Matt Sindelar appears to be an average ISU student. The junior in mechanical engineering normally fits in with a crowd pretty well.

When he’s not riding on his unicycle, that is.

Unicyclists on campus usually turn a few heads, but Sindelar is a little different. He is a former world champion unicyclist.

“[Unicycling] is just a hobby I picked up when I was younger, and I guess I got pretty good at it,” Sindelar said.

In 2008, before the summer of his sophomore year of high school, Sindelar traveled to Denmark and competed in the UNICON, the World Unicycling Convention and Championships, which is sanctioned by the International Unicycling Federation.

Sindelar didn’t just compete in the event, however; he came home with the title of world champion. After 10 days of competition, Sindelar was crowned in the freestyle standard skills competition.

“I knew that after I had competed, I had a chance to win, but it was going to be really close,” Sindelar said. “They called up the second place guy and it wasn’t me, so I knew I won, and I got to go up on the stage and everything. It was a fun night.”

Sindelar’s unicycling career started out when he was in sixth grade, when his parents bought him an old, beat-up unicycle at a garage sale. After playing around on it and teaching himself the basics, he joined the Twin Cities Unicycle Club, which is where his skills really took off.

“They had a lot of good people who had been riding unicycle for a long time and could do a lot of good stuff,” Sindelar said.

He continued to improve and eventually made it to the world championships. Since his championship run in 2008, Sindelar has mostly just ridden unicycle recreationally with less of a focus on competition.

He had the opportunity to go to the world championships in New Zealand and Italy, but it didn’t work out for him. He has been contemplating a return to competitive unicycling this summer, either at nationals or UNICON.

“If I do decided to compete this summer, it won’t be quite as serious as it was back in high school,” Sindelar said.

The pressure is already off.

If he returns to competition, it would be less about winning, and more about having fun and enjoying the whole experience.

Even if he doesn’t competitively unicycle, he said he will continue riding recreationally and enjoy a hobby that he has nearly perfected.

He certainly turns heads on campus, whether he’s riding down a stair flight, jumping up a stair flight, pulling off 360s or riding a unicycle in ways people can’t even imagine. 

“Matt Sindelar is just at another level,” said Robert Nichols, junior in mechanical engineering and fellow unicycling enthusiast. “I have been unicycling with him for the past year and can’t imagine doing the things he can. His street unicycling skills are great and that’s not even his forte. His flat ground is phenomenal.”