(upbeat blues music)
- This latest GCN assignment hasn't taken us
very far from home, but the reason that we're
lurking in this quiet and quintessential English village
is cause we're actually awaiting the arrival of a
truly remarkable record setting cyclist.
I think I can call him a cyclist.
Can I call him a cyclist?
He's only got one wheel.
(upbeat blues music)
Ed Pratt set off from the sleepy county
of Somerset in the UK as a 19-year-old.
In three years, 22,000 miles later, he is back,
having become the first person to have
circumnavigated the world on a unicycle.
Many of you will no doubt be familiar
with his YouTube videos that have
documented his trip, and what a trip it's been.
We'll hopefully find out some more.
Here he is!
Ed... he's here! (laughing)
- We clear?
- We're clear, go for it.
Wowie.
- How are you doing, Simon?
- Very good, I'll tell you what, it's an absolute pleasure
to meet you. - You too, mate.
- Thank you so much for stopping, I appreciate you're only
a few miles from home now, so I imagine if I were you
I'd wanna get back, but... do you want your
adventure to end, or are you, like...
- I think three years around the world
on a unicycle, I think it's enough.
- Okay, alright, well, we don't want to
stop you for too long, so I thought maybe
we could ride and chat whilst we go?
I've brought a bike, or at least kinda half a bike...
- You can unicycle can you?
- Well not yet.
Is it hard?
- Well we'll give it a go, shall we, yeah.
- Okay, cool.
Game on.
(upbeat pop rock music)
Right, this is gonna be a momentous occasion for me,
so it seems fitting that we're at this
beautiful location of a small village hall in Somerset.
But anyway, that doesn't matter,
we're here for the bike riding.
- Absolutely.
- So how do I start, mate?
- So the theory is you're always falling.
Just try and get that in your head.
You want your center of mass to always be
kind of going in the direction you wanna go.
- Okay, that kinda sounds like
always falling is probably... comes quite naturally.
- That's it, so-- - Okay cool, alright.
- So what you're gonna do is you're gonna take your
right foot, and put it on your bottom pedal here--
- So have it six o'clock?
- That's it, yeah. - Alright, okay.
- Cause anywhere else the wheel's gonna
want to go back to that position.
- Good point.
- Okay, so bring your left foot onto the other one,
and then you're just gonna try
and slowly bring yourself... okay, that's fine
- Get backwards-- - Oh yeah I think
you got it, you're a pro.
And then (laughs) you're just gonna
just try and bring yourself forward
using the rail just to keep your balance.
- Whoa!
- That's it.
(playful funk music)
Okay.
And then if you feel confident,
just try and let your body weight fall forward a little bit,
and then catch yourself by falling forward.
- Okay.
Oh I see.
- By pedaling again. - Whoa!
- That's it. (laughs)
- Alright.
- That's gonna happen a lot.
- Yeah, so straight back on.
Okay, I'm gonna try looking where I'm going now.
- But yeah, that's the thing, yeah just
looking in the direction you wanna go will help.
- Oh, whoa.
- Keep going, keep going.
- Oh yeah I've turned a corner!
Okay, come on now-- - Oh, uphill's gonna
be a struggle.
- Oh.
I got my breath back now.
That didn't feel so bad.
(playful funk music)
I've kinda unofficially graduated
from Ed's School of Unicycling.
So I've kind of given myself permission
to be unleashed, out on the open road,
and then we're gonna have a little chat
whilst we ride, just to find out
a little bit more about Ed's
round the world trip, so yeah.
Can't imagine anything could go wrong, really.
That's it... whoa, oh sorry mate, hang on.
Just have to reset quickly.
Right then, should we do another go, take two?
- Go for it.
- Okay.
Right, I'm going for it.
Right then, so, what were we talking about?
Highlights of your trip, then.
So what... can you kind of distill down 22 thou...
Oh, sorry, anyway, mate I've got this.
- You've got it?
- Oh, aw damn it we're going uphill again.
This is a dead end.
Hang on a minute.
(grunts)
I wonder why this isn't going to work, mate.
Do you mind if I just buy you a beer?
- Absolutely, go for it.
- Alright.
(relaxed pop rock music)
Well, this seems a little bit more civilized,
even if maybe you're not actually
making any progress, it's only got safer for me.
- A bit more comfortable, isn't it?
- Yeah it is.
Right so firstly then, you actually set out with the
aim of raising awareness of a charity,
raising money for charity with this trip, right?
- That was it, yeah.
So the charity that I'm raising money for,
well I originally aimed to raise £18,000,
I've smashed that, it's £300,000 right at the moment.
- Nice.
- And the charity is called School in a Bag,
and they're based locally to where I live,
it's like 10 miles away from home,
so when I was preparing this trip I kinda
cycled to them just to see if they'd be happy
for me to support their cause.
