After a friend from the Maritimes in Canada told me about ‘Riding the Lobster’ race, I did a google of ‘unicycle’ and was amazed at all the information, camraderie, and videos out there. It is fantastic. So I dusted off my old 20 inch no name unicycle that I have not rode since I was 13.
My fist attempt got me two feet, then four feet, then the next day 12 feet, and three days later to the end of the driveway, and then finally down the street. I am getting there. I used to ride a mile to school back in elementary school.
This is great fun. This forum, and especially this thread is motivating.
I never learned to free mount, always needed a post or wall to start, but I plan on mastering that this summer. The youtube instructional videos are a help.
Hello Ralph,
My diet is not the greatest, but it’s not the worst. I certainly don’t eat like I’m in training. I do like lots of water.
Glad to hear 53 is plenty young I’m gonna count on that.
Been caught up in things at work, the stress effecting my sleep/nerves. Things are improving beginning July 1st with my manager replaced with an experienced manager who comes highly rated by his staff. Mostly, I do need to follow your lead just not let the shenanigans(stole that word from Steve R. RTL write up) at work get under my skin.
Congratulations on that big wheel, the most fun of the wheels. That will be great. Austin must be a great place to ride.
Eating salads more regularly w/ lots of diff vegetables (esp. ones w/ sharp flavors like red onion) and my own dressing - equal parts flax oil, apple cider vinegar, Braggs Amino Acids & some garlic, lemon pepper, dejon mustard, & stevia. (It tastes a bit better w/ olive oil, red wine vinegar, & soy sauce, but I feel better when I’ve been using the first one.)
Avoiding sweets (my nemesis) and starchy foods.
Plenty of sleep - I try to go to bed/get up at the same time each day & set my alarm late enough so that I usually wake up before it goes off.
I learned an acupressure technique a while ago that I can tell you if you like. It eliminated my insomnia and took a hour off my sleep time. Also I’m in a better mood and get stressed out less easily the next day when I do it.
50 years old and after a 25 year absence from riding I started riding a uni again a few days ago. The first day was pathetic. Couldn’t freemount and couldn’t even ride away from an assisted mount. After three days (maybe 1.5 hrs of practice) I am riding big figure eights and freemounting in one or two tries.
I found that lowering my seat a bit from optimum pedaling height and pumping up my tire to 60 psi helped get me back to riding/mouning with some confidence again.
My first Uni was a 24" schwinn with cottered cranks that took everything I threw at it, which wasn’t much, just riding places and bumping up and down curbs. But for awhile it was my main form of transportation so it got a lot of use.
I am also teaching my 45 year old fiancee to ride and she is practicing riding now using a railing and can get a whole pedal revolution in without holding on. Her form looks good so I know she is close to going longer with less reliance on the railing.
Right now we are both riding the 24" CyclePro that we picked up at the LBS this past weekend. So far it is holding up just fine for what we are using it for. Right off I replaced the seat post clamp bolt with a better grade bolt and that let me tighten the seat enough to keep it from twisting. I like the cyclepro frame with the rounded shoulders so over time we will upgrade the seat and will upgrade it as things break/bend. My 24" Blue Nimbus II with 145 cranks has been ordered from UDC and is somewhere on a UPS truck right now.
Right now my goal is to learn to ride backwards and learn to idle, two things I never learned to do when I rode in my 20’s. I also want to learn to hop and spin.
I just wanted to say hi, and thank everyone for their posts in this 45+ thread. I’ve enjoyed reading about everyones experiences with a renewed appreciation for anyone who has the patience and determination to ride a Uni.
That’s sort of what we all said when we started. This sport will grab hold of you and one unicycle leads to two then three then… Riding down curbs leads to off-road riding. Then a bigger wheel for on-road riding.
I bought my first unicycle (Schwinn) when I turned 50 and that was to be “the only unicycle I would ever need”. One unicycle leads to another then another …
For those of us who started riding as adults I have an article I wrote just for you. With all the kids around me learning to ride I figured I had a unique perspective on the sport. The article appears in the latest issue of On One Wheel, published by the Unicycling Society of America, or you can find the article attached to this message.
Oh I never said anything about only needing one unicycle… I’m already planning for a 29" for fitness riding and fitting a more aggressive tire to my Nimbus for trail riding.
That’s how I learned. It took me 40 hrs over 8 weeks.
It’s called Jin Sin Jitsu.
Take either hand and place it on top of your head.
