Getting around campus can be tiring. Walking seems to be the most popular; some drive, others skateboard or you see people wheeling around on bicycles. But Elliott Marchionna has them all beat with his unicycle.
A sophomore at Eastern Michigan University studying criminal justice, Marchionna, who’s hoping for a career as a law enforcement officer, claims he does it for the athletic benefits as well as standing out.
“It’s fun, the thrill definitely,” he said. “It’s about trying new things, going down hills, hitting new bumps.
“Most people think it’s cool, but you’re always going to run into people who have negative things to say. But I don’t really care what people think, usually when people say all that, I’m like, ‘You’re just jealous.‘”
Marchionna grew up in downtown Rochester and spent most of his adolescence riding a regular mountain bike. It wasn’t until the summer of his sophomore year in high school he began riding his unicycle.
“I was hanging out with my friends and we saw this guy,” he said. “He was covered in mountain bike padding gear … he looked like he was going off to war. I asked him where he was going, and he said he was going to ride his unicycle on the mountain trails.
“I thought it was pretty cool, but it wasn’t ’til a month later that I needed a part for my mountain bike. My mom and I went to the store, I saw a unicycle and asked if it was OK. She said yes, and here we are.”
As difficult as it looks, he’s only been riding for the last four years. Falling is impossible according to Marchionna, as you either stumble forward or the bike falls.
This seems impossible to spectators who witness him attempting to ride his giraffe unicycle, which is very similar to the average one-wheel, no handlebar model concept, except it stands 5 feet in the air.
“People ask me all the time, like how do you do that?” Marchionna said. “I really can’t explain, it’s not like riding a bike or walking; it takes dedication. I taught myself in a matter of months over a summer, I went out every day for an hour, you know practice makes perfect.”
Marchionna said he is hoping to get into trick riding like Kris Holms, the most famous mountain trail unicyclist, who also has a line of unicycle bikes made for trick riding.
His friend Lyle Kafer jokes he’s never seen him without the unicycle.
“Elliott is a really good guy, I’ve known him two years,” he said. “Over at the Kappa house, he’s friends with everyone, he’s really talented on his unicycle, it’s pretty sweet.”
Aside from riding his unicycle, Marchionna enjoys scuba diving and recently acquired his diving license.
Although Michigan doesn’t have a lot of areas to practice, he finds his schedule with classes and work to be the biggest challenge with this hobby. Currently Marchionna is one of the only unicyclists at EMU, but some students have come up to him and admitted to being a part of his community. Maybe next year the sidewalks will be filled with unicyclists.