- And they basically send these little red rucksacks,
they fill them with educational resources,
so exercise books, pens, maths sets, pencils,
you know, everything you'd want.
- So, I mean you smashed your target,
and then the other thing of course was
circumnavigating the globe, and on your website,
it says 18,000 miles, but you've just told me
it's 22,000 miles, you kind of... detours?
- Just a bit wiggly, you know, I met a guy
out in China, and it was British guy who was also
riding around the world, and for a month
we sort of spent together, you know it was a lot of
stopping, taking videos, going little detours and things,
and after that, I just thought let's just keep it
a bit more wiggly, and that was kind of our motto,
yeah, let's just keep it wiggly.
- (laughs) Nice.
Cause how far can you cover in a day?
Again, I saw that you'd done a max of
210 K's in 24 hours which is pretty epic.
- Well that was ridiculous, yeah, and that was...
it was 24 hours so it wasn't really the day,
it was a little bit of cheating, I left at
I think it was 2:00 p.m. in the afternoon,
and I arrived at 2:00 p.m. the next day.
- Well you... it does have credit for
riding through the night, I think that's--
- Yeah, 130 miles, 210 kilometers, it killed me.
- And that was, yeah, through the night
on Chinese highways, it was a little bit sketchy.
- Yeah, but in a normal day riding at 10, 12 miles an hour?
- Yeah, I generally don't do more than about 50.
50 is about good.
Any more than that, I definitely
start to feel it, and I don't enjoy it.
- It still sounds like a remarkable distance
on a unicycle, maybe that's just because you know
I'm still not quite grasped it yet,
but you're heavy laden as well, aren't you,
you've got... this isn't lightweight bike packing,
- No. - You're of course
going away for three years, you've got everything.
- I'm carrying everything I need
to sort of live on the roads.
And that's the thing, it's always this
compromise between being comfortable on the bike,
and being comfortable off the bike,
and I love the freedom of just having
everything I own on the bike, pretty much,
or everything that I need, so tent, sleeping bag,
I've got a cooking stove, I've got a computer,
and I've got probably about five kilos of filmmaking stuff,
cause I make videos on the road, so...
- Yeah well you've got a great video literally about
the kit that you've taken how many...
so make sure you check out Ed's channel
if you wanna have a look at that.
You kind of literally been pedaling
for the whole three years...
- No, I take a lot of breaks.
I think probably when I'm rolling, I'm probably
only doing five days of the week, and then
I'll take a couple of days off.
- Nice.
- I've taken weeks off before now,
I took seven months off when I was in Kyrgyzstan, I rode--
- Was that a preplanned seven months off?
- I kinda--
- Cause it seems like a... - Yeah.
- an odd place to stop for seven months,
but I don't know Kyrgyzstan very well.
- Kyrgyzstan.
- Yeah, it actually, weirdly makes a lot of sense,
cause visas are easy, you sort of get two months free,
and then all you need to do is go to the border,
come back, you get another two months,
so visa wise it's very easy.
And also it was just to get out of the winter.
Cause I was almost hit by a car when I was in Kazakhstan,
you know, icy roads, it was the first day it had actually
properly snowed, the roads were just covered in sheet ice,
and this car just loses control on the
other side of the road, almost smashes into me,
I was lucky there was a car overtaking me at that point,
cause otherwise it would've smashed into me.
- I see cause it hit the other car--
- As it happened it smashed into the other car,
both those guys were kind of hobbling out there,
it was quite serious, and after this I was just like
I'm not prepared to do another thousand miles of cycling
on this ice, cause it would've been another thousand miles
until I got to Bishkek, where I was
planning to stop for the winter.
(relaxed pop rock music)
- So here is... can I call it the beast?
It's pretty... I mean it's - You can call it a beast,
you can call it a bike, you can call it a unicycle, yeah.
- Alright, I'll call it a unicycle, that seems fair.
36 inch wheel, is that like as big as you can get?
- Yeah, kind of the biggest you can get on a unicycle,
people do take penny-farthing wheels,
and convert them into unicycles,
they'll make their own frames,
but if you want something with a pneumatic wheel,
then 36 is the biggest you can get it for you.
- Yeah, and I mean, who makes it?
- Unicycle.com.
- Okay.
- Yep.
- Wow, that's quite fast and
simple, yeah in Google-- - Easy, yeah.
- Right there we go then.
And then talk through the customizations on it then,
because that does not look standard.
- So weirdly, the wheel, all of this, the frame,
and the seat, and the brake even
are pretty standard bits, you could
go out, you could buy one today.
- What brake is it on there?
See I mean disk brake obviously but...
- Yeah it's disk and it's hydraulic.
