can any 1 tell me how to coast pleese i just cant do it 
Roger gave us a quick intro at Kidderminster. Basically learn to WW first, then 1 foot WW, then all u need to do is push hard with 1 ft and control ur speed with the pushing foot resting on the crown. You have to be able to balance with both feet on the crown though.
Good Luckā¦
Loose.
P.S Jagurs going to tell you to use the search feature. Just try it, you never know.
Re: coasting
On Wed, 1 Jun 2005, uni-matt wrote:
> can any 1 tell me how to coast pleese i just cant do it
>
Method 1:
Ride along, take one foot off, ride 1ft, take other foot off, fall off.
Repeat until you can coast.
Method 2:
Learn to glide.
Use your braking foot less and less.
You are now coasting.
Note that this advice comes from the man whose maximum coast is about 3
metres. I find falling off most unnerving when coasting because youāre
balanced so carefully that you donāt know if youāll come off the front or
back.
Cheers,
Stu
:wq
As long as one of your feet is touching the wheel, itās gliding. For coasting there is no contact between you and the pedals/wheel. Instead you maintain balance by how you move your upper body, and one of your legs, if youāre coasting leg extended.
To learn to coast, first get really good at one-footed riding, so that you can ride along smoothly, at a steady speed, and without accelerating or braking the wheel in any way. Actually you donāt need to be quite that good at one-footed riding to start learning to coast, but after a little while working on this skill, you will have one-footed riding down this well. Although it would probably be advisable to learn to glide before working seriously on coasting, this isnāt necessary, since the balancing mechanisms are quite different for the two skills.
Now you can move on to the actual coasting. From smooth one-footed riding at a not too fast or too slow rate, take the pedalling foot off and let it hang next to the spinning pedal. In all likelihood, you will fall off immediately. It is of utmost importance that at this point you do not kick the pedal or affect it in anyway. You need to coast off at the same speed, balanced in the same way which you were before starting the coast. Practice this step for a while until you are comfortable with taking your foot off the pedal and falling off. You will find that you sometimes coast short distaces without trying very hard. It is a great feeling when it does happen.
When you are comfortable with this, you can start working on balancing in this position and experimenting with various postures. There are two basic ways to coast; either with one leg extended and the other on the fork, or with both feet resting solidly on the fork. I recommend that you experiment with both to find which way works for you, keeping in mind however that most unicyclists seem to find coasting with both feet on the fork easier. Although it is harder to get into and easier to fall from improperly, it offers more stability. The basic balancing mechanism for coasting is a rocking motion that is rather difficult to explain. I suggest watching some videos or actually watching other unicyclists coast if possible so that you will know when you are balancing properly. If you are falling off forwards, you need to lean forward by bending at the waist. This will cause your waist region to move back and the wheel to move forward also, thus correcting your balance. If you are too far back, lean back. I find the forward adjustments a lot easier. One important tip to balance yourself properly is to keep your arms straight and raise them nearly vertical. Some riders keep their arms farther down when they coast, but almost all extend them in some way. Experiment with various arm positions and find what works for you. I suggest trying to switch to coasting with both feet on fork after you have worked on the leg extended variation for perhaps a a while. Try to plant both feet solidly on the fork. I find it even helps to squeeze the seat post tightly between my feet. This will probably work best if your frame has a nice solid square fork which offers a lot of support.
Coasting is an extremely difficult skill, and one which requires a lot of commitment to learn. It took me six months of hard practice. But if you keep with it, you will have a highly enjoyably skill that is very satisfying and also impressive. It is worth it.
Once you can coast smoothly for a ways, try getting out of it. The easiest method is to switch to gliding, then to wheel walking, then to the pedals. Getting out of coasting is a relatively easy skill, which probably does not require much advice.
Method 1 worked for me, although it took at least six months.
Re: coasting
Loosemoose wrote:
> Roger gave us a quick intro at Kidderminster.
So who were you at Kidderminster? What do you look like? I was there and
rode a two wheeler.
