1 year of unicycling: How's my idling and backwards ability?

[Acrorebel]

@elpuebloUNIdo

You might try idling using a longer pedal stroke, from 3:00/9:00 all the way to 9:00/3:00. Then you can practice momentary still stands at either end of your idling stroke. It’s more easily done, I think, on a 20", but doable on the 24" (I’m a broken record: get a 20", get a 20", get a 20"…).

Your backwards riding is a bit choppy, but for one year, who cares! You’re doing great. My only suggestion, in regard to riding backwards, is to try to go a little more slowly. That might smooth out some of the choppiness in your pedaling.

Keep riding!

Interesting advice. I thought maybe my idles were a little too big at first. I’ll see what I can do.

When going backwards, I get more choppy when I slow down. I’m smoother going backwards fast but it’s scarier and I feel unstable.

Today I deflated my tire a little to make backwards practice a little more challenging, based on the idea that we learn faster when we vary slightly how we practice(thanks OneTrackMind for that research). I could barely do a few circles and did only 2 figure 8s. I can usually do 10 or more figure 8s and dozens of circles when the tire is inflated all the way, though not continuously. I think all this struggling should make backwards unicycling a lot easier when I inflate the tire properly. It’s even kind of difficult doing small circles forwards at this tire pressure, though I can do them without fail.

Thanks for the advice, elpuebloUNIdo.