, it might have been in good taste and honest, playful banter.

If you let your behaviour be defined by the most sensitive and high σ recipients, you cease to be able to conduct any form of communication apart from talking about the weather. And that might even offend some people then.

tanseydavid• 2 years ago

IMHO this type of rapport traces back to playing "The Dozens" although many who participate do not consciously know this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dozens_(game)

candybar• 2 years ago

Aggression and building rapport aren't mutually exclusive - a lot of this is subtle negotiation for relative status. Just because all parties are okay with these as a way to get to a reasonable common ground (and if done right, can lead to strong rapport and relatively equal status) doesn't mean aggression isn't there. I don't think most of this is conscious, but you will also see conspicuously high-status people use self-deprecating humor to lower their perceived threat level, or conversely, people targeting other conspicuously high-status or threatening people to take them down a notch (to some extent, this is what we're seeing here). Or in a more hierarchical situation, high-status people might target lower-status people to reinforce their higher status.

recursive4• 2 years ago

Maybe it's a cultural thing, but the alleged put-downs and aggression mostly sound mis-categorized to me. There are only a few of the given lines that sound aggressive or insulting.

nickcw• 2 years ago

I think the best heckle I had while riding my unicycle was from a policeman who shouted: "Are your brakes working?".

This is funny because (just in case you didn't know) unicycles don't (generally) have brakes - you slow down by putting the pressure on backwards on the pedals.

kraftman• 2 years ago

I feel like if the policeman had shouted that to the author he would have added it to 'indirect put downs'.

natemcintosh• 2 years ago

As someone who once rode a unicycle (also in the North East of England), I can say that I received almost exactly the same responses listed here.

mrcartmeneses• 2 years ago

The responses of men are also cultural. Having lived in east Asia, the aggression he observed feels like a very western thing.

akavel• 2 years ago

An encounter I had personally that I found the most fun and memorable:

A father, to his ~4yo son: "Look, the man rides on one wheel!"

Son: "Daad, this is a U-NI-CYCLE!"

adtac• 2 years ago

Competing interests: None, apart from owning a bicycle as well as a unicycle.

seagullriffic• 2 years ago

I highly recommend some of the best content on Youtube, Ed Pratt's series [0] where he unicycles around the world. [0] https://www.youtube.com/@EdPratt

frabbit• 2 years ago

Heartily agree. The idea of loaded unicycle touring as being practical would be easy to dismiss were it not for Ed Pratt.

turzmo• 2 years ago

Why does HN keep editing the titles of these things?

emptybits• 2 years ago

Every, and I mean every, kid’s reaction when first seeing a unicycle: awe and big smiles. Naturally, right? It’s a bit ridiculous and amazing, isn’t it?

So IMO if any adult doesn’t respond with a smile (at least on the inside … be honest with yourself) then they’ve lost their inner child … and isn’t that a bit sad?

Disclaimer: I have a unicycle and am a terrible terrible rider. Don’t care. Gotta hit the sidewalk once in a while to refresh and damn if I don’t end up giggling every time I fall.

roskoez4• 2 years ago

I used to unycicle around when I was about 16YO. I didn't get much response, really, maybe because my age made it less ridiculous or maybe intimidating. Still, I got a lot of free drinks and requests for trying when bringing it to music festivals

phyzome2• 2 years ago

I find it odd that the author spends so little time discussing cultural differences. He mentions it briefly, and certainly it sounds like he doesn't have enough data on multicultural responses... but that's even more reason to not jump straight to evolutionary biology.

shermantanktop• 2 years ago

Not to truck in stereotypes, but many of the British men I have known take “banter” to extremes and then say “just joking, mate.” I’d expect a pretty different distribution of responses in rural Thailand or South Compton or Rio.

hasbot• 2 years ago

I've ridden an electric unicycle around town. I generally get a few stares but little interaction possibly because I travel faster than a unicycle. In a safe environment, it's a relaxing ride but my current city isn't bicycle friendly. I travel too fast for sidewalks and mixed-use trails are marked "no motorized vehicles" though e-bikes are exempted. I have ridden on some trails anyway but each time some old guy gives me shit and it's just not worth the hassle.

otabdeveloper4• 2 years ago

An EUC is a legitimately useful vehicle, nobody would view it as a circus gag. The comments you'd get would mention road safety rules, not clowns.

rrr_oh_man2• 2 years ago

my reservoir of multipurpose preconceptions could not provide a testable hypothesis; instead, I needed simply to observe neutrally the response

I’m surprised how this "research" ended up on a government funded website.

Or maybe I’m not.

scotty79• 2 years ago

It's really sad to read about reactions of adolescent and adult males. Something terrible happens to men as they grow up. I don't think it's just biology because well off man have the damage somewhat alleviated.

ImprovedSilence4• 2 years ago

> Something terrible happens to men as they grow up

lol... testosterone? or perhaps testosterone combined with thousands of years of "wolf pack" evolution where one has to prod and disrupt to find "their place" in the pecking order?

fuzzfactor• 2 years ago

Imagine a neutral starting point where maybe it was not without male agression, but no actual millennia yet spent further honing animalistic tendencies along the wolf pack model.