I don't know the exact brand, but the
stuff that's special is all of this, obviously,
it's the framework that holds the bags,
that holds all the stuff that I've
used to get around the world--
- And you say the frame was made by your granddad?
- It was, yeah, so--
- What a legend, that's brilliant.
- Just under four years ago now,
I kinda came to him with the idea,
I said hey I'm gonna try and unicycle around the world,
and he's a very skilled sort of engineer,
so I kind of present to him this problem and he was...
Yeah he went away in his workshop for two weeks,
and came out with all this stuff.
- It's beautiful, it's like a mudguard slash pannier rack,
which is just a, you know, seems like a genius combination.
And the bags, then are custom made for your--
- Yeah.
So the bags are made by a guy in the States called
Carrie Gray, and I think he's still making them
for people who want to buy them.
- Is it quite a niche thing?
- It's very niche, yeah so it's hand made,
just not on a machine, he worked quite hard
to get the design right, cause
obviously with the unicycle, you're limited on
how much stuff you can put on it,
mainly just because your legs go here--
- Well yeah, I did notice you kind of like...
you gotta sorta knee out, pedaling, turning,
which is good, cause it means that you've got
more room to put stuff on your bike.
- You either do that or you chafe the insides
of your legs, so he's worked on that design,
and then I got in touch with him, sort of similar time
when I was preparing for the trip,
and he sent out the bags, and then I
wanted my granddad to then work
on the framework to hold them.
- So cool.
And in those bags, you've got a tent, and stove,
and sleeping bag, and camera kit, and...
- Everything that a normal sort of
cycle tourer would carry, and probably more.
I'm carrying a drone at the moment as well.
- Wow.
That's pretty cool, isn't it?
Yeah, so you just kinda cruise around
and you fly a drone,
- That's it, yeah. - Brilliant, genius.
And the other thing is that you've got
handlebars, of course, on there.
Is that for aerodynamics?
- It's just for somewhere to put your hands.
Otherwise, like you found, you're just flailing all over.
- Yeah, you don't wanna do that.
- And it's to take a little bit
of weight off your bum as well.
- And then the other thing that I'm noticing
is your pretty cool wristband there.
- I know, it's neat, isn't it?
- So what... I mean, what's that for?
- So yeah this was made for me by a guy called
Jim Sowers in the States, and he gave it to me
right at the start of my US leg in San Francisco,
and it's just a rear view mirror, so I can put it up,
and I can see the traffic that's coming behind me.
- Cool, is there anything else that you, I mean,
in terms of mechanicals, punctures?
- 80, maybe.
- 80 punctures?
- Yeah, so it's not too bad, if you
consider the three year trip.
There was a section on the Route 66 in America
where I was getting one every day.
- Oh no.
- And there was just... yeah.
I became pretty good at fixing them.
- Yeah, I was gonna say, - It was frustrating.
- 36 inch tubes, you know, you won't
find them in every bike shop, will you?
- You don't replace, you just patch.
Yeah I carry one spare, and--
- So does that mean that there are
40 patches on your inner tube?
- No, cause you know, I do replace them--
- Ah okay, when you can. - Well when I get the time.
But I do carry one spare, I like to patch it when I can.
(upbeat pop rock music)
- Okay so you are 30 miles away from home,
roughly 24 hours away from your coming home party,
so you got a leisurely one tonight,
what then comes after that?
Is it back to... I don't know what to say, is it your house?
Is it your mum and dad's house?
I mean you haven't been there for three years.
- Yeah, I'll stay with mum and dad for a little bit.
And yeah, I don't know what happens next,
but I've got a lot of video editing to do,
there's still a lot of that to do,
so I'm sure I'll stop in one place
and just kind of get that out,
cause I know people are keen to see what I've been up to,
I'd like to do some talks, and then I think at some point
I'll head out on another trip, human powered.
That's probably all I wanna say at this point,
- Fantastic.
- But we got ideas.
- Great stuff, alright well, Ed, thank you very much,
again, for stopping to talk to us,
and also trying to teach me how to ride a unicycle.
You know, I think that's probably me done
for unicycling for another 20 years, but anyway, yeah,
all the best, ride safe for the next 30 miles,
and then enjoy the homecoming.
- Cheers, Si.
- Ed, thank you again for stopping off,
enjoy the last 30 miles home.
- Cheers Si.
- And yeah, safe unicycling. - Cheers for coming out to
find me today, it was great.
- Hey it's a pleasure.
Next time you do something amazing, give us a shout.
- Alright.
See you, man. - Let's see how
it's done then.
- Take care!
- What an absolute legend.
Please, you gotta join me in giving Ed
a massive thumbs up, because he's a nice bloke,
and that was an incredible achievement.
Now if you wanna watch another video on GCN
which is perhaps a little bit out of our ordinary,
then why not check out Mark Beaumont tackling
the world penny-farthing hour record.