There hasn’t been very much progress to report recently, I’ve been on my plateau for a while. Then yesterday I managed a couple of hops! (That is, transitioned from riding to a few hops, though not back to riding). I’m also feeling a bit more comfortable and positive in my movements.
Here’s where I am at the moment:
I haven't ridden any great distance yet (longest run about 1 km with many dismounts).
Riding any distance on the 26" is a real workout.
I can't turn sharply at all (radius > 2m). (Lack of practise, I don't have space to turn in my main practise area).
I'm not riding hand on saddle very much yet.
I can stop and pedal backwards for one or occasionally two revs.
I'm freemounting the 26" between 10% and 60% of the time, depending on gradient, tiredness and mojo.
I'm freemounting the 20" 95% of the time (and after the 26", it feels like I'm already on top of it and just have to step on).
No luck with idling yet, maybe a couple of revs at most, with no feeling of control. (I practise by starting from holding to a support, and I think the support imbalances me).
I also find that I can’t ride the 20" at all after riding the 26"! I push way too hard on the pedals, and go into a death spiral of oscillation. I adjust after a couple of minutes, but I’m going to fit some shorter cranks (currently 114mm stock). I’ll get shorter cranks for the 26" too, I’ll need them eventually.
I’ve experimented with a 2.35" Schwalbe Crazy Bob road tire on the 26". It feels very smooth compared to the stock Duro Leopard. I can’t really judge how it is for autosteer. It was unrideable at low pressures, collapsing sideways.
So progress is slow at the moment, but not zero. I know what the problem is: fear. I bale out at the first sign of trouble, so I don’t get to practise new things. (On the plus side, I haven’t injured myself for a long while). The main thing is, I’m still enjoying it!
Maybe the solution is fear. Trying to stay on past the point of no return could cause an ugly upd and an injury. The solution is to keep practicing. That is not possible when you’re injured.
If you can ride 1Km without dismount, I think that qualifies as being able to ride arbitrarily long distances. If you are dismounting shy of 1 Km due to exhaustion, then there is still beginner’s inefficiency in your technique. More time in the saddle will fix that.
I suggest you focus on riding shorter distances with a lower cadence. When I was able to ride slowly, I felt like I wasn’t a beginner any more. Riding at slow speeds emulates the slow speed of idling, so it could be a bridge skill of sorts.
Idling and riding backwards involve getting your center of gravity behind the hub. This can feel freakish. If you can ride, stop then pedal backwards, then you are already getting used to this. Try stopping more suddenly from a greater speed to get the unicycle even further out in front of you.
If you can stop and back up a rev or two, it seems you’re on your way to idling. You mentioned no feeling of control with idling. I think you need to embrace the out-of-control-ness in idling before you can expect to get any control. Try to make the idles larger. Pause at the end of each stroke, and do not reverse direction until you have pivoted. This way, you are separating the pivot and the pedaling. Even if you upd after pivoting, the important thing is that you have pivoted in the right direction. Later on, pivoting and pedaling will become more integrated in your idling technique. The above technique could also unlock the secret to turning within a radius of < 2m,
Thanks epU! Your suggestions are as always insightful and interesting. The sudden stop idea is promising. I’ve been doing something similar on the 26" as a prelude to a dismount off the back: push back hard on the ascending pedal when moving forward, and I drop smoothly off the back. It’s quite fun, and feels controlled. I end up in 6:00/12:00 position as I dismount, so I’d have to aim to 3:00/9:00 or so in order to be able to pedal backwards.
I’ve mostly been riding slowly, sometimes as slowly as possible, but have been speeding up lately. A couple of times today I did a sort of “micro-idle” on stopping, but without enough amplitude.