Meet ‘Duffy,’ the guy who rides his unicycle all around Levittown

It’s good to find the thing that makes you most content in the world, and for Duffy that’s his unicycle.

He’s peddled everywhere on one wheel throughout Lower Bucks County since 1978 and, at 59, it’s his main means of transportation to work, hauling groceries home to Fairless Hills, or to stop in for a cold one at Bailey’s bar in Levittown, where we met last week.

“Hey, Duffy!” barflies called to him, a welcome face in the place. They shook his hand. “Good to see ya again.”

“I guess I’m pretty well known. People see me and they call out, ‘Unicycle Guy!’ or just ‘Duffy,’ said Duffy. “Yeah, Duffy is what everyone calls me. A lot of people who know me don’t know my first name.”

It’s Robert, but he’s OK with Bob.

“Ok, so how I started riding unicycles,” he said, sitting in the cool, dark bar on a bright, scorching afternoon.

He was 15 and living on Pleasant Lane in the Pinewood section of Levittown.

“I had a Courier Times (paper) route in Lakeside … My best friend moved across the street … Kurt Sunderland. And he found up in his attic this little, cheap, solid tire unicycle. We’re 15 so, naturally, we gotta try it out.”

It wasn’t an easy ride. It squeaked.

“It took us three days to go light pole to light pole, and a week to go all the way around the block,” he said.

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He was hooked on unicycles.

“I just thought it was cool,” he said. “Maybe it was just our generation, not afraid to experiment with new things.” He took the money he’d earned from his paper route, some $200, and bought a new unicycle.

“When I hopped on it, oh, man, that thing rode like a Cadillac compared to the other,” he said.

He had no intention of riding a unicycle for the next 44 years, but then fate struck. His Huffy 10-speed bicycle that he used to deliver newspapers was swiped from his carport.

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“I thought, well, I’ll do the paper route on the unicycle,” he said.

Each day he’d wheel from Pinewood to Lakeside where the papers were dropped. He’d grab as many as he could carry under his arm, deliver them, that go back for more until he was done.

“Seventy-one papers,” he said.

He got good at unicycling real fast.

“I’d ride up a driveway, to the front door, open the door, slide the paper in, shut the door, do a 180, and so on up and down the streets,” he said.

Then, more fate.

“Every time I got a new bicycle, it was stolen,” he said.

So he stuck with the unicycle, getting better and better as he rode his route each day.

Bob Duffy pedals his unicycle near the Bucks County Technical High School in Bristol Township. Wherever he goes, he gets shout-outs, thumbs up and snap his picture. “When school’s in, the kids on the buses are the best. They love it. They’re all out the windows,” he said.

He has five unicycles right now, but has owned a dozen, including his prized 1969 Schwinn.

“Schwinn is pretty much indestructible,” he said. “You might fall and hurt yourself, but that Schwinn is gonna be fine.”

While it can be dangerous for amateurs, riding a one-wheeler is a snap with balance and concentration.

“First thing is you got to get ‘bicycle’ out of your head, because they’re two different things.

“And you ride where you lean and lean where you ride. You have one balance point. Keep the wheel under you. That’s the name of the game. And after a while, you get the pedals going and keep going. Then, you learn how to turn. And you realize that every part of your body is part of your balance, and you’re in control.”

For most of his life he’s worked in food prep as a line cook in bars and restaurants throughout the lower county — Bailey’s, Seafood Shanty, the old DeGrand Diner. He’s ridden in rain, sunshine and snow. He likes snow riding the best.

“It makes you concentrate twice as hard to see what is ice, what is snow, what’s deep, what’s not. Really a challenge.

“It’s how I get to work, how I shop, how I get around. I’ve owned six cars in my life, but I gave up driving,” he said.

Wherever he goes, cruising along Wistar or Woodbourne roads, Mill Creek Parkway or Falls Community Park, people give him shout-outs, thumbs up and snap his picture.

“When school’s in, the kids on the buses are the best. They love it. They’re all out the windows,” he said.

Seeing the world from the seat of a unicycle for as long as he has has given Duffy a thousand great stories.

“Ok, here’s one,” he said. “I’m leaving DeGrand Diner at night. I had a six pack of Heineken. There’s no moon and it’s pitch dark. I go under the Turnpike Bridge, then take the canal towpath headed toward the Levittown Shopping Center. I could barely see the trail. So I’m just concentrating on the trail. I got my momentum going. So far, so good. Then I hear something and I look up and SMASH! This dude on a 10-speed was coming the other way and we couldn’t see each other. He was doing the same thing, looking at the trail. It was a head-on collision. We’re on the ground. Heineken bottles are all over. Dude gets up, picks his bike up, goes to get mine, and when he picks it up he says, ‘Dude, I broke your bike!’ I said ‘No, no. It’s a unicycle.’ So we sat there on the side of the canal and finished off that six-pack. And we kept saying, ‘I don’t believe that just happened.’”

In all his years riding, he met just one other unicyclist.

“He was a kid and he said, ‘Oh, I finally met you.’ And we rode around the block together, side by side, just talking about how we love unicycling,” he said.

He rides about five miles a day, and it’s not just a ride, or a chore or a struggle. To hear him talk, it’s metaphysical.

“I don’t think a lot of people would ride a unicycle because they think it’s too dangerous, too slow. Everyone thinks that going faster and faster is the way to go. Get wherever you’re going fast. But a unicycle has one speed, it’s your speed, it’s human speed. And the best part is that you see everything around you, completely. You notice every detail of life around us. There are no obstructions, no cross bar between your legs, no distractions.

“You get to see people, get to talk to the neighbors, you get waves. People who drive the same way every day tend to see the same things over and over, or don’t see a thing, because it’s the same old thing. I see something different every time out. And it’s hard to explain but, it makes you so in tune with everything around you, like you and the cycle are one, and the world is really an interesting place. I really feel fortunate for that kind of life, and it’s not for everyone, obviously. You have to have balance, confidence, coordination.

“And,” Duffy said, laughing, “I guess you have to be a bit crazy, too. But I love it, and I’m glad I found it.”

Columnist JD Mullane can be reached at 215-949-5745 or at jmullane@couriertimes.com.

This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: Unicycle Guy of Levittown a familiar sight pedaling down streets