Advice Please ? Building Confidence / Longer sessions.

I’m 3 months in so I’ll throw my learners perspective into this.

My training time per session is about 2-4 hours though, I really get into the mode and time flies.

Surprisingly, even if you’re good at other stuff, even similar stuff like biking, starting out unicycling will require you to start reconditioning your body again. My guess is that different parts of your body is being worked out when riding the unicycle as oppose to riding a bike. Also, on a bike for instance, you don’t have to pedal nonstop to keep moving, you lean on the handebars for support and the weight is off your spine, butt, and legs more. I’m an okay bike rider, I can do 10 miles on commute without breaking much of a sweat. But when I first started unicycling, for the first few days, I could barely make it past half the block.

Another thought is that your body has to build up new muscle memory in order to help you ride the unicycle and balance it. So when you first start, you’re wasting a lot of energy on unneeded movements.

I’m guessing this is due to my own preference but I tried this and found it uncomfortable. For me, I needed to bend my legs to feel comfortable. The high seat also did a number on my crotch area which led to me having to stop a lot. What you say is true about the weight on the seat and less weight on your leg and knees, but I did this simply by repeating:

“Sit up straight, weight on the seat”
With that in mind, I practice riding forward and as soon as my weight started going back to my legs, I stopped myself and go back to the beginning spot and start over by repeating that same line until I did just that.

I don’t understand the common advice about looking forward because when I started, I looked forward but not up and straight ahead but rather down right in front of me in case there are bumps. So my head was rather down, looking at the road.

Ride with a good straight back posture, I’d say about 80-90% of your weight on the seat and enough weight on your legs to get things moving and to deal with the abnormal road elevations. When you do muni, it’s different but that’s another story for when you get there.

Practice, but as soon as you notice some sharp pains, STOP. Do not push yourself or else the pain becomes long lasting, in other words, you end up hurting yourself more by pushing it. You want to push yourself till it’s sore but not something that’ll last for more than a day or two. Let yourself recover 80% or fully so you don’t end up with a more permanent injury to your body, resting your body is as good as training. Like Dane M mentioned in another thread that I also notice, letting your body soak in what you learn is also a training technique.

Tip on backwards riding:
Turn seat backwards if you’re learning and going backwards a lot, your pedal will unscrew and mess up your cranks.

I’ve never idled a 29er, I don’t know if it’s as impractical as it is on a 36er. I have a 26er. Idling is a lot easier with longer cranks, higher pressure in the tire for less road traction so you can swerve. When you start out idling, give yourself a lot of room to swerve. The stuff you see on youtube with people idling in one place, that’s usually not how you’ll be when first learning it. You’ll be all over the place.

For riding backwards, remember that you don’t have to ride fast. Stop after every half revolution. You’ll most probably start riding backwards by trying to go fast in order to keep yourself up like when you first started learning to go forward, but you’ll learn later that you don’t need all that speed and energy to stay up.

I’d also like to note a personal experience about crank lengths:

Shorter cranks seem to revolve easier and so pedaling fast on shorter cranks feel easier.

I’ve also noticed that shorter cranks give me less “squirreling” on the road which also reduces the crotch burn from the seat/crotch friction.

Other stuff that I’ve learned that might help you now or in the future:

Riding a larger wheel will help you understand your smaller unicycles and “enlighten” you.

Thread about it here:

So try going back to the 24" after a few days of riding the 29er.

I also recommend this tutorial for the back posture: