Taking a look around campus, it’s not uncommon to see students walking to classes or professors riding past on their bikes. Occasionally, one may see students riding around on more adventurous modes of transportation, like longboards or scooters to get from place to place more quickly. A few other modes of transportation, however, are a little more unusual.
One of those modes is the pocket bike. Students Dayton Hall and James Teutschmann both own pocket bikes, sport bike look-a-likes that stand smaller than 20 inches high and are typically no more than about 3 feet in length. The bikes cost about $300 and will go up to 35 miles per hour.
“I have had my bike since high school,” Hall said. “I thought it was pretty cool to ride around on for fun. Functionally, it makes getting around less of a hassle than taking a car everywhere.”
After Hall began the pocket bike trend, Teutschmann bought a bike of his own.
“I came back from the weekend, and I was going to study,” Teutschmann said. “I ran into Dayton. I saw this bike and asked whose it was. Instead of studying, I rode around for about an hour and fell in love with the idea of a mini motorcycle and had to have one to ride around with Dayton.”
Students wishing to purchase a minibike should be warned. Teutschmann has already received a ticket for riding his minibike to the golf course because a Sioux county sheriff’s deputy was confused and mistook the toy for a real motorcycle. Teutschmann was given a hefty $135 ticket.
Even though owning a minibike has proven expensive, Teutschmann believes his purchase was worth it.
“I tutor a fourth grader, and he’s 10, so we ride it around, Teutschmann said. “He loves it. It makes me happy knowing it was a good buy.”
Several other students on campus have begun using unicycles. Keaton Hettver has brought his unicycling skills with him from the Twin Cities.
“My neighbor got a unicycle when I was in high school, and it was this little one his uncle picked up, and he started learning, so I started learning,” Hettver said. “We had a unicycle gang on our block because all the kids on our neighborhood started learning.”
Even though unicycling may seem like a fairly foreign concept on campus, unicycling is its own sport. Hettver got a taste for the competition involved in unicycling.
“Back home, when I started learning my freshman year, I belonged to a unicycle club in the Twin Cities, which is the biggest one in the U.S.,” Hettver said. “They have national competitions every year and internationals every other year. It’s really competitive and a lot don’t realize how widespread unicycling actually is. I’ve only scratched the surface of unicycling.”
Unicycling is a fun activity for those who familiarize themselves with the sport.
“Having a unicycle, you have to be OK with looking nerdy and geeky and weird, and that’s what’s fun is by riding it,” Hettver said. “You don’t care what people think. Once you get on and learn how to ride, it’s hard to get off. It’s a lot of fun.”
