George knew how to ride a unicycle. Jesse knew how to juggle. It was only a matter of time before the two friends were able to teach one another the tricky skills. And it wasn’t too long after that trade that they decided to merge a juggling component to the already existing ISU Unicycling Club.

Juggling and unicycle riding may seem an odd mix, but Jesse Shumaker, president of the ISU Unicycling and Juggling Club, decided to incorporate the two in a single club. “If you think you can’t learn to unicycle and juggle we’ll prove you wrong,” Shumaker said.

George Barnes, founder of the Unicycling Club, said it takes the average person about nine hours to learn how to unicycle but some people with a background in skateboarding can learn in as little as 30 minutes.

Barnes, junior in mechanical engineering, created the clubs when he discovered some of his friends wanted to learn how to ride unicycles. He has been unicycling for four years and manufactures custom unicycle parts.

Barnes taught Shumaker, senior in management information systems and international business, how to unicycle. In exchange, Shumaker taught Barnes how to juggle.

Club members perform various shows on campus and in the Ames community. The club is teaching interested students the art of both unicycling and juggling.

Last summer the Des Moines Register’s Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa 2002 welcomed its first unicycling participants: Shumaker, Barnes, and Aaron Parker, junior at Galva-Holstein High School and the only honorary member of the ISU Unicycling and Juggling Club. Barnes and Parker later became the first two people to unicycle their way 500 miles across Iowa.

They each rode 36-inch wheel unicycles, equipped with specialty parts Barnes had manufactured. They reached average speeds of 12 miles per hour.

Along the way Shumaker and Barnes juggled with other ISU students entertaining the RAGBRAI crowds.

Barnes and Shumaker had both entered RAGBRAI on bicycles in previous years. The two first conceived the idea to enter with unicycles because, as Barnes put it, “it hadn’t been done.”

“We wanted to be the first,” Shumaker said.

The trio drew a lot of attention during RAGBRAI.

“It was like being famous for a week,” Shumaker said. “If we didn’t have that many people cheering us on we might not have made it that far.”

Barnes said his favorite part of the trip was “people’s reactions, everyone was cheering.”

Shumaker said they were able to pass cyclists with two wheels going uphill even though they could not coast, and had to make more frequent stops than most bicycles.

The trip, which some club members called “insane,” also had its difficulties.

“Going downhill was the worst,” Shumaker said. Unicycles are unable to coast, have no breaks and no gears – making going downhill a challenge, he said.

Another challenge was to keep going after riding 70 miles in a day, Shumaker said.

It was raining the last day of the trip and many RAGBRAI cyclists ended the journey by bus, Barnes said.

While Barnes and Parker were able to make it to the finish line, Shumaker made it more than half way but was unable to complete the journey because of tendinitis that developed in his Achilles tendon.

The three do not have plans to unicycle RAGBRAI’s entirety next summer.

Barnes would like to go to a national convention and a tour across Europe on unicycle in the future. He is also interested in pursuing off-road unicycling, which involves stunts such as going down stairs, jumping logs and riding down steep hills.

Barnes said he enjoys unicycling because “there are always more challenging skills to learn or tougher obstacles to ride.”

Shumaker plans to go on a bicycle ride from the East to West Coast this coming summer. Others from the Unicycling and Juggling Club with accompany him. The group will be juggling for an undecided charity along the route.