The first time Kris Holm went exploring the Fromme Mountain bike trails, he admits to avoiding the wooden obstacles that make the North Shore famous.

He only had one wheel to ride on.

“I was so intimidated,” recalled the world-renowned unicyclist.

But it wasn’t long before Holm was bombing down those trails to the amazement of two-wheeled riders sharing the same mountain paths.

Word got out and Holm suddenly became the focus of extreme sport filmmakers, writers and photographers.

The latest film on Holm, Revolution One, is set to be included in the Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour which kicks off next Thursday at Centennial Theatre in North Vancouver.

For the Vancouver-based Holm, the film is a retrospective on the sport over the last decade, a look at a few of the riders who have had a profound impact on unicycle riding including Holm, Dan Heaton — the film’s director and producer — Shaun Johanneson and George Peck.

“It’s a quick snapshot of some people who have had an affect on the sport in the last 10 years,” Holm said. “It’s like the story of skateboarding in the 70s, or mountain biking.”

While Holm is credited for pioneering the tough jungle unicycling riding style, he’s also an accomplished competition rider. Some of his other accomplishments include trekking the ancient trade routes of the Kingdom of Bhutan on his bike, riding the Great Wall of China and rolling around some serious mountain peaks in North America.

But in the opening scene for Revolution One, Holm sheds light into what really drives him to ride the way he does.

“If you’re riding and it’s hard, your thinking about riding,” he narrates over a clip of him balancing on a slippery log on Spanish Banks. “If you’re not thinking about riding, usually you’re falling.

“I love that focus.”

Holm started riding when he was 12 after receiving a unicycle for his birthday. An outdoor enthusiast, he didn’t think twice about taking the bike off road after mastering it on the pavement.

“I approach unicycling as an outdoor adventure,” Holm said.

Riding became the activity of choice for rest days on his climbing trips to destinations like Squamish, Joshua Tree, Yosemite and Smith Rocks.

Then in 1997 when the Victoria native moved to Vancouver, he heard about the North Shore mountain bike trails.

“I was amazed at the opportunities that there were, this huge playground I couldn’t believe existed.”

The terrain hasn’t just pushed Holm to ride harder, it’s also launched his name into the stratosphere within the biking community and helped him launch his own business selling premiere unicycles.

Despite the success, Revolution One isn’t a chest-thumping doc, although it features plenty of frames of hardcore stunts in urban and forest settings.

“These kinds of videos for me are not about showing how good we are as riders,” Holm said. “It’s about how we feel about the sport.”

The Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour opens Dec. 3 at Centennial Theatre, 2300 Lonsdale Ave., with additional shows Dec. 4 and 5 at the Hollywood Theatre, 3123 West Broadway.

For tickets or more info, visit www.accvancouver.ca.

dpi@northshoreoutlook.com