You know what's harder than mountain biking down a rocky trail at breakneck speed? Doing it on one wheel. Mountain unicycling—or "muni" as enthusiasts call it—takes everything that's already terrifying about mountain biking and removes the training wheels. Well, technically it removes half the wheels, the handlebars, and any semblance of balance assistance.

This delightfully absurd sport emerged in the late 1980s when a few unicyclists in California looked at rough terrain and thought, "Yeah, I can ride that." George Peck is often credited as one of the pioneers who took his unicycle off-road in the mid-1980s, essentially inventing a sport that nobody asked for but everyone now respects. By the 1990s, dedicated muni riders were tackling increasingly gnarly trails, proving that what seems physically impossible is merely highly improbable. The first Mountain Unicycle Weekend was held in 1993 in California, gathering the dozen or so people crazy enough to combine unicycling with mountain sports.

What makes muni particularly wild is that riders can't coast—there's no freewheel mechanism. Every rotation of that single wheel requires constant pedaling, meaning you're working harder than mountain bikers even on flat sections. Going downhill? You're still pedaling, just resisting gravity with your legs while trying not to faceplant into a boulder. Modern muni bikes feature fat, knobby tires (often 24 to 36 inches), disc brakes, and reinforced frames designed to withstand impacts that would make regular unicycles weep. Some riders even tackle drops of six feet or more, which requires landing perfectly on one wheel while maintaining forward momentum. It's essentially like doing a continuous balancing act on a pogo stick while navigating terrain that would challenge a mountain goat.

The sport has grown into a legitimate competitive discipline with events worldwide. The annual California Mountain Unicycle Weekend (aka "Muni Weekend") now attracts hundreds of riders who race downhill, navigate technical courses, and share tips on the art of falling gracefully. World champion Kris Holm, a Canadian who's been riding since the 1980s, has pushed the sport's limits by unicycling down cliffs and across alpine ridges that most people wouldn't walk across. His signature line of unicycles has become the gold standard for serious riders.

Here's the kicker: muni riders claim it's actually safer than mountain biking in some ways. Without handlebars to catch on trees or a front wheel to wash out, you can bail off backward more easily. Of course, "more easily" is relative when you're riding a one-wheeled vehicle down a mountain. But that's the beauty of muni—it makes zero sense until you see someone absolutely shredding a trail on one wheel, and then it makes perfect sense why someone would want to try it.