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My name is Steve Colligan, I am 47 years old and live in Manchester , UK , with my wife, Wendy, and our two boys, Tio and Zak.
My greatest passion in life is unicycling and I am involved in many aspects of the sport. I take part in 24 hour cross-country, endurance races and do long distance touring, but my favourite discipline is mountain unicycling. Because of the places I choose to ride, at home and around the world, plus the kind of extreme rides I do, I class myself as an 'Adventure Unicyclist'; a rider who chooses difficult and demanding routes, in out-of-the way places. I am also a keen mountaineer, so I now combine both mountaineering and unicycling in the same activity.
I have ridden down volcanoes in Peru and done extreme unicycling in New Zealand , as well as many short rides in the Nepali Himalayas. These are reported in Uni, the international unicycle magazine. As well as these, I have unicycled in several other countries, including China , France , Norway , Germany and Denmark . Closer to home I have ridden two different 'Coast to Coast' routes in the UK, done 100 miles in a day and completed the Three Peaks Challenge in 24 hours, summiting Ben Nevis, Snowdon & Scafell on my unicycle. I've also gone from London to Paris on one wheel, and taken part in numerous long distance charity rides. When I'm not riding I help run a unicycle club and organise national unicycle hockey tournaments. My greatest accomplishment will always be teaching my sons, Tio and Zak, to unicycle at the age of four.
As an adventure unicyclist I have undertaken difficult rides before, which have been mentally and physically challenging, but I have never done something as demanding as riding across the Roof of the World. Because of the severity of this ride, I started my training nine months ago. I go out riding on my unicycle every other day, clocking up to 100 miles a week in the hope of completing this challenge. Part of my training included an 800km (500 mile) unicycle race across Nova Scotia, Canada, earlier this year. Over the past few months I've put an immense amount of time, effort and pain into training for this, which will hopefully pay off and enable me to unicycle from Lhasa to Kathmandu successfully.
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