I started unicycling when I spent some time working in London a couple of years ago - I had one in my twenties, but never got proficient on it, and it burnt when the neighbor’s garage went up in flames so that was a fairly short experience… I’ve been practicing a lot more since september last year (travelling less helped) and I’ve been going at least once a week since. I’m really enjoying it, it’s a great exercice (I’m preaching the converts here…) and it’s almost become my weekend necessity. There is a wood not far away from my place - those who know Paris might know the Bois de Vincennes, famous for its night activity… It’s fairly flat but has a lot of paths, wide straight ones and narrow ones going under the trees.
I went for my first ride with other parisians (some of them are on this forum too) at the beginning of the year in a more hilly wood and it helped me progress a lot in one ride. But I’m still nowhere near their level.
A few months back, I bought a second hand KH29 - one of those bargains that you can’t miss, even if you know you don’t have the necessary skills yet. It came with 125mm cranks, a Big Apple tire. I used it a couple of times before deciding that I should stick to the 24" until I made real progress. Yesterday, I decided to take the KH29" to the woods instead of the 24". When I bought the 29", it came with a spare Ardent knobby tire, so I put that back on it and put the 127/150mm cranks from the 24 on it (I ride the 24 on 127, so it was an easy decision to do that swap).
That was a revelation in many ways. The good ones being that it’s much easier than I thought. After a couple of kilometers, I was able to go to almost all the places I go to with the 24". Also, the big wheel really swallow the bumps and roots and so on. But it made me realized that by doing mainly off-road, I have developed some pretty bad habits. There is always a bump or a hole waiting to send you UPD, so I spend a lot of time negotiating those by putting weight on my pedals. Since off-road you alternate a lot between short moments where you’re on the seat and short moments on the pedals, it was never really a problem. The only problem I was aware of was that I was using more energy than my fellow riders when we went to the forest. They all have between 5 and 15 years of practice though, so I decided that it was the explanation.
Today on the 29", I came across a couple of long flat stretches with no bumps, those nice lanes drawn by the park makers back in the days when the country was a kingdom, and they became hell for me! I couldn’t keep a straight line, I was drifting, my shoulders were not at a 90° with the wheel, I became aware that most of the balance was done by my right (dominant) foot, and so on. Not a great feeling. I do tend to analyse a lot what I’m doing (over analyzing some might say…) and that made me realize that I got that from doing off-road. I don’t put enough weight in my saddle and I correct the balance with my legs and flailing arm, where it should be done by the pelvis, right?
Anyway, that was a long rant about myself, and I welcome all advice on tips and exercices I should do to correct that before it becomes too ingrained in my riding.
but I still struggle to get it right…fear of UPDing probably. I become most aware though when I ride the smoother trails and want to go a reasonable distance…7km is about my limit at the moment because I’m expending energy unnecessarily by having too much weight on the feet and not enough in the saddle. Slowly but surely I’m overcoming it.