My preference for hopping is holding the saddle withmy right-hand and having my right-foot forward, but I’m much more comfortable hopping to my left, making pedal grabs harder.
I can do it on both sides (not especially well), but I find grabbing on my right easier- does anyone else have this problem? If so how did you get around it- learn to grab better on the left or jump better to the right?
Thank a lot,
James
So you pedalgrab with your back foot? Weird. Just try hopping the other way or with the other foot back. Unless you want to be one of those cool trend setters.
If you hold the seat right handed I would think you would want to jump to the left to pull the unicycle with you. I can understand how your right foot forward stance gives you problems. In order to change only one thing, I would change foot position. Unfortunately I think this is the hardest adjustment to make. Reconsidering, try landing a crank grab several time by jumping to the right to land right foot forward. See if pulling with the right hand going to the right gives you problems. I think I would want that hand free for counterbalance.
I hold the seat with my right hand, hop with left foot back, and am more comfortable hopping to the left.
And yeah, it does make pedal grabs much harder. But I’m working on it.
I hold the saddle with my left,
hop with my right foot (dominant) back,
and hop best to the right
oh, and I can’t pedal grab yet (actually, I haven’t tried. Don’t want to mess up my pedals and cranks)
Daniel
Ok great, thanks a lot guys- I’ll go and play around and see what works and what doesn’t! I’ve tried hopping left foot forwards, but I just embarrass myself! Lol!
hey… i myself am a left hand with right foot forward, so i dont have that problem. but we all know that dan heaton, one of the best in the world is right hand hop, right foot forward. it seems to me that he fought through it and learned to pedal grab and grind with his front foot. so i would suggest not to switch your foot position or your hopping hand, as both of those are very natural things… however, the side to which you hop can be more easily changed i think.
Kevin
me
i am a right foot forward, right hand person, and it gives me no problems. i grind on the right, and pedal/ crank grab on the right too. i can hop to the left, and limited hopping left foot forward(for correctional purposes only).
Right foot forward, right hand. When i hop left foot forward i end up going in circles to the left. I think my body is trying to straighten out my legs.
Do people usually grind or pedal grab on the front foot? Why?
Im left handed, I hop with my right foot forward with my left hand on. I feel more comfortable hopping to the left onto my left crank. This seems opposite for everyone but I don’t feel like anything is harder.
Brian
Hmmm, so it seems that hopping to the right is the answer! How many of you have your dominant foot at the front then?
No. My dominant foot is my right (as determined by the one with which I most comfortably idle in the down position or the one with which I most comfortably one-foot ride or one-foot idle) and my left foot is in front onto which I crank grab and pedal grab. I have not tried grabbing with my dominant foot which would be in back when I hopped. That’s just me. People who are actually good might do it entirely differently.
I think it’s best to learn hopping and pedal grabbing with both feet. I find it best to hop with the hand corresponding to the back foot. Meaning when I hop with left foot back I use my left hand and vice versa with the right. Although maybe switching hands isn’t the quickest thing to do I think being proficient at hopping with either foot forward is a very good idea. I’m surprised that watching Universe 1 and 2 that just about every rider I’ve watched closely jumps with the same hand and same pedal forward every time.
I’ve gotten to the point where I’m equally good with either pedal forward but my left hand right pedal forward seat in front hops/ pedal grabs are lagging a little bit behind my right hand left pedal forward seat out hops/ pedal grabs.
This was discussed (and polled) some in thread Side hop preference
From my (rough) observations of better riders …
Pretty consistently for most riders: The strong side hop is toward the free hand. (Theory, because swinging the free hand arm helps lead the hop to that side).
Pretty consistently for most riders: Each rider does have a strong forward foot preference, but …
Pretty much 50/50 split: The strong side hop may be either towards or away from the forward foot. Though most riders have a strong foot forward, it’s roughly a 50/50 split whether their strong side hop is towards or away from the forward foot.
I hop the same way as Potter and OWS. I haven’t had a problem yet. I can crank-grab easily and don’t think I’d have much of a problem with pedal-grabbing. I think changing the way we hop so that we go to the left might not be the best idea. I really like having my left arm free for balance and also so that I can snap it for flat gaps.
The best idea is probably to learn to pedal-grab with both feet.
i idle with my left foot down, ride one footed with my right foot pedalling (so i guess i have two dominant feet:D ) i can idle with right down and one-foot with left foot tho:p
just for the record, i hop with my right foot foward and hop to the right(holding with right hand), and also crank/pedal grab to the right. but i grind to the left.
another strangety is that i hop seat out with my left hand, this may be due to my inexperience with seat out tho.
iain
I am right handed but hold the seat with my left hand i jump left foot forward but pedal grab and grind with my right foot
If you pedalgrab with the back foot (like me), you can use the crankflip technique:
With back pedal on the object, bring the free pedal up to the back. That means that you’re in the wrong position for hopping. Swing the unicycle up, and when the cranks are vertical you should move up into the air, and continue turning the wheel to land with the feet in the right position.
I actually think this is probably easier than a normal pedal grab, because when you go up you only have about two inches to go since the pedals are vertical.
Good point, although one of the observations for me is that if you do big seat out sidehops away from the free hand you can’t lift the uni as easily and landing is harder. This is because you naturally angle the uni towards the free hand during the squat in a big sidehop (although there are two different lift styles. Kris holm seems to bring the seat closer to his head and doesn’t push it out so far, while Ryan Atkins seems to hold the seat farther in front of himself. Kris’s style seems less condusive to weak-side hopping. I seem to do more of Kris’s style, from what I can tell). This makes the uni collapse under you if the uni is angled away from the object, at least from my experience. I was trying to hop a 22" ledge to the right (I hold right hand, hop right back, and jump to the left), and I was consistently making the height, but the moment i put weight on the wheel, the uni collapsed under me, the seat was ripped out of my hand, and I fell. I didn’t understand until I noticed the uni was angled away from the ledge.
As for the pedalgrab, you most definitely can do a right foot back right side pedalgrab. Mike middleton does it this way. He just skipped crankgrabs, and does the crankflip pedalgrab, which Potter described. The only thing I reccomend is to pedalgrab on the same side as you do big hops to. if I were you I’d aim to prefer my left, but Jeff Groves does righty, although he’s ambidextrous. You’ll end up doing something similar to Jeff groves.
One wheeled stallion, I hop the same way you do. I even hop to the left like you. I have been wanting to pedal grab for a while but I had that same problem. I went out and worked on it and after a while I finally could without switching anything. I will get it on tape tomorrow and see what I am doing so I can tell you. Also look here http://gallery.unicyclist.com/album289 it is a movie muniracer made to show you how with our foot position. Kelly.