10-15 hours of practice gets you where, now ?

Klaas Bil;1160792 wrote:
I think that for beginners, other beginner's advice is at least as
useful as the advice from more experienced riders. All I want to say is:
beginner's advice is very useful!



Thank's for the feedback! I have formed a number of opinions based upon
several issues I had when learning to unicycle. I hesitate to express
them realising they were no doubt 'bad' practice - although they still
helped me improve!

I appreciate your encouragement and for putting this in perspective.


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monocyclism
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For the static mount you could imagine yourself stepping on and over a
traffic cone w/o putting enough pressure on it so that it deforms.

Also check Terry's vid. (Tutorial starts @ 2:48)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBrBr...e=channel_page


--
skilewis74

Ride everywhere and never just ride anywhere. If you can ride where you
are going within a hour, do it, and if you can do a trick 50-75% of the
time do it along the way.- Bob Burnquist

What next? 'IUF skill levels'
(http://www.unicycling.org/iuf/levels/)*'
Street'
(http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/The_Unicyclopedia/Street)*'unicycletips.com'
(http://unicycletips.com/)*'Trials class system'
(http://tinyurl.com/yqpvxk)*'Trials Building'
(http://www.unicyclist.com/forums/showthread.php?t=64235)
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I just turned 50, learning the uni for the first time. So, after 15
hours, I can...
ride 100-200 feet pretty consistently
turn, sometimes. Other times I can't. Can't turn sharply yet.
just started learning to freemount (with a chock behind the wheel), I
can do it maybe 10% of the time.
Nice to know there are other old farts like me doing this!


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unstable
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Recently I was very encouraged by the positive comments made by several
experienced unicyclists to the learner-videos I produced of myself
learning to unicycle. they are here

http://uk.youtube.com/user/monocyclism

Further encouragement from Klaas Bill and CBS has reminded me that I
made notes to accompany each video I produced - and I wondered if these
would also be interesting for other learners to read. At the risk of my
notes appearing a load of cod's wallop here are bits that accompany two
videos. If they are of use I can upload the others. Please remember I
remain open to correction - I am a leaner.

HOUR 1
Balance and unicycling
At Hour 1 it is worth noting some experiences. Firstly the balance
principle. I found this intriguing because I couldn't find a 'point' of
balance to aim for as I sat on the seat. No matter how I leaned there
wasn't any feedback for balance.

In retrospect I can see I was thinking 'bicycle' not 'unicycle'. On a
bicycle your whole weight may be on the pedals and it is possible to
stand up on the pedals as you ride - especially going up steep hills.
As a learner on a unicycle the point of balance is achieved by
transmitting body weight through the seat and the seat stem. Legs are
used to turn the pedals - not to lift your weight onto them. To a
beginner like me this is a strange feeling - it's like relaxing the top
of your body whilst tensing the bottom half. Experts clearly develop
further abilities but this account is designed to communicate with
people who have never tried a unicycle. So, it focuses on my experience
as a beginner.

By relaxing my body weight onto the seat and feeling this transmitting
through the seat stem I began to get some sensation of balance or at
least reference to the wheel under me. Simultaneously I also felt
growing awareness of control, albeit partial, through the position of
the cranks - whether vertical or horizontal.

Looking where you are going is another technique that I have trouble
with. When I looked ahead up the road I kind of lost orientation with
the unicycle. I didn't have any references with the road - because the
unicycle is your link to the road - but it is underneath you and it
can't be seen if you don't actually look down! Looking ahead is like
floating free along the road - that I found somewhat disorientating. On
a bicycle you are normally aware of the machine and can still see the
handlebars and front wheel when you look up the road.

However, I believe this points to one of the major pleasures of
unicycle riding i.e. ultimately you ride along the road with a sense of
freedom from the device that is enabling you to go along the road!
Now I have to practice looking ahead and also sitting up straight - I
believe these two thing will come hand-in-hand. I am also eager to
develop control of the cranks using the legs.

HOUR 3
Wow! discovered today how to ride faster as follows:
The saddle position has a lot to do with balance and also how sensitive
the machine is. Push the seat backwards and the unicycle becomes slower
to respond to pedaling motion. Push the seat forwards and the unicycle
becomes twitchy and over responsive.

Think of it like this:
To go faster you have to lean forward then as you fall you pedal faster
to keep the unicycle up. However, when you are sitting on the seat there
is a balancing point between leaning forward and leaning backwards.

