Mountain unicycling gives new meaning to the phrase, ”Look mom, no hands.”

Flying down a steep butte on a mountain bike is crazy enough, but on a unicycle?

Come on.

”You can hold on to the front of the saddle,” assures Wade Beauchamp, a mountain unicyclist who builds unicycles and single speed mountain bike frames at his Vulture Cycles shop in Sunriver. ”It’s a little more elegant to try not to, but survival occasionally supercedes the aesthetic.”

Beauchamp and several of his friends even hike up Mount Bachelor (before snowfall) with their unicycles, and somehow ride them back down.

Beauchamp says there’s a group of about 20 mountain unicycling enthusiasts that he knows of around Central Oregon.

This time of year, riding on Buttes or off-road is a little tricky, but there’s always a way to ride around town, attempting tricks and pushing the envelope of the sport.

Beauchamp, 32, got started on the mountain unicycling scene when now longtime friend Eugene Cathcart, then 15, came into his mountain bike shop in Flagstaff, Ariz., six years ago.

”He was just a punk kid and came into my shop,” Beauchamp recalls. ”We had a unicycle there and he learned how to ride it.”

Says Cathcart: ”It caught my attention and I had to learn it.”

The two friends eventually moved to Bend, where Beauchamp taught Cathcart how to build mountain bikes. Before long they were both building mountain unicycles.

Cathcart, now 21, says he’s sold about 30 mountain unicycles so far out of his house/shop in Bend, and Beauchamp says he’s built about eight unicycles.

The mountain unicycles have large tires and wheel frames much like a downhill mountain bike.

Cathcart says he and Beauchamp are ”pretty much best friends,” though their age difference shows by the ways they approach unicycling.

”A bunch of us are definitely trying to take it to the next level,” Cathcart says. ”We’ll do drop-offs and steep terrain.”

Beauchamp says he shies away from the crazy stunts.

”I’m really satisfied with just being able to ride the darn thing,” he says.

Mountain unicycling received some media attention in September when Cathcart and Beauchamp were featured in a 15-minute segment on Oregon Public Broadcasting’s Oregon Field Guide. The broadcast included footage of the two unicycling along the Deschutes River Trail outside Bend.

Several local mountain unicyclers meet every Wednesday night at the parking lot above Drake Park in Bend. There, the unicyclers try new tricks and moves, pushing the sport in a multitude of directions.

While Cathcart says he prefers riding in natural terrain – including down Mount Bachelor – the sport is also taking on a freestyle aspect much like snowboarding and mountain biking have.

Unicyclers are doing 360s or 720s while planted on the ground, riding with just one leg on the unicycle or performing 180 hops: leaving the ground and landing while riding backward.

”Everyday, someone is doing something that’s never been done before,” Cathcart says.

While mountain unicycling appears dangerous, especially the off-road variety, both Beauchamp and Cathcart say it’s actually safer than regular mountain biking because the speeds aren’t nearly as high. Because a rider’s legs are directly connected to the wheel, the rate of speed is never faster than a running pace.

Many unicyclers also wear helmets, knee pads, shin pads or ankle braces.

While mountain unicycling is a physical challenge, requiring supreme balance and strength, perhaps the most difficult aspect of the sport is the mental obstacle.

”More than anything, it requires an open mind and realizing that unicycling isn’t as hard as it looks,” Cathcart says. ”It looks impossible, but once you figure it out, it’s not that hard.

”It’s kind of addicting. It’s this mental challenge to try to overcome and realize you really can do it.”