Backstory: Peak performance on one wheel

"For those who think riding a unicycle off-road makes little sense, my response is: There's no sport out there that actually makes sense!" says Holm, who manufactures and sells some of the most popular mountain unicycles on the market. "If that had to be true, there is no way that Tiger Woods could get paid to whack a ball into a hole with a stick."

So, indeed, a growing number of enthusiasts are willing to shell out $200-plus for a custom-made mountain unicycle that will guarantee not only thrills, but spills, too.

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The arc of the sport's appeal can be traced in microcosm through Cathcart's growing following in Bend, Ore. Here he experiments with custom unicycles with his mechanic partner, Wade Beauchamp. During his first job in Bend, at a bakery in 2000, Cathcart delivered loaves of bread on his unicycle just to raise awareness. He also organized unicycle rides in Bend's quaint downtown.

Six years – and 100-plus unicycles built and sold – later, he estimates there are up to 100 unicylists in this town of 70,000. Enough, anyway, that the police recently upped enforcement against unicycling on sidewalks downtown.

It's hard to know whether the sport's coolness developed into a sidewalk hazard, or the enforcement itself created the coolness, but participants believe Cathcart has a lot to do with the aura of the sport in Bend.

"I was never the cool kid," Cathcart says, reflecting on his years as a unicyclist from the apex of Misery Ridge. "I'd skip class to go out biking with guys who were 10 years older than me. No one really tried to imitate me."

So it's a genuine surprise to the mild- mannered and ponytailed Cathcart – whose earnest geek vernacular is flavored with words like "gyroscopic" and "near-frictionless" – that he actually got the unicycle rolling here. His following includes recent college graduate Natty Seidenverg, who has been unicyling since she was 7. Naturally, they are dating.

"Eugene could convince the world to go on one wheel, and that's saying something," says Mr. Beauchamp, an avid mountain biker who finally gave in to Cathcart's urging and learned to ride a unicycle himself in 2000. "It's so unnatural – unicycling is like a joke on physics."

Add to that the simplicity of the machine. Cathcart didn't have much trouble figuring out how to build – and improve on – one. The unicycle's solid hub and lack of gears do make it a truly simple gadget with fewer than a dozen parts.

But riding a gearless cycle, where one rotation of the pedals results in one rotation of the wheel, is a different story. Unlike on a bike, there is no coasting; riding downhill can be just as strenuous as riding uphill.

As Cathcart makes his way back down Misery Ridge, several hikers can't help staring at the unicycle he's hoisted over his back. Where terrain is manageable, he hops on and speeds down the path; when his legs can't pedal fast enough, he brings them up and shifts his hip to the side, effectively performing a "controlled slide" and fall. When the path curves sharply he jumps off the cycle, kicking it away to avoid entanglement. To anyone else, he probably looks like a geeky, over-padded failure of an athlete, sliding and falling and scrambling after his wheel. But this is peak performance MUni.

"I went pretty far that time!" Cathcart says, triumphant.

So don't knock it until you've tried it, but definitely don't try it until you're ready to fall – again, and again, and again.

• A slide show of photos from Cathcart's Misery Ridge ride can be viewed athttp://www.csmonitor.com/ slideshows/2006/unicycle/index.html

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