The thought came to me around 2 months ago. Surely if you have a foam pit in your backyard and you practiced everyday for a while, you would soon be able to backflip off something on to flat just as Adrien did his frontflip.
I think this could work but I don’t seem to have the motivation of going forward with it like getting all the foam bits, discussing with my parents etc…I wonder how I would make it?
What do you guys think of this idea?
A foam pit in my back garden would be amazing, except after rain. Go for it, just try and find bits of foam from old sofas, sponges… anything like that, and put it in a big wooden box with a platform next to it.
Building a wooden pool like container wouldn’t be too hard… but finding all the foam will be, and will take ages. Also making sure it doesn’t fill with rain water.
If you can’t get the motivation to make the foam pit, how on earth are you going to get the motivation to learn backflips?
+1
If you’re going to get a proper foam pit, which you really should as a half arsed one could jeopardise your safety, it’s going to take a lot of work and a lot of money. Foam is stupidly expensive considering how often you might use it day to day and building the actual pit isn’t exactly easy. Plus, if you’re not building it into the ground, which would be even more expensive and may require planning permission, then you’re going to have to build something around 12 feet+ high to jump off, (around 6 feet of the pit included).
If I were you, I’d try and use someone else’s, which is what Adrien appears to have done. Get in contact with local skate parks or gymnastic facilities, tell them your story and they might be able to help. This, again, isn’t easy as many gyms imparticular don’t have insurance to cover such an unusual thing.
This isn’t designed to put you off, just to make you think a little more.
The only foam pits I have ever seen are all inside. As mentioned in a post, above, an outside foam pit would get pretty awful in the rain. The foam would probably never dry out. It would grow mold and get infested with bugs - hardly something you would want to jump into.
Couldn’t he just put a cover on it? A tarp would be an easy solution.
Yah, tarp seems like it would work fine???
Maybe if you got one of those set up 5 foot pools, filled it with foam, and then made a platform higher up, it’d work. Those pools might even come with a tarp as it is.
For foam maybe there’s an aussie site of something like this? http://www.gymsupply.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=3830
You can’t really go around this without a nice heap of cash it seems unfortunately.
Look up Travis Pastrana’s foam pit. Id actually e-mail him and get any info he has about them.
Building a pit isnt too hard. Ive done it before with basic plywood and 2x4s. So after we build a sturdy box, we just used old mattresses we had from beds and couches and had are fun. Covered it with a tarp and there was never a water problem.
go to clarke rubber and ask for of cuts they give them 2 u for free and just dig a hole
I think it would be easier if you try them on grass down of a little pile of palets. A foam pit would be really cool but I think you just have to be motivated to ride and then try to land backflips somewhere(not in a foampit). Plus having a foam pit is probably not cheap, you have to get all the foam and the wood to built the big thingy to put the foam in.
Does it hurt cuz im thinking of just collecting alot of it and just laying it out on my lawn and jumping into it and trying big shit and does it hurt landing in that bc i find alot of old matresses etc by me
Just use a swimming pool with water in it… Problem solved. It won’t get damaged when it rains, fill with bugs etc.
Just remember, don’t hit the edges!
Discarded mattresses contain springs. Poky bits of rusty metal.
You want to jump onto piles of rusty metal spikes?
I hope your tetanus shots are up to date…
Ask for a million temperpedic sample peices 
Depending on where you live, a cheap, seasonal possibility might be to fill your pit, or large box with dry leaves. Obviously you’ll want to keep it covered to keep things dry. Hay and other grasses might work as well though you’ll be pretty messy getting out. This comes from someone who spent some time jumping in large piles of hay and leaves as a kid. Good luck!
Has the potential technique for a backflip been discussed somewhere else?
I suspect that a frontflip is the first step, maybe then a sideflip and then more of a varial backflip?
I can’t see how you could get anything like enough momentum to do a backflip in the reverse direction to the direction you’re riding in (as you do on a bike).
I’ve seen videos of trials/flatland guys doing flips. It’s usually from one elevation to a lower one, so that helps.
Adrien Delacroix did frontflips down a (pretty big) stack of pallets, and Maxwell Schulze sideflips down a curb. Those are the only two I am aware of actually landing front/sideflips. There have been some attempts into sand from ramps or hillsides by others, but only those two have been succesful I think.
I have been thinking of backflips quite a bit. What I think would be a way is doing them static, down a set of pallets or similar, about one meter should be enough, with almost ground level possible. Jumping on a unicycle is similar(-ish) to jumping on foot, and standing backflips are not that hard on flat ground for someone with gymnastics experience. It’s a very “natural” movement, which I think would still work with a unicycle under your feet.
The main difficulty I see is that the snap of your knees to your chest is what gets the rotation of a back somersault (from what I understand) it is a little harder to do that with a unicycle between your legs plus its got some weight to it. It would be like doing a back somersault with ankle weights on, probably possible but just another annoyance to add to it.
I could have sworn a saw a video of a unicycle backflip of of maybe 4ft of pallets years ago, but I can’t seem to find it. There are videos are people pulling it off on trampolines to give you an example of what the technique may look like.
I can do standing back tucks and used to be able to get standing front tucks. I’d assume a unicycle backflip off of something picnic table height wouldn’t be terrible. I imagine it’s orders of magnitude easier than a unicycle front flip off of anything. What I see as the biggest problem is lack of arm movement to hold onto the saddle. You then have to get all the rotational momentum with your upper torso. While tucking makes life easier, it’s non essential. I’ve seen standing back layouts with relative ease.
That being said, it’d be fun to take the uni out to one of those indoor bmx parks or a gymnastics gym. I knew a kid who worked on inline skating tricks at a gymnastics place back in the day, but he was a competitive gymnast and related to the owners which probably helped getting permission and dealing with all the liability.