I am wondering if anyone here has tried to ride their uni in a typical skate park.
There happens to be one near my house and I asked if I could ride in it… the operators told me that they didn’t think it would be a good idea but I explained to them that all I would be doing is flat land riding and I won’t really be using the ramps and such… they went for it and said I can go any day that they have BMX’s.
I am still new and I don’t know any tricks except to bunny hop… I can’t even recover from a bunny hop back to a forward roll however I am getting better every time I ride.
Also, I have an ebay gravity 24" uni which I know is not the best for tricks but its all I’ve got for now… ???
I asked the BMX guys if they’ve ever seen anyone there on a uni and they said no… I also asked the park staff and they also said no… so hopefully… I’ll be the first person to ever ride a uni in this park. It is in Brian Piccolo Park in Fort Lauderdale Florida.
Any suggestions on what tricks to attempt to progress to a higher level?
well, i did it. not many places will let you in, but woody’s ramps and rails of savannah, ga, let me and a uni friend in for half price (lol). i have a video in my gallery of me on a little half pipe there. skateparks are set up for things that can get speed by rolling though (ie-lips, roll-ins, half pipes, fun boxes). i didn’t like it as much as i thought i would when i was looking through the fence at the place. i can’t say i wouldn’t do it again though, definatly a cool change of pace
I went to a municipal one with my uni and my kid had his bike. There weren’t very many skaters, but those that were there thought the uni was awesome, each gave it a try. they all were very encouraging to my son, too who had only had his training wheels of about 2 weeks and was eagerly careening into banked turns and riding over bumpythings (pardon the lack of technical terminology here ) catching mini airs. It was a ton of fun.
I was very respectful not to get into anyone’s lines, you know how skiers and snowboarders have lines that kind of get tangled, I tried to avoid that so not to be a bother to the skate boarders.
Mind you, I don’t look muck like a skate boarder. I was old enough to be these kids’ mom an dt hey still were very accepting of us.
I’ve always wanted to try out unicycling at a skate park, but to wait until I got a little better at street stuff. Right now, all I could do there is drop off ~2 foot drops, jump on some mini trials things, and drop into bowls, which isn’t all the impressive really.
uniing at skateparks is awesome! they usually have stairs, metal coated ledges, grind rails and a bunch of other stuff that is possible on a uni. as far as I know all the YMCA skate parks will let uniers in.
holy patchouli stink, i never thought about that. there’s one by my house and i just assumed they’d never let me in with my uni. the only time i ever rode there was when everyone fled in terror (or “evacuated”) due to hurricane rita. everything was closed down and abandoned. i climbed over the barbed wire and rode for a while, it was sweet.
Here’s an old little video of me uni’ing at the municipal skatepark in Charlottesville. Nothing amazing, but I like to think it makes a good promo video for a skeptical park manager.
City-run parks are definately the way to go. They will almost always let you in, there is rarely a fee, and if you don’t have pads/helmet, they usually have a stock of them for free use. The ramps are probably smaller than a commerical one, but they’re usually plenty big for a beginner/intermediate unicyclist to have some fun on.
forward roll into a single or double bunny hop and then continue rolling forward (with either foot forward).
roll into a 1 step drop and keep rolling after the drop.
My turns are still rough, I need lots of space and I’m kind of shaky…
Anyway… I am nowhere near ready to try the skate park… I might swing by and just ride around and attempt to roll up and down a small box or something but thats it for now =)
I went to the skate park today. I got permission from the staff, rented a helmet (I don’t have a skate park style helmet yet…) and I got in there.
I stayed on the flat open areas away from the ramps and such… practiced my mounts and I am pleased to announce that I had 2 breakthroughs…
I learned how to jump mount ! …
I learned how to bunny hop …
I can roll into a bunny hop and hold it almost indefinately… I tried doing it the way the kids in the videos do it, which is to stand really straight up while working the ankles more than the knees to maintain the hop … and it worked !!!
I also learned a few basic transitions… I can jump mount into a bunny hop and then roll forwards and ride around… I can also side mount into a bunny hop …
I think that the bunny hop is the # 1 trick to get down before attempting to do jumps and such… like jumping up and down a step or a curb… Last weekend I tried to jump up a curb from a roll-to-bunny hop and I could not get it because I could only hop once and then keep rolling or fall off… =)
But now I can focus on aligning the uni and then practice the actual jump up/down the obstacle.
Now I have to try to convince the park people to let me drag one of the benches out into the flat area so I can practice jumping up onto it and then back down…
I am going to order a 20" uni this week… I think the 24" is almost dead … it creaks and the grip on the seat is KILLING my fingers… I want a KH saddle with one of those extended grips !! (I was thinking about the Torker Unistar LX 20" to get me started. ?? )
Yeah we ride in local skateparks all the time, and ones further afield such as the stokeplaza. Skate parks are for the most part free and totally open in the UK, there are no attendents or set times for BMXs and skateboards, so presumably your chance of getting beaten or mugged is higher, but we’ve never had any trouble. Just go when it’s fairly empty to start with so you’re not going to annoy the skaters by gettign in their way.
