i landed my first uni-spin today! i’ve been riding for just over a year now and have mastered a few tricks but today i topped them all. i worked for just over an hour first on just jumping off the pedals the tried to jump off the pedals up to the tire. then finally got the 180 spin in there and landed it (after a few trys). i just have one question though, does anyone have any basic tips in regard to uni-spins but especially jumping up to the tire and hopping like that. thanks for the help!!
I can do a unispin to the tire, that’s actually easier than the 180. I can’t do the 180. It’s easiest if when you jump up to the tire, your feet are tight against the frame, and you pull up on the seat to keep yourself there, and you look over the seat to see your toes while you’re hopping to keep your balance. Then you learn sideways ww
However, since this seems to be an ‘I just did!’ thread, I totally just learned how to standup ww. Now I just need to learn how to get into it
thats really cool. tricks like that are good for people who say something like dude thats such a dumb thing to do. it makes them open their eyes. i did a unispin in my talent show yesterday and then to a seat drop and the crowd went insane.
One tip I’ve heard for the unispin that seems to help is not to worry too much about landing your feet on the pedals. If you land partly on the cranks, you’ll still land it. Just try to spin the unicycle quickly, and don’t think about it too much. I try not to spend too much time hopping beforehand, because it tends to tire me and make me a little nervous. (It’s a lot more tiring to hop on a freestyle unicycle than on a trials.)
The transition to hopping on the wheel can be done several ways. A lot of people do it as a 90 degree unispin. The way I do it is to keep the unicycle in the same position, but turn myself 90 degrees on the way up. Also, I keep my feet well apart while hopping, not squeezed against the frame. I think this makes sideways wheel walk easier when you get around to learning it. My main advice for the transition is just to go for it. It’s not actually that hard.
On the “I did it” theme, I was working on seat in back on my giraffe yesterday, but not getting anywhere, when the seat suddenly slipped to my right and I found myself riding around seat on side. I went around in a circle about five times, then dismounted because I didn’t know how to get out of it. It felt really cool.
I did a similar thing learning to 180 unispin. Cos I’m a total spaz I can’t do it properly and land it, so on one of my ‘attempts’ I managed (somehow) to get the saddle on my right hand side, so it was a 180 unispin to seat on side. I then fell on my arse.
jsm: I actually find myself doing stuff like that often - accidentally accomplishing more advanced skills because I know them. When I ride seat out back now, it takes serious concentration not to end up seat on side, because it requires less effort. And when I make a tight turn, I ususally end up in a spin for a few revolutions because, man, is that ever fun.
what helped me the most in learning to unispin is bend your knees and pull your legs up, to clear the seat, instead of throwing them outwards and then bringing 'em back in. whenever I think about it that way I land it.
I could be wrong, but I think it is where you jump up off the unicycle and while in mid-air, you flip the unicycle 180 degrees so it is backwards and then land and ride off.
