The Complete Book of Unicycling 2nd Edition Paperback – December 31, 2014

This is a review of The Complete Book of Unicycling--2nd Edition, by Jack Wiley. This book has many problems. The first one it that it is supposed to be a 2nd edition, published in April, 2011, but 99% of the book is about unicycling prior to the 1980s. A lot has changed in the unicycling world since then. There is no mention of MUni (mountain unicycling), trials, freestyle, etc. This looks like it is just a reprinting of the 1st edition with a dozen or so new sentences. The author discusses and describes the mechanics and brands of older unicycles, but does not mention the three most recognized brands now: Kris Holm, Nimbus, and Torker. The writing style is awkward. The author repeats himself many times, almost as if he is just trying to fill pages. The printing on the cover is nice, but the rest of the book looks like a 3rd generation black-and-white photocopy. I did like the history section, but it does not include the last 30 years. The best unicycle book I've read by far is The Essential Guide to Mountain & Trials Unicycling, by Kris Holm. If you are looking for a good manual on how to learn how to ride a unicycle, check out Ride The Unicycle, A Crash Course, by Gregg Vivolo (over-priced, but good).

This isn't the highest quality book I've bought. The content is a bit dated - I'd hardly call it the "complete" book of unicycling - doesn't cover any modern unicycling (like Muni or Trials). The quality of the book is rather poor - the drawings and printing in particular aren't very good. The content focuses on circus/entertainer style unicycling but that wasn't really what I was after.

Dear Sirs,I was most disappointed with this book, especially when I compared it with the first edition, and in particularl with Chapter 14 "History and devlopment" where it concerns the section on monowheels. I expected the content to be substantially revised (as claimed) and the photographic content improved. Instead, I found this section substantially reduced and it contains a number of errors which could have been corrected if the editor had taken the trouble to do some research into this subject. The photographic reproduction is poor and Dave Moore, who is still alive, could have been asked if he could have provided better copies of his original photographs. In regard to this aspect the first edition was not much better.This book will appeal more to the unicycle fans but for my purposes it is not what I expected.Yours sincerely, Stephen Ransom, Consultant Engineer and Author