any tips on 1ft rding other than just do it?
lean your upper body slightly forward just before you push down so that when you are pushing down, the forward momentum puts you back up straight. i think it really is something you’ll just feel for after about 30 falls. keep your off foot on the crown and not touching the tire. i think i remove my off foot from the pedal as my drive foot is near the bottom of the stroke. you have to put more weight on the seat and get enough force on the downstroke to push you through the part where your power foot is coming up. if you’re foot is slipping on the way up i angle it forwards to get traction on the pedal.
does any of that help you? i think theres a help place you can go and see movies. i don’t have a link though.
^^^ all that plus I find it so much easier when you have you’re arms out sort of like a crane but slightly toward the front. I guess with your arms out like that it keeps you leaning slightly forward and helps with you’re balance.
im trying to learn, but i can only get one pedal revolution before i either fall or have to put my foot back on. I have my arms in the “crane” position, but my nonpedaling foot hangs behind and to the side of me for ballance… is this wrong?
it’s much easier to have the foot on the crown. it gives you leverage to minimise the difficulty of side-to-side balance so you can concentrate on forward-backward balance.
afterwards you can learn foot extended, which i suppose is better if you really want to catch people’s attention. it also helps slightly with the transition back to regular riding.
one thing to remember is to remove pressure on the pedal as much as possible during the upstroke. it’s just a case of learning the motion of the pedal and going with it, so as to cause least resistance.
I actually learned in 5 minuites… heres how … down my driveway(downhill helps a lot because you don’t have to push when you pedal) starting with one revolution… then 2 …then 3 and so on until i was getting 20 or so, but if you fall start at the highest number you know you can do everytime
hope it helps
ohh and if you have a unicycle w/ a rounded frame i suggest not putting your foot on it
I learned by just taking my foot off for about ahalf a ref and putting it back on, then i got used to that and could go for a few revs, now i can go blocks one footed.
I first learned to just have my foot hanging on the side, then to ride with it extended in any direction, i can swing it wildly outwards and still go, that grabs everyones attention and i find it quite fun, and also, i like to ride one footed with one foot off, then use the other foot, and alternate hich foot is off the pedal and on the frame, its just better to do it with either foot =p
The BIGGEST thing you’ve gotta learn is to not be afraid to go fast. It’s easiest for me on ground that’s as level as possible because everything’s easier if you’re not trying to slow down. Just do your best to go along with the wheel and if that means cruisin’ along at a pretty good pace, then that’s what you’ve gotta do.
I just went from a shaky one-rev 1-foot riding distance to 10+ revs every time during practice last night.
I’m not sure what wheel size you use, but for a 24", I find it helpful not to start off too fast, but at a reasonable pace, so you can have some momentum to work with when you snap up, but not so much that you’re jettisoned off the uni. Snap your foot up as your crown-foot’s pedal approaches 12:00 quickly and right up to the crown (practice this while stalling with the help of a mailbox to get the motion right). Lean forward just slightly, don’t overdo it or you’ll just fall forward. As you ride, don’t ever lose that momentum you started with, it is vital to how long you can stay up. Once you get more confident, look straight ahead while riding, and it’ll just come more naturally after that.
yea i just learned!
thanks folks
same here, i never liked putting my foot on the crown since my uni has a rounded crown and it just felt too awkward.
I learned my practicing putting as little pressure on one of my feet as possible. This lets you get a good feel of what your peddeling foot has to do without much risk of falling off.
I finally learnt one-footing last week, what I really found helpful was doing it on a very slight downhill, so that that the momentum of rolling down the slope helps to bring the pedal through the upstroke.
Doing ‘the crane’ helps too!
After I learnt with my dominant (right) foot I tried to do it with my left and found that I couldn’t even get my right foot up onto the crown before I fell off. I think left-foot one-footing will not be mastered for a long time!
I found that the slight downhill helped but most importantly, keep all of you weight on the seat. This help you be able to keep the wheel moving when your pedal is on the up-stroke.
now i can ride one foot i can give some tips
1 - i start with a good speed almost running but not so fast
2 - when your dominant pedal is up and almost going down take your other foot to the frame
3 - when you do this you have to take off the preasure of the pedal because its will be going up and if you put pressure it will break
4 - put preassure when its is going down for more speed
the trick for 1ft riding is to have confidence. if you have confidence you have no fear of falling and it makes it so much easier to learn to keep your balance.
hmm … i bet it would be easier to learn on a smaller uni ??
anyone learned on a 16??
… and i learned w/ my foot off the crown, but I can’t seem to do it that way anymore WHAT THE HECK!!!
ohh well … I like doing it w/ my foot on the crown better anyways
Any foot position you choose for your “off” foot; on the crown, instep braced against the fork above pedal position (handy for larger wheel sizes), extended in front, out to the side, bent knee w/ foot out behind, etc.-- all require different balance points as your center of gravity changes. The positions with your foot in contact with the frame are probably the easiest variations, because of your ability to brace against the unicycle at awkward points in the pedal stroke. Learning to go back to foot extended after you’ve come to depend on that assistance can be pretty tricky.
As with almost everything else in this sport, the biggest answer is just to practice 
John M
I just managed to do this 4 hours back and have the scars to prove it so here goes… heh.
When I started learning I found it useful to cycle around like usual and then consciously moving my weight onto one leg. After I’m comfy with that, I’d just lightly place my other foot on the pedal and go with the motions, exerting force only when I feel I’m losing balance.
What that’s comfy, I tapped and removed that feet for increasingly longer periods of time. I’ve heard from around and you’re supposed to remove said foot for one rev, then 2, then eventually move that foot to the frame and keep it there. But I couldn’t for the life of me do that so I tried an alternative which apparently worked better for me so if that fails for you too you might want to try what I did.
I can idle one-footed so I start by idling like that next to a wall and on the upstroke, I’d push the pedal down hard and wait for it to hit up before pedalling hard again. If that works fine. If it doesn’t and it gets stuck halfway which i’m prone to doing initially, I’d just push myself away from the wall. Because my foot’s on the pedal, my pushing pushes the wheel away and gives it that extra power that my first pedal action lacks.