Failure to learn to unicycle

Riding Advice
1

After I gave a bried demo at work, a colleague commented today on the sense of balance required to ride a unicycle. I commented back that I think most people have it in them to learn if they put their minds to it and take the time to practice.

So here’s the question. Does anybody actually know of anyone who failed to learn to ride after putting in sufficient time? “Sufficient time” is, of course, a subjective thing. But aside from those who simply give up after a few hours or a day or so, I’m curious if anyone knows of someone who just couldn’t learn to unicycle.

Raphael Lasar
Matawan, NJ

2

failing unicycling.

i got a unicycle for christmas it took me about 3 weeks to learn proficiently
my girlfriend has been riding for nearly 3 months and hasnt even managed to roll a rew rotation of the pedals yet! but shes determined so she wont give up until shes got it.

bungle

3

Re: failing unicycling.

Do you know how many hours she’s put into it over those 3 months?

5

I gave up a whole bunch of times. Really. The stupid piece of crap I was learning on was so anti-rideable that I several times threw it in the corner.

Picture:
http://www.unicycling.org/unicycling/Unidb/qdesc/troxel.html

But I kept coming back. What spurred me on was the knowledge that a totally ordinary human from my neighborhood could do it (and idle). If he could, why couldn’t I? It’s a good thing I never figured out, back then (age 14) that he had a Schwinn and I had a P.O.S. By comparison, the Schwinn was a Cadillac and a Hummer rolled into one.

But I eventually got it. Only then did my Troxel become almost completely unrideable, by falling apart under the weight of its rider.

I know people who can’t do lots of things. Including drive cars. I asked about that when I worked for the driving school. Does anyone ever not learn? The answer was along the lines of that there were people who shouldn’t ever drive. But for the most part, unless the person has brain damage, or lacks cognitive skills, or has physical damage keeping them from working the controls, they can learn if they work at it long enough. We had more than one student who took lessons for more than a year before passing a road test.

I still can’t juggle six balls with any regularity. But I have not failed. I will not fail, even if I never finish learning.

So the answer may be no. Some people are better tuned to their balance than others, but I believe if you have the physical and mental equipment, you can learn to ride if you stick with it. If you have neurological, inner ear, cognitive or other damage, this could impede or stop you though. But I also know of several people who have overcome all sorts of obstacles to ride, including people with varying levels of developmental disabilities (retardedness), learning disabilities, bone problems, and blindness.

Better examples are given by places like the St. Helens school in the 60s and 70s when all the kids were riding unicycles. Did every kid in school ride? According to what people tell me, no. It was not a requirement of PE, to my knowledge. But the vast majority of the school’s population rode. This works well as a (small) population sample.

6

I wonder how much more difficult riding a unicycle is compared to walking. Walking is very difficult Have you ever met anyone who never learned to walk?

7

Re: Failure to learn to unicycle

On Mon, 3 May 2004 14:25:31 -0500, “JJuggle” wrote:

>So here’s the question. Does anybody actually know of anyone who failed
>to learn to ride after putting in sufficient time?

It’s a matter of definition. I’m tempted to say that someone who
failed to learn just hasn’t put in sufficient time. The required time
varies largely across the population. He or she felt that the
investment in time and effort was too large to continue trying. But
had he or she persisted, he or she would have learned to ride.
(Disregarding persons with clear physical or mental disabilities.)

Klaas Bil - Newsgroup Addict

Clearly a system of 1/14 and 1/16 is not decimal - Mikefule on the English weight system

8

Re: failing unicycling.

oh, somebody get that girl a whole bunch of decent footrubs!
:slight_smile:

9

I’ve thought about this before too…It seems to me that the balance and control required to completely shift weight between two legs (and be smooth about it) at a wide range of speeds is very, very complex.

10

failing

of course i know how many hours shes put it in it! im teaching her. she is getting better all the time but shes scared of falling i would estimate that shes put about 40 -50 hours in so far.

bungle :slight_smile:

11

I know someone who FAILED to learn to ride.
Down at the LBS there is a guy that usually mentions how good he is at mountain biking. He also rides a road bike. Before I learned to ride, he told me that he had a unicycle for 3 years, and made many attempts to ride it during that time.
Finally, a non-rider came to his house and was playing around with it, so he said if they can ride it off, they can keep it - and by the end of the evening he was less 1 unicycle. :slight_smile:
The same guy who failed implied that I wouldn’t learn either - which of course gave me motivation to learn quickly. :smiley:
I believe that anyone who has the right ATTITUDE can learn (however, my theory stops short at obese people).

12

I met two different guys this past weekend that admitted that they owned unicycles as a kid, but failed to learn to ride. I obviously have no idea how much they practiced.

