Hi all,
We recently had a thread on jump or run mounting a giraffe.
Well, we are very pleased to comply and have placed a short clip in our gallery on page four:
http://www.unicyclist.com/gallery/theunicycleuniversity
We were camping over Memorial Day weekend and Ben had been practicing his giraffe mounting. The results are shown in the clip. Ben is 12 years old.
Bruce
Bruce-
Thanks heaps. That was very instructional. I have the feeling it’s not going to look quite so effortless when I give it a try. Ben is a talented rider. I hope he’s about 5 feet tall or a bit more and he’s on a 5 foot giraffe. Then it scales nicely for me and my 6 foot giraffe.
Greg,
I just measured Ben’s mark on the wall where we keep track of the boy’s growth. Ben is 4’-11½" so he’s gettin’ there.
Bruce
Nice moves ben, hahah.
aaaaaaarrrrrrrrgggggghhhhhhhhhh!!!
i got the file downloaded and then my windows media player told me it was unable to download a suitable decompressor
Re: Ben’s 5’ giraffe running jump mount video clip
harper.5c7om@timelimit.unicyclist.com writes:
>
>Bruce-
>
>Thanks heaps. That was very instructional. I have the feeling it’s not
>going to look quite so effortless when I give it a try. Ben is a
>talented rider. I hope he’s about 5 feet tall or a bit more and he’s on
>a 5 foot giraffe. Then it scales nicely for me and my 6 foot giraffe.
>
>
>–
>harper - Gearhead
If you are talking about jump mounts for giraffes, I can tell you that
it’s not unlike getting onto a Coker, where you take a step or two and
then hop on to the first pedal. It’s not too hard to jump mount a 5’
giraffe, but the ones with higher pedal bases (like Schwinn’s 6’ Giraffe)
are way harder and require a combination of speed and jumping ability. If
you are fast, it’s a good idea to time your run and leap on with a decent
amount of speed, aiming up about 35-45 degrees. If you can really jump or
are taller, you can run slower but leap higher. Either way, you pretty
much have to pedal back a half rev in order to get the giraffe stright up.
I have the 6’ variety and only nail a mount 50% of the time when I am not
too tired. I have gotten it right up to 5 times in a row and have failed
many more consecutive times than that – it can be pretty annoying. There
is not only the perfectly timed leap but also the balance – even if you
do everything right, you might still be too tilted to one side and have to
bail out.
And never do it wearing boxers, as per my much earlier post on the subject.
David
Co-founder, Unatics of NY
1st Sunday / 3rd Saturday
@ Central Park Bandshell
1:30 start time after 11/1/01
Re: Ben’s 5’ giraffe running jump mount video clip
That video is very nice and instructional.
Question: when Ben does a mount from the tire, does he normally put his right or left foot on the tire?
Thanks
Raphael Lasar
Matawan, NJ
Wow, now I am going to go outside and learn to freemount my giraffe.
How long did it take him to learn that. You know, from first attempt to being able to get it on a regular basis.
-David Kaplan
In the video (well, the audio) Ben said that he had learned it that day.
Re: aaaaaaarrrrrrrrgggggghhhhhhhhhh!!!
Try playing it with Quicktime – that worked for me. I got the same error message you did. It appears there’s some problem with the codec (decompression instructions, I think), which I’ve tried solving, but so far no luck. But Quicktime did play it.
Cool moves, Ben! You make it look so easy! How in the world do you time your jump to land on the pedal at exactly the right place?
Jerry
Re: Re: aaaaaaarrrrrrrrgggggghhhhhhhhhh!!!
I think there’s a blind energetic bravery resident in the average 12-year-old unicyclist that boggles the mind.
I (Dad) am at work so I’ll get Ben’s input on these questions tonight but for now…
Ben hasn’t achieved the step up mount yet. I imagine the way he’s going though, it isn’t far off. For a right-footed person, we teach in our club to start with the toes of the left foot wedged into the forks at the top of the tire. The next step is right foot onto the right pedal then the left leg swings up and around the seat either over the back or around the front, whichever is more comfortable for them.
