I experimented, for several months, with really aggressive pinned pedals on my muni. Then I went back to the Nimbus pinned pedals, and even then, I slightly rounded the edge of each pin. I can understand how riders in wet conditions and those making serious drops…would like the aggressive pins, but for my dry conditions and slightly-less-than-macho riding style, they were overkill.
A while back, the pedals on my 20" wore down, and the plastic pins pretty much disappeared. I was then able to learn, for lack of a better term, positive traction control with my feet on the pedals. If I had kept using pinned pedals, I don’t think I would have learned that technique. I like to slide my foot position toward the toe when doing harder stuff. It would be a lot more difficult if the pins were too aggressive.
But doesn;t only depend on the pins if you have traction. having shoes with profile and pins is overkill. I prefer to have very flat shoes. Having flat plastic pedals and shoes with deep profile has no effect of course. In any case with flat soles, I can still shift my feet easily on my uni or get off in case of a UPD. Why is it only October. My b-day is in the second half of november. Before I was married, I could buy whatever I like whenever I like. Now that is all over I want my UW
By the way is it better to focus on freemounting a UW ride away instead of learning to ride along a wall or is that unrealistic.
My opinion, short version: you do not need to learn freemounting the UW, neither ride along a wall.
Extended: riding a wall would possibly help from falling sideways on a normal uni, but believe me, the wall won’t stop you from dismounting when learning UW. Personally I have found a lamppost, and I mount holding on the lamppost, pedals vertical, dominant foot down. Then, (while still holding to the post) turn the pedals 45°, let the lamppost go, fall, rinse, repeat. If you know how to ride normal uni, sideways falling is not a problem. The problem is the weight repartition between pedals, and the wall wont help here.
Learning how to freemount if you can not ride the wheel is exhausting and pointless. If you can do at least 10 revolutions starting from a lamppost, you already know how to freemount.
In a case, it took me 3 to 4 hours “saddle” time to learn riding 10 full revolutions repeatedly.
Over the past week, I’ve progressed hugely in terms of what I can do, and I’ve also come across pedal slipping on my stock wimpy pedals. Generally speaking, this hasn’t been much of a problem as long as my heel doesn’t get in the bars of the UW, which has lead to my ugliest UPD’s and my only actual injury, a pathetically unimpressive scab on my elbow.
That being said, the best solution to foot-slippage is to just slip your foot back into place. In order to do this, you need to be able to pause while riding, grip the wheel with your hand, and move the offending foot into a better position. Honestly, being able to stop and grip the wheel is the most critical skill I’ve learned aside from simply riding forward. It’s the natural follow up to free-mounting, which is why I would encourage learning that as well. Stopping and gripping is good for fixing foot position, hopping down drops and up stairs, and turning on a dime if you aren’t comfortable swinging your hips to do that. It’s really worth your time.
So gripping the wheel is like a wheelgrab mount on the uni? Or maybe easier because you can bend your knees. I haven’t been able to wheel-grab-mount on the uni and just use a static mount on the 36. It always feels like falling forward on the uni. From the very few UW vidz on youtube, I did see for hopping on or off something it looked “pretty easy” to grab the wheel.
Just wondering, what is the distance an experienced UW rider can reasonably cover? Is it doable to ride 10km in one go? I do not care about occasional UPDs, just want to know if (with experience) it becomes a viable locomotion device rather than a funny backyard contraption. Right now I can do 100m tops before my legs start to hurt.
I thought the ultimate wheel could be another form of jogging, but more like rolling-jogging or something. Based on what you say it seems it is a lot harder than jogging. There are some youtube vidz where they take the UW into the forest and turn it into a muni kind of toy. I also noticed that those riders can keep their upper body very still while only moving there legs. That must also be tiring. I kinda do that with uni when riding on rougher terrain or a few pedals when just shifting the seat under me.
I’ve been half thinking of trying to use the unicycle as an ultimate wheel until I can buy it, but I reckon because the UW brings the balance closer to the center, it might not really be worth investing time in.
Well it is definitely far from jogging and is very exhausting. I guess it also depends on the wheel diameter. Never tried it, but a 36" UW ought to be less tiring on flat surfaces and should allow to go much further than 20".
Right now I own 20" and 24" ; riding with those is not much faster than just walking. I see 28" readily available at unicycle.com. For those who tried it, does it really make any difference with 24? If I want to go for few kilometers with my kids, should I build a 36"? Or better yet, are those available somewhere?
In reading past threads it seems that expecting to ride a UW 10km in one go would take a super human effort. It is just not an efficient method of travel and any hills make it worse. Even experienced unicyclist report there their legs giving out within a km. It may be reasonable to say the UW is maybe 20 to 40 times less efficient than a unicycle in covering distances. If you can cover could cover 200 to 400km in one go on a uni maybe you could expect to cover 10km on a UW.
I suspect very few people ride long distances on UW and that most — if ridden at all — are used for “tricks and skills” in a small area.
I managed a lap of the water sports centre rowing lake (roughly 5 km route) but the longest single stage was about 500 metres and by the end I was riding 5 – 10 metres at a time and was exhausted.
Yes, but if I recall correctly, you ride a 24" ; from what I can judge, 20" behaves really differently compared to 24". I guess that 36" should be quite another beast, I conjecture that it is much less tiring on a flat paved road.
I don’t think you can buy the 36" UW from the unicycle shop, only make it yourself and from what I read the bigger uni makes it easier to learn. I think the only way to get my answer about how realistic it is to make a longer ride, is by starting to ride. One more month and I can justify the buy to my wife.
Another question: is the distance between the pedals the same on a 28" and the 24" or 20"? I reckon with a bigger “crank-length” (just the length between pedal and center of the wheel) you would have to step up higher and make you walk more like a duck. That will take more energy.
Yes, I ride a 24. My point was not “look how far I rode” but “riding long distance on a UW is very difficult indeed.” I can ride a unicycle for 2 hours without a dismount, but I’m doing well to achieve 3 minutes on a UW.
The only unicycle-like product I own is my 28" ultimate wheel right now. I purchased it specifically because I wanted the most travel viable ultimate wheel that didn’t require welding or internet digging to find, and it does basically fit the bill. As long as I don’t get ahead of myself and start rushing, my limiting factor is still technique over fatigue, despite have made 100 meters myself several times now.
As for travel speed, I’ve got a large number of skateboarders, joggers, and bicyclists on my campus, and I’ve found that the 28" can (at least as long as I don’t make a mistake) match jogging and skateboarding relatively easily. It’s still quite a bit slower than a bicyclist, but that’s to be expected without a ridiculously big wheel or a very young bicyclist.
I don’t think matching bicycle speeds is a reason to start unicycling or riding the ultimate wheel. I know Im slower than a bike with my 29", but I love the feel of it and it easily fits in the car, so I can explore different parts of the world more easily. An ultimate wheel should be faster than walking which for me is good enough.
Well I couldn’t wait any longer, so I just ordered the 28" UW on Eindradladen.com (municycle.com) Pity it is grey. I should have it painted purple or something cool. Maybe after I can ride it or I will have to paint it again. Though my family question my buy saying that 9 uni’s should be enough, they will still chip in so I can get it for my bday in 3 weeks.
I want my UW 