If the seat is set forwards to 'twitchy' the balance point is extreme.
between leaning back and leaning forwards there is hardly any middle
balance point. So one second you are leaning back and if you compensate
by leaning forward the balance point shifts at light speed and you fall
off.

This has to be damped by setting the seat backwards enough to dull the
over responsiveness but not so much that the unicycle becomes sluggish
to pedaling faster. This position is found by experimenting with the
setting that is personal to each individual. I found my setting today.

Now I have got a compliant unicycle that is happy to come to life when
I start pedaling hard. When I slow up the unicycle becomes passive and
allows me to do some good balancing acts at almost full stop - way to
go!

However there is more. As a beginner it is natural to expect both feet
to be planted on the pedals whilst the backside is firmly planted on the
saddle. If this is not so you simply fall off the unicycle as you loose
control. Now I have discovered that is is possible to shift the feet as
well as the backside on the seat. This is done by essentially having the
cranks horizontal and stopping the unicycle from moving as you balance
in a stationary position. At this point it is possible to lift off the
seat to reposition where you are sitting - without loosing control. Same
goes for the feet as you can slide them into different positions on the
pedals. As a beginner this is useful as a way of repositioning after
just starting off - if you are just not in a comfortable position having
mounted the unicycle.


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Damn technology!

Just realised in my last post:

The titles 'HOUR 1' and 'HOUR 3' should read 'WEEK 1' and 'WEEK 3'
respectfully.


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monocyclism
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My 11 year old son is probably at around the 5-7 hour mark of practice;
it's hard to judge as he goes in intervals of 10-30 minutes. He's been
working at this since late October, I'd guess. He's the youngest of 3
sons and the last to learn to uni.

He's at the point where he can consistently ride 50+ feet, with lots of
longer rides in there, too--up to around 100 yards at a shot. He can go
down our driveway, turn either left or right, and proceed down the
sidewalk. He's working on "assisted" freemounts, where he puts the wheel
against the curb to keep it from rolling back. He can mount that way
about one-fourth of the time. He knows that, as he gets better at that,
he'll start moving the wheel out from the curb until he can mount
unassisted. I haven't really helped him much with any of this, except to
watch and give him encouragement. He's pretty persistent! I'll look
forward to having all 3 boys with me on muni rides soon!


--
pkittle

*==========================
Peter Kittle * Chico, CA
"The Revolution is just a t-shirt away."
--Billy Bragg
==========================*
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monocyclism;1159982 wrote:
I’m doing a little off road but heading towards imminent purchase of
36er so I can learn to ride roads by summer 09 – this will be safer
territory methinks.


I don't know - it's not often that one encounters cars on offroad
cycling trails.


TimeTraveler;1160631 wrote:
How do you keep the back pedal from going down when you mount?


For me -(total riding experience: 7 months)-, it was a combination of
two "breakthroughs" that got me from an average of 10 attempts per
success to hardly ever missing the first attempt.
First, as I step up (smoothly, like climbing from one stair to the
next), I keep as little weight as possible on the lower foot.
Second, I advance the wheel a bit just before beginning to step - this
seems to help offset the tendency of my lower foot to roll the wheel
back.


monocyclism;1161857 wrote:
However, I believe this points to one of the major pleasures of unicycle
riding i.e. ultimately you ride along the road with a sense of freedom
from the device that is enabling you to go along the road!


Yes! This is one of the great things for me about unicycling - it feels
like flying!


--
Tak

"Unicycling goes against common sense." --maestro8
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Tak;1162646 wrote:
I don't know - it's not often that one encounters cars on offroad
cycling trails.

Yes! This is one of the great things for me about unicycling - it feels
like flying!



I guess I take for granted that I live in a very-low-population area.
Also here in the UK we have the Sustrans cycle-path network. So I am
gearing (no pun) up to using this with a 36er.
Point taken about cars on off-road trails. Thats why I have put out a
post asking for info on MUni's. I sense a growing intrinsic personal
desire for off-road and this place is just down a few miles from where I
live:

http://tinyurl.com/67w9s8

I have down several runs on the easier trails but I love watching the
faces of crowds of MTB'ers as they prepare their gear for a ride and I
come along on one wheel!!!

Much appreciate your feedback.


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monocyclism
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