Gripping stranger #7: Unicycle Man

Wearing a thick neon-orange vest, a helmet, hiking socks, hiking boots, and practical outdoor shorts, you ride every weekday morning through downtown traffic across the noisy, congested Burrard Bridge into the calm residential streets of Kitsilano. Sometimes I see you waiting at stop lights, holding onto a tree or a lampost for support before you pedal forward at the green light, boldly unicycling into your day. Where are you going at this hour of the morning? To work? Or do you just use this time to practice unicycling through rush-hour traffic? Seeing as I only started feeling confident enough to bike around as a commuter last year, I am utterly in awe of you. You have, as my friend Trevor would say, "powerful hindquarters" and probably astonishing core strength. As I understand it, unicycling requires the rider to keep pedalling at all times, without the aid of gears or breaks. I've seen you dismount once by kind of jumping off the back, and then you start up again with a lot of forward momentum. Amazing. You look to be about 50 years old but could probably out-run and/or out-bike most of the other, younger cyclists tearing across the bridge. We will pass you en masse on a bus and I want to shout at everyone with their newspapers and Twitterberries, "Look at this guy! He's unicycling!" because I always watch you in awe. But then again, there is something truly great about a dedicated unicycler being an ambient and normative background element of one's morning commute.