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Scott Wilton rounds a corner during the Ride the Lobster race. -

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Scott Wilton is getting pretty good at reading the looks he gets when he rides past people on his unicycle.

That's a challenge, too, because he can go by awfully fast.

"A lot of people are surprised. Some people are intrigued. Other people are like, 'What's wrong with you?' " the 15-year-old Madison East High School student said. "There's a lot of mixed emotion. And there's some people that just try and pretend you're not there; they try to ignore you. It's fun to watch their expressions. They're like, 'That's not normal. I'm going to just ignore it.'"

Wilton is also getting pretty good at speed and distance, considering he hasn't been on one wheel all that long. And he now has a unique experience under his belt.

Last month, he pedaled his way through Ride The Lobster, an event in which teams of three riders relay-raced across the entire Canadian province of Nova Scotia over five days. It was the first long-distance unicycle event of its kind ever staged, and Wilton was the only Wisconsinite involved.

His team was the event's youngest, too. He and a pair of friends he met at last year's North American championship event -- his introduction to competitive unicycling -- used their combined age (43) as their team number.

Their team name? 2Y2D, shorthand for Too Young to Drive.

Wilton and Toronto siblings Josh McCormick, 15, and Emily McCormick, 13, took 22nd out of 35 teams, with each covering about a third of the 800-kilometer (roughly 500 miles) trek.

"It's the coolest thing I've done on a unicycle," Wilton said.

The race started in Yarmouth, a town in southern Nova Scotia, on June 16 and ended in Cape Breton in the north four days later. Teams put in an average of about 200 kilometers in the first, second, fourth and fifth stages. The third day consisted of a time trial and criterium.

When they weren't on the road competing, team members rode with a support person in a van either alongside or ahead of the rider. The race was a like a relay, Wilton said, only instead of a baton, riders passed back and forth a GPS unit that tracked the team.

The first day took over 10 hours and the next took 11 hours for Wilton and 2Y2D. They finished the fourth and fifth days in just under 10 and nine hours, respectively.

All told, it was 44 hours, 3 minutes, 10 seconds of riding, a time that was nearly eight hours behind the winners, a team from Germany.

The best part about it, Wilton said, was meeting so many unicyclists.

"Because so few people do it, the community is really tight," he said. "There's a lot of people that I've heard about or talked to on the (Internet) forums, but it's really nice to actually meet them and ride with them."

He likes going fast

Wilton got his first unicycle for Christmas five years ago, partly because his friend had just picked up the sport and partly because his mom, Ann, knew someone that unicycled a long time ago.

He has since added other models to his collection, including one with a 36-inch wheel that's better suited for speed, and one that's used for tricks.

He used to ride his unicycle to school, but the burden of heavy high school books in his backpack made him switch to a bike. Those rides to school, however, started building up his speed and endurance.

The transition from riding as a hobby to competing came, Wilton said, because he likes going fast.

"Basically, we found out about nationals and we decided we'd go just for fun," he said.

At the North American Unicycling Championships and Convention last year in Michigan, Wilton made a big splash in his first big event.

He won the points championship in the 13- to 14-year-old boys group, finishing first in five events: one-footed 50 meters (10.71 seconds), 100 meters (18.34 seconds), 400 meters (1:13.90), 1,500 meters (5:07.13) and obstacle course (25.47).

It was the first time he had ever used a 36-inch wheel, and it took a toll in the 10,000-meter race.

"I fell off five times in the first lap," he said.

Still, he took third in that event (31:03.39), using a unicycle that belonged to a rather tall friend of his mom's. Wilton said he had to take a hacksaw to the seat post to make it fit.

In on the ground floor

It's not always easy being involved in an emerging sport.

The closest thing to a unicycle club that there is in Madison, Wilton said, is a loose organization of about 15 riders. The closest store with unicycling gear is in the Twin Cities, sending Wilton to the Internet to shop.

Still, he's headed back to the North American championships, which run Sunday through July 12 in Rapid City, S.D., to see how he does in an advanced age group.

And there's something intriguing about getting in on a sport on the ground floor.

"It's just a lot of people getting into it now, and I think that's cool," Wilton said. "It's a lot of fun to have more people doing it because unicycling is such a unique thing. These competitions and these conferences are so much fun because you meet so many other people that you don't normally see."

Wilton's family, which also includes dad Jeff and sister Patricia, went with Scott to Nova Scotia for the once-in-a-lifetime experience. Make that a potentially-once-in-a-lifetime experience; Wilton hopes to ride in another Ride The Lobster event, although it's likely it won't happen again for at least a couple of years.

His is a family of unicyclists, with his mom being the last to join in.

"She wants to be in the fun," Wilton said. "Her goal is to run at nationals this year."

For his part, Wilton doesn't see himself stopping anytime soon.

"This is definitely a lifelong sport," he said. "Especially distances. Distance is, first of all, a great way of exercising. It's also a lot of fun.

"There's hardly any awareness" of unicycling in the general public, Wilton said. "But it's getting better."