W/ the middle three fingers of your other hand put them alternately on each of your 7 chakras (I often switch hands after each position):
1-between your eyebrows
2-tip of your nose
3-between your collar bones
4-middle of your sternum
5-a couple of inches below your belly button
6-your pelvic bone
7-tip of your tail bone.
(may not want to do those last two in public)
Hold each position for 1-3 min. Usually I do 3 each, taking a total of 21 min, but if I need a quick pick me up, doing one minute each often helps a lot.
To keep track of time setting the countdown timer on my watch works best.
Before I started doing this (talked into by my heath-nut Mom), I lied waiting to fall asleep often for 30 min, and an hour at least once a week. After a few nights of doing this I started falling asleep right away, sometimes before I even got passed the first position.
I noticed when I went through the whole sequence I was waking up fully rested ~1 hr before my alarm. To keep myself from falling asleep too soon, I started doing them sitting up. If I’m not tired yet, sometimes I repeat the poses or use other points (like, on my spine at the base of my neck, lower back, or tail bone) until I fall asleep.
I found it boring waiting for the timer (but not as bad as before JSJ) so I decided to meditate while I waited, which I hadn’t really done before. I tried to think of nothing, which was impossible, so I visualized my breath. Fresh, clean light blue air coming in and the blue oxygen traveling in my blood throughout my entire body. Then blood pulling all the toxic junk out, as dark red, to my heart, lungs, and out my mouth.
I would also breath as slowly and deeply as I comfortably could through my diaphragm (after a while I got down to about 20 breaths per 3 min position). This way I think I’ve gotten to about 20 sec w/o any impeding thoughts. The breathing has helped my cardio for riding and consequently my consistency, especially for Muni.
Sometimes if I had something big and important the next day, like a test in one of my classes at the JC, I visualized every scenario I could imagine, how I reacted to it and it working out positively. This has gotten me at least a full grade above what I likely would have gotten otherwise.
Doing this while visualizing my riding has helped too. I’d ride at my max skill consistently. If I UPD’d and it was a nasty fall, I’d repeat that part w/ a couple of different safe falls, and again and again until I rode the section cleanly.
My reduced stress the following day I think is do to a combination of the JSJ and the meditation. I’ve recently done the JSJ a couple of times w/o the meditation and I was more relaxed and focused than not doing it at all, but not as much as if I’d done the meditation.
I’m 47 and I just got a unicycle and I am trying to learn to ride. I’m thinking right now that brain surgery might have been easier to learn but I will get there.
Welcome Tulsa! You will get the hang of it and be on the road before you know it! If you run into “snags” just speak up. Somebody in these forums have been through it I am sure. Don’t quit…that’s easy.
43 yo, bought my son a unicycle after he got enthralled with Bondo’s uni, then bought me one for my birthday. I can now free mount about 50% when I’m not tired, can ride as far as I want (have the energy) on asphalt or gravel, making moderate hills without stopping, working on making tighter turns, idling, etc…
It is probably the hardest sport I have ever tried to learn, even more so than ww kayaking, climbing, and skiing. It is such a “stoopid” sport too, kinda’ reminds me of telemark skiing
Don’t take too much offense you purists, it’s a complement to call something that you like “stoopid”, think of it as an endearment
I was remarking to my wife how funny it was to have pre-teens commenting on a forum that is also populated by people their mom’s and dad’s age. If only I’d learned when I was a kid, man that would have rocked!
Keep learning, it’s the key to delaying that long slide into the ground
Hey Tulsa, you’ll get it, but you need to take that “brain surgery” job ethic and apply the same time and effort to uni. I practice every day for at least thirty minutes, just like I would if I were learning an musical instrument. The learning curve is steep! Try hiking or ski poles, they work great for salf spotting
One of the things I really enjoy about this sport is the huge age diversity. Being able to sit down and talk seriously on the level with a kid in 2nd grade about something that is important to both of you is amazing!
I’m certainly qualified based on age but feel a bit like a fraud calling myself an active unicyclist. The summer has been flying by and I hadn’t even hopped on one of my unis at all until last Monday when I did a leisurely five mile ride in East Windsor, CT. I managed the entire outbound leg without a stop and only had one UPD on the homeward stretch. It felt good to get out again and I hope to be a bit more active before the snowboard/ski season returns.
This sport will grab hold of you and one unicycle leads to two then three then… Riding down curbs leads to off-road riding. Then a bigger wheel for on-road riding.
