Young men with nuts of steel.

Unicycling – a sport long relegated to clowns and weirdos – have gone hardcore: a small but growing cadre of unicyclists have “ruggidized” (is that a word? It is now!) the whimsical device and created the new sport of Mountain Unicycling or Muni. Video after the jump.

 Instead of blazing down a trail at top speed, a muni rider often moves a few feet at a time, pedaling hard, rolling and hopping from rock to trail, finding the “line,” or the ideal path down the trail.

Riders will often cover the same ground repeatedly, seeking to perfect their lines.

“Muni is a sport for minimalists and problem solvers – people that don’t mind working over and over at something until they succeed,” Holm wrote. “A trail that would be boring on a bike can be totally enthralling on a muni.”

All of which makes mountain unicycling a nearly contemplative exercise.

“Mountain bikers do it for adrenaline,” Aharoni said. “This is a more focused, technical sport. The amount of concentration it takes is akin to meditation.”

David Gelles of the New York Times has more: Link – via Neatorama