Getting a Handle on Difficult Ride

Lebanon Man Invents Unicycle Trainer

By Erin Hanrahan

Valley News Staff Writer

West Lebanon -- It began simply, like many ideas, when lifelong tinkerer and longtime unicyclist David Kano considered the wobbly learning curve of his one-wheeled hobby and thought: There must be a better way.

A year later, Kano's hallway is lined with prototypes -- cobbled-together gizmos with tiny front wheels and loose handlebars -- and the driveway outside his West Lebanon apartment has been transformed into a test track for the device he hopes to one day market.

It's called the Unitrainer, and Kano says it could revolutionize the way people learn to ride a unicycle.

“It's probably going to be a niche market item,” he allows.

Even among unicyclists, the Unitrainer is a foreign concept. On the whole, mono-wheel enthusiasts seem to have an aptitude for making things more tricky, not less (witness a new trend toward rough terrain unicycling, or that circus staple, the double-decker unicycle).

Kano, who has been tooling around on one wheel since childhood, said the pastime's difficulty could be scaring potential riders away. He cited data from Dutch unicyclist and amateur statistician Klaas Bil, who figures, based on the results of a detailed Internet survey, that it takes the average novice 14 hours of falls and false starts to ride a unicycle across a room.

If necessity is the mother of invention, maybe that prospect qualifies as a distant aunt.

The problem, says Kano, is that first-time riders have to learn several new skills at once, including handless steering, correct pedaling posture and balancing front-to-back. If one goes, the whole operation falls apart.

“Most people don't have the tenacity to learn to ride a unicycle the traditional way,” he said, which can include leaning on railings, friends or ski poles.

Soft-spoken and patient, Kano did learn the traditional way, and some Upper Valley commuters might recognize him from his frequent trips -- via unicycle -- between Hanover commuter lots and his former office at Dartmouth College. Last summer, while he was teaching sailing on Cape Cod, the 51-year-old computer programmer and part-time substitute teacher thought of a way to isolate the skills needed to maneuver a unicycle, and teach them in a more gentle sequence.

He began by hacking parts off old bicycles, which his father -- whom Kano described variously as a retired engineer, a collector and “generally a dump-picker” -- had in spades. The elder Kano, evidently the genetic source of his son's propensity for tinkering, collects used bikes and donates them to the nonprofit Bikes Not Bombs.

Keeping only a few essential pieces, Kano soon forged an early Unitrainer prototype, which consists of a triangular frame and a small front wheel that turn any unicycle into a sort of bicycle. The new front end allows a rider to practice balancing front-to-back while providing support, by way of a rubber stopper, if he or she teeters too far.

The Unitrainer has handlebars, which in later prototypes evolved to include looser settings, to help wean novices away from the familiar steering device. Before striking out on a unicycle au naturel, the advancing beginner can also turn on a buzzer, which sounds every time he leans on the handlebars.

The whole package, Kano contends, can cut the time it takes to learn to ride a unicycle by more than half.

“You go from a device that is really tedious to learn how to ride to something that's as easy as riding a bike,” he said. “In my wildest dreams, everyone learns to ride on the Unitrainer unless they're a masochist.”

Kano's wildest dreams also involve the device being sold at major retail chains like Wal-Mart, but those dreams, he knows, will take time to realize.

Potential manufacturers have been concerned about the Unitrainer's projected retail cost, which Kano said is about $100, or the price of an entire unicycle (like training wheels, he pictures the Unitrainer being sold separately or with a unicycle as a package). He's hoping to bring the cost down through simplified design, but bills and day jobs have kept the project simmering on the back burner.

“I can't afford to really prioritize it,” Kano said recently. “I just kind of do it as a hobby for now.” Some day, he said, the work could pay off.

In December, he applied for a patent, and in March, he launched a Web site, Unitrainer.com. He enlisted his 12-year-old daughter to demonstrate the device in a YouTube video, and a few weeks ago, he planned to host a learn-to-unicycle class through the Lebanon Recreation Department, but there were few takers and the class was cancelled.

Last week, Kano was still looking for a broader test group to measure the Unitrainer's success. “It's just new enough that I need more proof that it works,” he said.

Egged on by Kano's optimism, a Valley News reporter gave the Unitrainer a try. After half an hour, she wasn't exactly pedaling off into the sunset, but there were marked improvements. Kano stood in the driveway of his West Lebanon apartment building and noted them in his PDA, watching his machine in action. “I can ride it,” he said, “but that doesn't mean anything, because I know how to ride a unicycle.”

Erin Hanrahan can be reached at (603) 727-3305 or ehanrahan@vnews.com.