A thin breeze whistles through the trees on a foggy and chilly midnight walk to Founders. Strangely, the breeze gets louder, and almost sounds like it’s saying, “If you liked it then you should have put a ring on it, if you liked it then you should have put a ring on it …”
It sounds like Beyonce is about to burst through the dense mist when, suddenly, a tall dark figure glides out of the fog. As he zooms by, the long black cape attached to his neck drags behind him, the wind flattens his flannel pajama pants against his legs, and the electric unicycle he is riding propels him back into the fog—Beyonce’s voice fading with him.
This deejay on a one-wheel is senior and apartment resident Caleb Logan, who has become a prominent figure on campus. In an interview, he explained how he settled on this unusual transportation method, his reasoning behind the music, and how it feels to ride in the wind.
“It creates an artificial breeze,” he said. “Like when you put your hand out the car when you're on the highway.”
Logan purchased a one-wheel the summer before his junior year by taking advantage of the only plus side to bad parking—it’s cheaper.
“I thought to myself,” he said, “I'm saving money by getting Shadowlands parking. Over the course of the next couple of years, I'll save maybe like 300-something bucks by not getting priority parking. And I was like, what could I do with 300 bucks?”
He searched Facebook Marketplace for a small electric vehicle until stumbling upon a $500 one-wheel that he was able to negotiate down to $350.
“So, for the price of headphones,” he said, “I got a one-wheel. And junior year I arrived on campus and did less walking but spent more time outside than I had the previous two years.”
It didn’t take him long to adjust to the electric unicycle.
“It was a lot like riding a bike,” he said. “It took me about a half hour to an hour of like continuous time on the board to not fall off.”
The one-wheel became his main form of transportation and, by the end of his junior year, the built-in odometer showed that he had traveled several hundred miles on it.
“For reference, I live 600 miles from here,” he said. “Over the course of the first semester here, I traveled 600 miles around campus on the one-wheel. And, for reference, I only get like three to four miles per charge. So, I probably charged it up like 200 times or something. But I traveled the distance it would take to get to my home with like 200 charges.”
However, not all the miles were ridden by him; he frequently allowed anyone interested to try riding it.
“I've had probably a dozen or more people try out the one-wheel,” he said. “Whenever people are like, ‘Hey, could I, you know, try it out?’ I'm like, ‘Oh yeah, sure.’”
Music became an early addition to his rides. Since the one-wheel is silent, he chose to use speakers, instead of headphones, so that the music could alert people that he was coming.
“It's not like people hear me coming when I'm behind them if I don't have music. And I would hate to say excuse me, you know, 50 times a day as I zoom past people.”
Aside from avoiding songs he dislikes, he’ll play almost anything he’s in the mood for.
“Recently, I've been trying to do some more variety,” he said. “You know, everything from classical music, to a soundtrack, to a lot of times it's 2010s pop and EDM music.”
However, he does enjoy upbeat music.
“The upbeat music,” he said, “really matches how I'm feeling when I'm on the board.”
Codey Parrish, a freshman from Founders, is one of many students who enjoy the environment Logan creates.
“He has good music taste,” said Parrish. “He's always playing fire music. He's played ‘Sunflower’ by Post Malone a lot.”
Logan is always happy to take song requests.
“If you have a song that you want to listen to, and you request it, he'll play it,” said Caleb Chua, a junior from Andreas. “And he's more than happy to share his one-wheel with you. So, like, yeah, I mean, I understand why people would be like, ‘Oh, I don't like it,’ or you just don't like his taste of music. But his taste in music, I think, is pretty good.”
The one-wheel helps Logan spend more time outside and makes him feel closer to nature. It gives him the same feelings he gets when he hikes, swims, cliff jumps, white water rafts or goes caving.
He views the one-wheel as a perfect synergy between technology and nature, helping him spend his time more wisely.
“A huge contrast,” he said, “between the way I'd be wasting my time in my dorm and the apartment. You know, on my phone, TV or whatever I do to procrastinate on homework.”