Free, but expensive free mounting.

Riding Advice
21

My 13 yr. old neighbor is the star of his baseball team. When kendama became a fad, locally, he won the all-school competition. This kid is a fast learner. After letting him try my unicycle, last year, he could ride 20 feet after a few minutes. I found a $20 unicycle on CL and gave it to him. He spent about a day working on it. Yesterday, he rolled the unicycle over to my house for me to put air in his tire. After he made a few okay runs on the cheap unicycle, I pulled out my trials uni and lowered the seat. His first run on that one was over 50 feet. Then he decided he wanted to free mount. Within a few minutes he was doing it. After a couple hours practice, he could free mount more than 1/2 the time, and he had ridden over 500 feet.

While he was riding my unicycle, another kid in the neighborhood was struggling on the cheap Sun 20". I asked the talented kid what advice he had for the other kid.

“Just commit.”

What a friggin’ kid thing to say!

On his own, my neighbor mounted starting with the first pedal in the 6:00 position. My unicycle is a 20" with 140mm cranks, so I think that helped with leverage, getting over the dead part of the pedal stroke and starting to ride. He was able to perform a momentary still stand in this position, and this bought him a little bit of time. His seat was a little low (which I think is okay at the beginning); he won’t get a proper static mount until he raises the seat and gets more weight on the seat during mounting.

Regina Wrecks: In my opinion, it’s better to perform a mount slowly but unsuccessfully, than it is to succeed, albeit in a quick and sloppy fashion. Making a mount last longer means there’s more time to think about what you’re doing, more time to get the second foot placed correctly, more time to develop your balance. What I liked about the tire grab mount (I don’t use it any more) is that it slowed down the mounting process; it locked my mass and the unicycle’s mass together, so I would arc, very slowly forward, during the mount.

Good luck!

22

This is basically how I learned to freemount (static) and it took a couple of weeks of constant practice. At one point I had a bad fall so I found a softer surface, a rubberized track at the local high school. There were some hurdles left out so I used one of those instead of a fence.

It was a much bigger challenge than learning to ride.

Keep up the hardwork.

23

What worked for me…

Try mounting with good foot and good hand, then next swap to good foot and other hand, then next swap to good hand and other foot, then finally finish the rotation with both off hand and off foot.

Keep rotating these mounts into your riding. It will take a little longer to get it, but when you do all of these mounts will become easier and you will become a much better rider.

This way you will be able to pick up your uni and start riding from any position in any location.
Most people have to rotate the tire, walk to an accommodating location, and use their dominant hand and foot to mount. I feel this leads to imbalance with your body.

Maybe another option is to try mounting with enough force to get upright on the uni but instead of trying to ride just let your body follow through and fall forward and dismount off of the uni.
This way you can start with too much power and slowly dial it back as you get comfortable with the balance position of the mount.

Sooner or later you’ll be mounting with ease. Keep it up.

24

Quote from Canoeheadted. “Maybe another option is to try mounting with enough force to get upright on the uni but instead of trying to ride just let your body follow through and fall forward and dismount off of the uni”

This is precisely where I am today, I accomplish this with the intensity it warrants. I have done this act with free wheel mounting, and with a lump of wood behind the wheel. Exactly the same result and yes, it does feel sort of comfortable and rehearsed when done many times. I have sat, balanced several times today, with the feet correctly placed on the pedals. Soooo, I like to think I am not that far off launching, but it does not happen yet… !! :(:o

My lawn resembles a ploughed field now, little depressions of the wood with radial tyre grooves, very pretty… !! :wink:

25

You are doing this on the grass?? No wonder you’re having a hard time! You’ve probably managed a bunch of fully viable freemounts already without even knowing it because the bumps in the dirt made you fall off before you could ride anywhere.

26

Lean forward and pedal! :slight_smile:

27

I agree

28

I’ve been unicycling for a year now and while I can free-mount, I’m not sure what to call the type of mount I do. I think it’s that sloppy “beginner’s mount” mentioned here and elsewhere. When I recently tried learning the roll-back mount, I soon realized I already knew how to do it. The kind of mount I do is similar enough and since I can idle and ride backwards competently, the roll-back mount is like a second nature to me.

It’s the static mount I need to work on.

Anyway, it took me about a month to learn to free-mount so I could do it 9 out of 10 tries. I found that learning to idle just a little(I mean 2 to 3 cycles) helped tremendously(thanks John Foss!).

I’m now vividly recalling practicing free-mounting in the park around 10 months ago and what an epic struggle it was. This was my 2nd or 3rd day of just focusing on free-mounting(I already knew how to ride for a few miles). It was such a struggle I was getting it 1 out of 100 tries or even worse. So this woman walking around the park sees me struggling with the unicycle, and took pity on me and said “shouldn’t you be doing that along a fence?”. She then told me about her 2 amazing teenage kids who are unicyclists and how they learned riding along a fence. So we talked a little more about unicycling, but she just assumed I didn’t know how to ride. It’s just funny thinking about that now considering the progress I’ve made.

Just keep practicing! When free-mounting gets very frustrating, keep in mind that riding and idling can help make it easier.