Cheers,
Roger
Re: coasting
On Wed, 1 Jun 2005, jsm wrote:
> To learn to coast, first get really good at one-footed riding, so that
> you can ride along smoothly, at a steady speed, and without accelerating
> [ā¦]
> fall off immediately. It is of utmost importance that at this point you
> do not kick the pedal or affect it in anyway. You need to coast off at
> [ā¦]
> suggest watching some videos or actually watching other unicyclists
> coast if possible so that you will know when you are balancing properly.
> [ā¦]
> you keep with it, you will have a highly enjoyably skill that is very
> satisfying and also impressive. It is worth it.
Blah blah blahā¦ and what would YOU know about it? Huh?
Seriouslyā¦ many thanks for this highly informative and interesting post
- lots to think about and try out. Makes me want to jump straight on my
uni and try it out! Six months from todayā¦ letās seeā¦
Cheers,
Stu
:wq
You must glide, grasshopper. Gliding is the gateway to coasting. Gliding is freedom from pedaling! To glide is to not have to have your feet going round and round constantly. Ahhhh. Coasting is the ultimate expression of this.
Coasting backwards? Thatās more points, and more hard.
Balance is maintained, aside from tons of practice, by one or both feet on the frame. The best frames for this have square crowns and clamps you can hook your heel behind.
My best competition coast ever was on a borrowed unicycle that had a fat clamp and a square fork (like a Semcycle XL). I went about 80 meters! Somewhere out there is a picture of the top five coasters from Unicon VIII, of which I had the honor to be one (along with Yuichiro Kato, Julien Monny and others). I couldnāt find a copy.
With both feet on the frame itās easier to go straight. With one foot extended itās easier to turn in the direction of that foot. With no feet on the frame (as seen here:http://www.unicycling.com/things/index.htm#3) it really doesnāt work.
I donāt think gliding is really necessary for coasting. I started work on coasting well before I started work on gliding, and although I did get gliding first, because itās so much easier, I think I would have gotten coasting in the end without gliding.
Maybe you coast different than I do, or maybe Iām not quite getting your point, but when I coast, my feet are hardly involved in the balancing process at all. (unless I coast leg extended) They just sit tight on the frame. I maintain balance by moving my upper body, my arms especially, up and down as necessary.
The idea in coasting is to help the athlete find the best/easiest/most educational (sometimes different priorities) way to do the skill. In this case, you can learn to glide first, which is like training wheels, or skip the training wheels and go straight to the bike with no spotter.
Try it without your feet on the frame and youāll know what I mean. 
Thatās pretty good! How long it takes to learn coasting varies wildly between different riders. Jesse Berg, for instance, told me he got it in one day. So keep up the practicing. You never know what might happen.
Is he doing it on a 24" wheel in that picture?
yeah, it is possible to learn in a short period, it took me well over a year but that was infrequent practise. a friend of mine learnt to go for at least ten metres, quite consistently, at a BUC! which annoyed me because i couldnt get it
i advise learning gliding first because its just as much fun, maybe even more, and its 10 times easier (at least it was for me).
keep it up dudes,
iain
When I lived in London a firiend of mine, Trevor (not that one), decided he wanted to coast and just went for it. I think his only other trick was riding one footed (Certainly no wheel walking or gliding). He just rode as fast as he could one footed then took the other foot off.
He fell off a lot but he got the hang of coasting pretty quickly. Took a few weeks. He won the coasting comp at BUC that year.
re:coasting
I donāt know, I only can guess, Iām almost fifty years old but I am as
curious as you to wonder about this trick. Perhaps if you are going
down a hill and stick your toe into the yoke under your seat?
Maybe? I once saw a guy balance three bowling balls on his head,
and didnāt use the finger holes, I think coasting on a unicycle is
something like that.
Iām pretty sure that same Trevor was the 1st ever person I ever saw coasting. I was stunned when I saw it in front of me, even though I allready read before about it. Two weeks later I was able to do it myself. I took the āgliding-gatewayā, but I will never say you MUST learn gliding before coasting. I rather agree on Nikeās slogan: Just do it!