Anyone with skills like these would have a decided advantage in learning extreme uni riding in a relatively short time! at 3:45 I think the guy hit his head pretty hard on the handlebars doing what looks like about a 15 foot drop!
You don’t have to apologize, it’s ok. 
Why? I do not follow…
That is a bike… besides being used to going big, I don’t see what advantages he would have. Might have some, but I don’t really think it would be all that much.
Because of the heightened levels of balance and coordination and being on just the rear wheel much of the time. Notice when they jump up to stuff that the “tuck” is very similar to doing a jump on a uni. I just believe that would give them at least a moderate advantage in learning to uni over someone without those base skills. Seems quite logical to me.
It almost looks like he wants a unicycle.
Yeah, they spend so much time on the back wheel, that’s why they would probably be able to make the transition to a unicycle much easier than someone without those skills who was trying to learn to ride a uni. And also the fact that they would already have a major grounding in the extreme aspects of riding bike trials, and already having experienced bails and probably some injuries, that would also allow them to make the transition much faster and be able to get into extreme unicycling much sooner.
From what I’ve heard, and will find out soon enough, is that the real wheel is nothing like uni. With a uni your very much like you are standing and jumping/ balancing, with a bike I’ve heard the hops come more from your center, and as for balance your position is completely different.
I get the coordination and balance, but it doesn’t seem it would be a huge advantage to me, the reason he can do those things is because he practices and has got the muscle memory. Imagine it would take just as much work to learn something new.
I can see them having some advantage, but nothing huge.
Kind of seems like apples and oranges to me. We’ll see when my bike comes in the mail.
Other than using one wheel, I don’t see how being on the rear of a bike would be like a unicycle really.
Yeah I don’t think it’s the same either. My main point really is that someone with these heightened riding skills would probably be able to learn to ride a uni and progress to the more extreme aspects faster than someone just starting out with zero prior riding skills. I think there are probably many excellent uni riders who first rode trials bikes. Maybe some of them who read this thread might post a comment and tell us if riding a trials bike helped them in any way to learn to ride a uni. Of course that might be hard to quantify because they have no way to know if it it helped since they could not take away their trials bike experience to compare it with. It would only be valid if maybe they tried to learn to uni, then gave it up, citing it was too hard or taking to long to learn. Then learned to ride a trials bike and got really good at it, then tried again to ride a uni and noticed that all of a sudden it was easier.
Agreed.
This is how I started out, and yes, the benefits are obvious at the start, but everyone evens out over time. So it’s not like being an amazing bike trials rider is going to make you an amazing unicyclist overnight. Unicycle trials evolved out of bicycle trials, which evolved out of motorcycle trials. Unicycle trials is by far and away the easiest of the three, no question there. In bikes, the techniques are quite a bit different too, sidehops are much more complicated on bikes than on unis.
It’s pretty obvious and logical stuff anyway, it’s been spoken of countless times and needs no more discussion. “That guy” in the video is Craig Lee Scott, fairly huge name in trials world. If he ever wanted to start unicycling (highly unlikely) he’d be alright at first, with a quick headstart… but over time he’d slow down. You reach a stage in learning when your past ‘backgrounds’ don’t help you so much anymore. Nothing will improve you better at unicycling than doing unicycling itself. Previous bike experience can’t and won’t take you all the way. I’d know from personal experience 
EDIT:
The only techniques I found that I learnt within the first 2 minutes were: seat-in hopping on the spot, sidehops, and gaps. Techniques such as rolling hops and actual cycling about, and also Seat-out hopping are completely** foreign to a bike trials rider like myself because believe it or not those techniques are vastly different to their bike counterparts. A rolling pedalling hop up on a bike may look similar but it is HUGELY different to doing it on a uni. Those moves I was at square one, just like a zero-background rider would be. Also, all the current top names in uni trials right now are purists… Joe Hodges, Fabian Mark, Ryan Atkins, Tom Pec, and others… they all started with just uni. Ryan played about with a trials bike afterwards for fun. I don’t mean to boast but I’ve got pretty darn good control, technique, and balance on a trials bike, yet you don’t see me winning unicycle trials trophies. So having biketrials experience isn’t a godsend by any means.