By the way…a small secret detail in the video clip…if you notice, the seat is very low for Ben. For proper seat height, the seat should actually be another 3" or so higher. The lower height allowed him to make the mount more easily. As he gets better at the mount, we’ll begin raising the seat.
Ben performed the same mount on the 4’ giraffe at TCUC’s Regionals in April. At our last practice last Monday night (5/20), he put in a couple half-hearted attempts to get the idea just before we went home for the night. Then at camp yesterday (Memorial Day), he was concentrating on the mount and had made I’d say approximately 15 attempts before he landed one. From there, Ben made more attempts landing three more in the process. The video clip we filmed was the fifth success of approximately 25 attempts. I’d say he’s now about one success out of seven or eight. Can only get better from there.
Ben positioned himself at the leap take off point a couple times then simply backed up with measured steps. Now he knows where to position the pedals before the start of the run, similar to a long jumper or a pole vaulter.
Thanks for all your compliments and encouragement. Needless to say, Mom and I are very proud of him. We have a busy evening tonight but I’ll be sure to show him this thread after all the evening’s activities are completed and we’re all back safe at home.
Bruce
I don’t think my math made much sense there. Either way, here’s a quick update: Ben, Brad and I were practicing skills in the driveway last night. Ben is able to nail the 5’ mount on about every attempt now. Time to start raising the seat.
Kids are absolutely amazing at times!
Bruce
Yoopers,
It might also be useful to see one video of him failing the mount. Perhaps the most “typical” fall you can find. I ask only because I can see it being useful, for people who havent started yet, to see where and how the unicycle and the body often land. Having an idea of what can happen in a “fail” could allow the person to make sure they guide themselves into a situation they expect, in the event of a fail. Then again, it might be self-defeating.
Well, just an idea. I know I’d personally like to see what the side effects could be, if I were to ever get into riding a giraffe.
Lewis
Great idea, Lewis. I posted many of the clips we took that day and entitled them with comments of the errors I saw. I moved the clips to their own gallery at http://www.unicyclist.com/gallery/bengiraffe
Hope it helps.
Bruce
cool, I can only do the step up mount
but that one looks way cooler.
~Jon~
serious rethink?
i can see the benefit in getting an idea of the most typical fall
i have to warn against the power of suggestion here
if u focus on the fall too much (and yes, we all know u will fall!) u may very well turn the odds against u and subconciously start creating the situation in which u’ll fall exactly like the way u saw
just a thought
Re: serious rethink?
That’s exactly why I DON’T want to look at the failures. Seeing Ben do it correctly was very informative, though.
Re: Ben’s 5’ giraffe running jump mount video clip
“harper” said
>
> Then it scales nicely for me and my 6 foot giraffe.
>
Unfortunately I’ll need to grow about a foot taller for it to scale as well
for me and my 7 footer. 
One thing that I’ve always wanted to try is riding a tall giraffe with
stilts. Basically it wouldn’t really be a giraffe but rather a “normal”
unicycle with a really long seat post. It should be much easier to
mount and would probably look interesting when you just step off a 10 foot
cycle and are still way up there. I almost bought a pair of second hand
drywall stilts just for this but in the end the project still eludes me.
-mg
this is the posting i replied to :
"It might also be useful to see one video of him failing the mount. Perhaps the most “typical” fall you can find. I ask only because I can see it being useful, for people who havent started yet, to see where and how the unicycle and the body often land. "
i agree with harper ref not wanting to c the ‘not-quite-as-successfull-attempts’
at our festival gig this weekend, i landed my first freemount after about three attempts
sadly, i had the seat waaaay too low and the seat slipped out from between my legs and i found myself hurtling down rather rapidly
after a later mount i was riding around the festival site when i saw some kids run in my direction
i noticed they were chasing their helium balloons that were being blown toward me on a slight breeze
i calculated, guessed and chased as best i could and missed catching their balloons by about 2 cm’s
would’ve looked pretty kewl
i’ll post some pics of the festival as soon as i get copies from our photographer