So this week I had my first “perfect” ride with 125mm pedals on my 16km commute to work on Tuesday (i.e. no dismounts, not even to change my jacket). The return direction is harder b/c of one steep uphill and 2 street crossings that are harder, one on a steep uphill with no bike lane. Thursday evening I almost had a perfect commute home, including the hill AND I got lucky and timed the one light pretty well at the top of the hill. I was getting excited about a perfect ride and I just knew I was going to mess it up (I was also a little exhausted after a full day of work and I could feel my concentration reaching its end). Sure enough, less than 1km from home, after about 55 minutes in the seat I stressed myself and had a UPD on a small pothole in a construction area 
but the ride was otherwise great!
In general I don’t have problems with potholes on the 36er (I was just tired and lost my concentration).
I do grab onto poles for a few lights that are really long. Here in Germany, the signal lights are before the intersection and right next to the road/sidewalk, so pretty easy and convenient to grab, so the only problem with holding a pole is that you usually have to hop down the curb about 1m after re-starting when you have no momentum, which used to give me problems. Now that is usually not a problem for me, unless it’s uphill, but intersections are usallly pretty flat.
I’m learning to idle and can do it pretty well on the 19" trials, a little on the 24", but I’m still not very good on the 36, so I basically don’t try it in traffic where a dismount where the 36er goes flying could be a problem. I can consistently hop at light with the 36er only for maybe 10 seconds or so, then it gets really strenuous (I also have a commuting backpack with a laptop and changing clothes, so maybe 6-8 kilos). One of my reasons for getting the 19" trials is to practice such things, so I think in 6 months or so I may be able to idle well enough to try it on the street with the 36.
The one uphill light I was talking about is kind of challenging. It is a pretty steep sustained uphill of maybe 12% for about 200m. The hill itself is no problem for me. The difficulty is that it’s a heavily used road and car traffic in rush hour can get bad. It’s a typical annoying German road “design” where there are no lane markers until about 10-15m before the intersection (where it is then 2 really narrow lanes, where 2 cars barely fit next to each other). Going up the hill it is then 1 1/2 “lanes” with no bike lane and no shoulder (there’s a stone wall to the right). So near the bottom the cars zoom past hoping to make the light. As they approach a red light the cars start to line up side-by-side and most of them do not have any concern for the unicyclist the just passed but want to get as close to the light as possible, so they squeeze forward as far as possible and so usually there’s almost no space, so I either have to weave in and around the “standing” cars waiting for the light or dismount, as I cannot idle/hop/remount at the 12+% grade (more precisely I cannot restart going straight up the steep hille with no lateral space, as there are cars all around). Usually I am somehow able to make it around the cars, picking my way here and there, all the way to the right, then the middle, then the left, but then if I time the light wrong I arrive at the red light where I have to go very slow (soas not to overrun the red light) uphill (hard to go so slow) and I have very little space as the cars as side-by-side. Sometimes I feel confident and I pedal really slowly through a gap around cars just wide enough for my to pass, but it’s pretty challenging as if I have to dismount I will probably have some lateral movement and “land” on one of the cars (fortunately this has never happened, although one time I really though I was going to land across the hood of a sports car to my left but I managed to save it and keep pedalling). Thus, I usually dismount when approaching a “just barely wide enough” gap. Then I have to walk up to the light, which is also not so easy (the road is officially closed to pedestrians b/c there is no sidewalk or shoulder). Without traffic the hill is easy, and I just time myself and go really slow, almost weaving near the top of the hill. But in rush traffic where the cars are sometimes side-by-side all the way down the hill, it is very challenging and/or almost impossible for me to ride.
I’ve been commuting now consistently on average about 2 times/week for about 10 months now, the last few months with 125mm pedals and I’m becoming way more proficient and confident. My control is now really good and my steep uphills and steep downhills and sharp corners no problem. I think I need to work on 1) going faster and 2) idling.
On Tuesday after having the perfect commute in the morning, I was feeling pretty good on the commute home and tried picking up the speed some. About half-way home I roughly estimated that I was on track for my fastest time ever. I can remember consciously thinking to myself, “what could go wrong going fast?” and “Why do I feel like this commute is going to take longer when I go fast now?” I reasoned that going fast was strenuous but shouldn’t make me much slower, falsely thinking like on a bicycle (i.e. on a bike if you push it really hard and tire yourself out then you’re a little slower, BUT you can still ride). Sure enough I got going too fast and out of control and dismounted runnig off the front. It was no problem and I landed on my feet. However, I was then somehow “scared” and then somehow subconsciously braking the whole time, so I couldn’t maintain a fast or even nornal speed again. In the end I ended up dismounting 11 times!! and instead of being faster my commute took like 15 minutes LONGER than usuall. However, the “spook” is now gone again and I think my “speed training” is paying off, albeit slowly and only in small increments.