A little off topic, but I regularly meet people who say thay used to ride as a kid. I then offer them my uni and they attempt to mount it by going to the front pedal. I just have to smile. :slight_smile: Anyone else have this happen? --chirokid–

13

I have often speculated that walking involves more complex balance that unicycling.

When walking your feet are not free to move (roll, pivot, etc.) when they are in contact with the ground. When walking you basically begin to fall, extend a leg to “catch” yourself and then repeat the process. It all seems very static.

When riding your are in a continuous state of “falling” and correction. This would seem to me to require less inherent balance than walking.

A theoretical experiment that I’ve thought about would be to take infants and prevent them from being exposed to any humans who walk. All they would experience would be people on unicycles. Provide the infant with a unicycle and what would the progression be? Would they learn to walk? Ride?

Of course such an experiment is impractical and probably immoral but the point is that I think most people overestimate the amount of balance required to unicycle compared to what’s required to walk.

-mg

14

I say we go for it anyway, hang the consequences!!1!

15

The guy from the LBS who claims to have failed just gave up. I’m sure he didn’t practice for a whole three years! He works in a bike shop, he should have more motivation to “fill out” his cycling skills. For someone who’s “good” at riding a bike (allowing for him being an exaggerator), he should be able to manage a unicycle if he wants to work at it.

Not enough. or they had Troxels like mine, which means they might have practiced twice as much as someone with a Schwinn and still not gotten it.

Yup. :stuck_out_tongue:

About walking:
Walking is indeed complicated. Talk to anyone trying to program a machine to do it. Most machines that walk have much larger feet than the human equivalent.

When talking of learning to ride a unicycle, we generally assume a person who already walks. The balance part of walking is almost the same, if not exactly the same as what you use when unicycling. The learning part is converting your feet from walking to turning pedals.

Walkers have the advantage of two feet. This makes it easy to stop without idling. We can’t. Having two feet also makes it possible to change directions much faster, and do a few other things we can’t compete with on unicycles. Example: ever tried playing basketball on a unicycle against people on feet?

16

Walking is required to mount.
Therefore the infant would have to learn to walk first.
I believe “walking” is almost required for an infant stand.

17

I have been riding a lot in a local park with my 6 year old daughter who is really starting to get her riding together. She getting into rides that are sometimes 250 feet long. If I may brag a little, she just did her first freemount last night!

I am amzed at how many people, young and old, say, “I could never do that!” I wonder how many other areas of their lives have been hindered by this kind of thinking? Sometimes I just want to get a unicycle and put them on it until they can ride it. The correct response is, “That looks like it would take a lot of time to learn.” or “I’d really have to work at that.” But this “I could never do that!” response is sad to me.

I think it’s one of the reasons I enjoy the unicycling community so much. They are an adventuresome bunch, willing to fail, but also knowing that failure is one of the ways that we learn.

One of the ways I define failure is Not trying or not giving something your best.

Most can ride a unicycle. Most will defeat themselves mentally.

Bill

18

Stop. Remember, we ALL pick our battles.

19

Quite true.

One of the first successful “walking” robots was a robotic pogo stick. Apparently it was much easier to solve the dynamic hopping problem than the problem of coordinating multiple limbs. The researchers were very surprised - they couldn’t believe how simple the hopping programs could be.

20

May I suggest protective gear and stepovers? Fear of falling was a BIG thing when I started learning. Strapping on all the pads and clipping on the helmet really made me feel more secure. I now feel odd riding without my “stuff”. I’d rather have it on and not need it than need it and not have it on.

I still haven’t gotten stepovers down on anything bigger than a 24. I feel like I need a trampoline to do them right on the coker. They do, however, give you a good grounding in how to fall on your feet, especially if you fall off forwards, which is very disconcerting.

I’m now nearing the 12 hour mark and falling no longer fazes me. I’m going so slow I can jump off and land on my feet when I feel a fall coming. Most times I can catch the unicycle too.

The most important thing is that she’s getting better. Once she gets a bit more confidence in her own abilities the fear of falling will subside.

Jayne

21

Re: Failure to learn to unicycle

johnfoss wrote:

> About walking:
> Walking is indeed complicated. Talk to anyone trying to program a
> machine to do it. Most machines that walk have much larger feet than
> the human equivalent.

Or more feet, yeah.

> When talking of learning to ride a unicycle, we generally assume a
> person who already walks. The balance part of walking is almost the
> same, if not exactly the same as what you use when unicycling. The
> learning part is converting your feet from walking to turning pedals.
>
> Walkers have the advantage of two feet. This makes it easy to stop
> without idling. We can’t.

Can so. Can hop, can (maybe someday) stand still, or, as they say, stillstand.

> Having two feet also makes it possible to
> change directions much faster, and do a few other things we can’t
> compete with on unicycles. Example: ever tried playing basketball on a
> unicycle against people on feet?

Gymnastics, footbag, under-the-leg juggling tricks…