1 word… balance.
if you have an insane amount of balance, on one wheel, it doesn’t matter how you are on that one wheel, you know the dynamics of being on one wheel, so you are going to learn it faster.
Putting it ridiculously simple, skrobo.
Your going to learn it faster, but I thought it would be like sponge just said. Sure at first you’ll be somewhat better, but as soon as the learning curve kicks in your just like anybody else.
The number of wheels doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the, the geo of a unicycle and bike are different, the way we tackle objects are different hell the way we think is different. The way we use our bodies to achieve balance is completely different, just because you have balance doing one thing doesn’t mean you will doing another. I’m sure not every tight rope walker can uni, or learn faster than any newbie.
It’s not quite that simple. Though it’s not far off by any means. Unicycles have fixed wheels, that in itself throws people off in more ways than one. Even though I’ve thoroughly nailed backhopping on a trials bike to close enough to perfection for a good few years, it still took me a couple of minutes to first figure out how to lock my feet and keep the cranks stable on a uni. The two sports are so vastly different in technique it’s hard to properly compare. The mechanics of both just function as polar opposites almost.
Still, the most awesome uni trials riders are unicyclists-born-and-bred. So those of you who are completely fresh learners, you shouldn’t be discouraged. No way should you be discouraged!
Let’s flip things 180 so to speak. I’ll use the following scenario: Two people of the same age and very similar physical attributes want to learn to ride a trials bike, and want to progress to at least a moderately skilled level in as short a period if time as possible.
Person A: No previous trials bike riding experience. No previous unicycle riding experience. No extreme cycling of any kind.
Person B: No previous trials bike riding experience. Currently possesses a very high level of trials unicycling experience.
Would person B have an advantage in learning to ride a trials bike, and be much more likely to develop at least basic skills faster than person B? Or would person B have no appreciable advantage over person A? I think it would be more than logical to assume the former, rather than the latter, imo. Using this scenario would seem to also imply that flipping it back to the original question, we could expect the same outcome.
As I said, person b would, imo, have a very slight advantage really quick in the beginning, but not long after it would level out or so. You made it seem as if it was huge, going by the title.
Bike trials may look like uni trials, but if you ride bikes at all you can tell the posture, and just about everything else is different. The way a unicyclist balances and the way a biker does are very different, I can speak from experience. The muscles and techniques are very different. I can track stand my uni, then try on my bike and notice a big difference. I was saying I think a lot less of these skills woulds transfer over as they are highly specific. Sure the very basic ones might, but that is about all I see getting passed on and giving any small advantage. Balance in unicycling is a highly specialized skill, one that doesn’t really affect the general balance of the person, imo. Because you can uni dose not mean you can necessarily slackline and the opposite.
You seem to go back a bit from your first post to your last. I think we can all say yes to the last, even if miniscule, though your first posts were very different.
Very different than-
Not trying to be a dick terry, IMO, I just can’t see specialized skills carrying over in a significant way, basic ones yes.
Haha, you’re not at all. But hey, I’m just glad there’s some good discussion with various points of view. But I still contend, albeit without using the over inflated term “huge”, that having a high level of experience in either unicycling or trials biking can give one a decided advantage in learning the different cycling skills. And I do agree that it would likely only take you so far, and that it all would likely “level out”.
Agreed, terry, agreed.
ok, so the verdict is this…
at first you start out faster, hey this is cool, i’m good at this (looking at your buddy, who is struggling)
then you become “good”(whatever that happens to mean)
you get there before your buddy, this is the end of your curve being faster than your buddies
your buddy’s curve is still pushing him towards that " good" point, and it will take some time for him to get there…
you have extra time to progress at the same rate, so even if you progress at the same rate, you have the edge. You are better.
the difference will close faster due to lack of motivation on your part compared to your buddies
DISCLAIMER< many assumptions made about people having competitive drive and self motivation.
I think the advantage would come mostly from having the work ethic to learn trials, like knowing his limits better, not being afraid in trying stuff and not getting discouraged by failures. When learning, I think that, often, half the battle is in your head, and person B would probably have that advantage.