Shoulders upright, helmet secured, eyes on the target, Eugene Cathcart hikes the final steep steps of his ascent of Misery Ridge at the rock climbing mecca, Smith Rock State Park. But, as he reaches the top, the wiry college student doesn't emit the usual growl of victory, nor even pause for a daredevil view down at gnarly, 3,000-foot pinnacles of compressed volcanic ash.

Instead, he pulls the metal unicycle he's carried up the rock off his shoulder, smiles grandly, jumps on the contraption and begins to ... well ... hop. Yes, on a unicycle on the precipice of a rocky outcrop.

This is essential mountain unicycling – aka "MUni," yet another extreme sport taken to yet another extreme. The feat isn't the end (reaching the top) but the means (hopping along it and then pedaling down). The goal of the MUnicyclist, who tends to be a daredevil, a geek, or both, is to hoist oneself upright over the gearless single wheel, pedal and/or hop over complicated terrain (which can include not just mountains and ridges but park benches, tree stumps, and hand railings), and avoid getting hurt in the series of inevitable falls.

Though top speeds in unicycling reach only 3 m.p.h., helmet and lots of padding are required because of a basic tenet of physics: The slower the speed, the more difficult it is to maintain balance. Riding a unicycle is challenging. Riding one on ridges is impossible for anyone unwilling to clock in countless hours trying. And this is the draw, says Cathcart, who has been unicycling since he devoted a month in high school to falling down – before getting up – in the alley behind a bike shop.

Like many MUni enthusiasts, Cathcart was first a mountain biker – which meant he already had developed a high tolerance for the dangerous and difficult. But, Cathcart explains, "To even consider getting on a unicycle, you have to realize you're in for a challenge. It doesn't come across as looking very possible to most people.... Even as a unicyclist I don't think it's very easy to comprehend exactly how your body can figure out to stay balanced on top of this wheel."

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In spite of the athletic prowess required, the unicycle is an easy butt of jokes. The realm of the unicycle is populated with images of clowns, tricks, and the bizarre. And to stay atop the precarious perch, the rider's body gyrates slightly from left to right; the faster a unicyclist moves and the more difficult the terrain, the more desperate the motions and the more often the rider eats dirt.

But since the late 1970s, a small number of athletes have begun tinkering with the design and use of the unicycle. And in the past few years alone, the construction of the unicycle-as-all-terrain-vehicle has evolved by leaps and bounds.

"The seats used to be so uncomfortable," says Cathcart, who has engineered his own all-terrain unicycles. "It was a major deterrent, even for me."

The new boom of interest in the sport clusters largely around biking enclaves such as Boulder, Colo., and Moab, Utah. (The annual Moab MUni Fest drew 15 participants in 2000, its first year – this year 169 gyrated through the course.)

The undisputed MUni heavyweight is Ian Holm – a Vancouver-based geomorphologist – whose single-tire business and movie ventures since the 1990s helped kick life into the image of the sport. The 2005 film "Into the Thunder Dragon," about his unicycle crossing of the Kingdom of Bhutan, romanticized this peculiar-looking struggle as sport. The facial expression of the Bhutanese – who'd never seen a unicycle – unanimously conveyed, "This man is crazy." But during the trip, many kids, and even a few older men, tried Mr. Holm's unicycle.

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