Man riding 3,000-mile East Coast Greenway on Unicycle
As if riding 3,000 miles down the East Coast Greenway isn’t a big enough challenge, a 19-year-old Maine man is doing it on a unicycle.
According to the East Coast Greenway Alliance, Avery Seuter is two months into what is believed to be the first-ever Maine-to-Florida trip on the Greenway via unicycle. He’s using the trip to raise awareness and funds for the organization. So far, Seuter has raised more than $3,000.
Seuter first learned about the East Coast Greenway from his preschool teacher in Jacksonville, FL.
“I remember our teacher took us out to a part of the trail that was just being built, and she told us that at one point in the future it’s going to connect all the way from Maine to Florida – and I didn’t believe it,” Seuter told the Alliance.
According to the Alliance, Seuter was reintroduced to the trail via a Greenway sign on the Eastern Trail Bridge across I-95 in Kennebunk, Maine. He soon unicycled the Eastern Trail from near his home in Wells to Portland. “That’s what made me want to do the whole segment,” Seuter said.
According to his Instagram account, Seuter reached Jacksonville around Dec. 31 and has logged more than 1,800 miles so far. He averages between 20 and 30 miles per day.
“There’s no coasting on a unicycle,” Seuter told WTLV, “the pedals are fixed to the wheels so whatever my pedals do the wheel does. It’s a fixed gear so a lot of my time I have to really focus on staying up, it takes a bit of balance. It’s kind of hard to think about anything really when I’m on it. … For me it kind of feels normal. I’ve been doing it so long it’s a lot like riding a bike.”
As if balancing on a unicycle isn’t hard enough, Seuter, who is camping along the way, is carrying all of his gear on the unicycle.
For more information on the Greenway Alliance, check out https://www.greenway.org/