The dog-eat-dog approach appears to have evolved including the same major hormone balance among various species such as canines and humans, you could say it is like aggression and pecking order "on steroids".

But the steroids were always there, it's more like the steroids are being leveraged by the craftiness of the species in an evolutionary biological way.

Resulting in the humans ending up much more evolved when they want to be.

Anyway, from that neutral root a completely different offshoot could independently have spent the same millennia evolving in the complete opposite direction, away from as much resemblance to a canine hierarchy as evolution would allow.

Such disparate cultures may or may not have interacted, clashed or have their decendants coexist today. Nobody would ever know after all this time but among men, maybe some will culturally trend more toward the influence of testosterone in a competitive way when encountering others regardless of whether they are males or females. The male-male competition the most prominent.

While others will be just the opposite and be highly influenced in a co-operative way when encountering others whether male or female. The male-female co-operation the most prominent.

IOW for some men their testosterone is primarily involved in relating to other males without as much consideration for females, other men their testosterone is primarily involved in relating to females without as much consideration for other males. And everything in between.

If any one culture were to become dominant enough, that would make any other one an outlier.

earthboundkid2• 2 years ago

“Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.”

Margret Atwood

The quote is usually presented as inherently true, capturing the asymmetrical nature of the neverending war between the sexes. And I think that aspect is basically correct. But, if you’ll forgive me for being a pedantic male, it’s incomplete. Yes, men are afraid women will laugh at them; yes, women are afraid men will kill them. But do you know what else men are afraid of?
Men.
Men are also afraid other men will kill them.

https://verydistantlands.substack.com/p/the-eraserhead-guide...

TFA fits the pattern. Men feel the need to quickly establish a hierarchy with a modest putdown.

callalex2• 2 years ago

As a man, I have never done this, and I very rarely find myself in a situation where other men are like this towards me. If your experience is different, you are just surrounded by assholes and need to reflect on the people and places you spend your time with. It’s also worth noting that being an asshole is not a gendered phenomenon.

jwrallie• 2 years ago

If your experience is different, you are just surrounded by assholes and need to reflect on the people and places you spend your time with.

Or maybe you are just lucky to be born in a country with relative good security? Sometimes doing groceries can expose you to a situation like this, and sometimes it is hard to move to a better country.

earthboundkid2• 2 years ago

Hierarchy established.

ImprovedSilence4• 2 years ago

“Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.”

Strange, cuz Marylin Monroe told me "if you can make a woman laugh, you can make her do anything."

So maybe men are just constantly calibrating a competitive sense of humor..?

talldatethrow2• 2 years ago

This is totally ignoring how most men jokes with other men vs how women talk to strange men they don't know.

Not a shock that women are a bit friendlier. Whereas men try to be a bit more clever for the sake of fun.

I spent a decade selling cars and the part I miss most is the totally crazy humor between salespeople and management. You know how a salesperson goes to talk to his manager every iteration of any negotiation? Every single time my manager would have a funny quip when I returned. And I'd also try to have something funny to say about either the manager or the customer or myself.

OP would label all this as hateful or negative which really it wasn't.

Megranium• 2 years ago

I'd say not all guys enjoy the kind of "guy talk" you're describing ... maybe it's harmless in your experience but it can be quite aggressive, or perceived as such, even if you're not emotionally bothered by it.

It's especially terrible if you have to go along in the workplace because you're talking to your boss and are expected to laugh about his (potentially charged) "funny quips" because "guy talk", amirite? Ugh ..

talldatethrow2• 2 years ago

If you didn't like it, you'd probably make it shown in one way or another. And they wouldn't do it to you. There were several salespeople that didn't really know how or want to take part, and you simply didn't talk to them unless it was about work.

tetris112• 2 years ago

Ah "laddishness", the epitome of grown men acting like boys; from homophobic quips about a minor hairstyle change, to puking drunkenly at a holiday destination ("lads on tour") whilst blasting offensive music and pretending that the world is yours, as the locals desperate for your money are forced to shrug and smile.

DontchaKnowit• 2 years ago

Idk man youve really extrpolated some light ribbing about a silly bike into some seriously obnoxious and incinsiderate behaviour. Not the same

analog31• 2 years ago

Oddly enough I get a certain number of predictable responses when I'm carrying my double bass around. My favorite reaction so far:

"Nice purse."

lupire5• 2 years ago

Incredibly relevant video posted to Reddit today:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/19eih...

Mostly male onlookers observe a man boarding an electric unicycle with 30 pizzas.

lupire5• 2 years ago

The "Indirect put downs" are mostly misclassified. I'm surprised that a unicyclist has no sense of humor, and the fully grown adult has no sense of banter. It seems that the author has a chip on his shoulder against men.

Indirect put-downs:

    “You must like living dangerously”
    “Odd things you find on cycles”
    “And what were your other birthday presents?”
    “Is it a new form of transport then?”
    “I suppose it saves on tyres”
    “You park your bike for two minutes and that’s what you are left with”

Responses to unicycling

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