29

I always teach beginners to mount with the pedal in roughly 4/5 o’clock position. That way the unicycle rolls under you abit, and if you are lucky, you still don’t have completely vertical cranks, and can go to riding forward easily. I think it is really not critical which technique you use, I had a 7 year old girl in one of my workshops that always mounted with her foot on the upper pedal in top dead center, she had it save to 10/10 times. But from what I understand, you have what I would consider bad practice habits.
Practicing one skill for hours straight is very ineffective. I recommend 15-20 minutes maximum. Freemounting is something you can easily practice by just going for a ride, and everytime you fall, you do 3 attempts of freemounts, if you don’t get it in those, you mount with a wall. Frustration rarely helps.

30

+1

If you feel impatient and want to learn as quickly as possible, have 2 or 3 of these short practice sessions per day.

31

just commit :slight_smile:

I skimmed most of this thread so I’m probably repeating what somebody has already advised, sorry for the redundancy.

I like the kid who said, “just commit.” I’ll elaborate on that sage advice slightly by recommending that when you go to mount (however you do it) aim to motivate your center of mass in front of the uni so you can proceed to pedal off. From what I can tell too many people do not make a strong enough move to get their mass going forward and they stall out at the top w/o going anywhere. If you are falling back or to the side when you try to mount you aren’t committing w/ enough gusto. Make sure you are failing forward, not to the side or back. This will make a big difference as you will see.

Again sorry for the redundancy. (A redundant apology).

32

Not advice since I am nowhere near mastering this yet; just observations. After reading this thread I spent some time yesterday focusing on mounting both unsupported but with with a block behind the wheel, and also with one hand lightly against the fence for balance and the other holding the tyre. My conclusion is that I think freemounting is just harder than you give it credit for, particularly since your personal style, from the videos, is a pretty controlled one rather than a ‘hurl yourself forward and try to forget to hit the ground’ style. Holding the tyre, I can almost dispense with the wall, but not quite, and riding away from it is hard without a wall supported pause to collect myself. I can ride away from a mount with no wall but with a block behind the wheel, but even that is only 50% of the time, and I don’t get good distances yet.

I’m increasingly coming to the conclusion that stuff happens when it happens if we just keep trying. As skills evolve, things that are hard will become easy. Most of the more specific advice we are given is perfectly true but only actually helps if we are at exactly the right point to take advantage of it. Mostly, people are convinced that the last thing they did before succeeding is the key to success, but that is often just an extension of the ‘lucky pants syndrome’. The last thing may just be the thing you did at the point where all the previous things had prepped you to succeed.

I do agree with the ‘don’t practice one thing to the point of frustration’ advice, I think - but even with that, some of my best runs seem to come just after I have decided that there is no way I am ever going to get this and I might as well go home and make a cup of tea. Positive Mental Attitude seems to have a negative effect on me as often as not. A break is often followed by an improvement.

I also agree that doing it on grass is going to confuse the issue as to whether your problem is freemounting (slightly easier on grass in my very small experience because it helps to stop the wheel rolling away) or riding away from a freemount (much much harder on grass because of all the extra force needed to get moving.) If what you mean by a successful free mount is ‘a free mount from which I successfully ride away’ I would go back to concrete as soon as you have a reasonable record of getting your foot on the pedal and your bum in the seat.

33

Absolutely get off the grass! It’s the most difficult surface to ride on! If you have gloves and knee pads, the pavement will not hurt you, especially if you’re riding a small wheel, and you may want to practice jumping off and landing on your feet anyway.
You’ve had many great suggestions, so I hesitate to muddy the water even more with mine. But one thing that helped me in the beginning was to just stand behind the uni with the saddle in mounting position and your dominant foot on the rearward pedal (yes, and about the 3 or 4 o’clock position), and just start slowly leaning forward until your weight is over or slightly in front of the uni. At a certain point, it just seems natural to bring your other foot up and on to the front pedal. Don’t worry about riding off at first. This really only works on smaller wheels, but it helped me get a sense of where and when the balance shifts. After a while you can do it in one fluid motion.
Good luck! You’ll get it after a while, we all do eventually! (I still miss mounts from time to time, especially first thing in the morning. I try not to let it bother me.) :slight_smile:

34

Take this any way… Stick with the grass!

When you learn on the hard stuff, anything after is a cakewalk.

I didn’t have any pavement around when I was learning so when I did have a chance to ride a smooth surface it was like my skill level moved up a level because it was much easier.

35

I have just returned from the yard in which I rehearse all my, now world wide, famous moves. I started late this afternoon because of something coming up unexpectedly, but, armed with all these latest thread pointers on this forum, I took my lump of wood with me.
I have been trying this free mount thing for weeks now, and as I said, getting nowhere. Today, after taking in all the advice written here, plus the visual aids too, I first went for several short rides as usual, one of which was along a quiet, adjacent country roadway. I did not fall once, in fact I executed a perfect 180 degree turn in the narrow road and returned to the car. I have dropped the seat an inch, this affords clearance when mounting and, I must say, has enhanced my pedaling speed quite considerably. I do tend to almost stop/start when attempting to turn, plus twisting from the waist to accomplish the turn, but the balance is okay and I can get away again, uninterrupted, with the pedaling.
I came back to the car and had a decent swill of H2o and caught my breath for a while. I then attempted the block of wood behind the wheel mount. Pedals at 3 & 9, left one to the back because of the eye fault. As of yesterday, when I balanced easily when seated at 12 oc’lock, I had the same experience today. The second attempt produced a 1/4 turn of the cranks… I went for another ride, across the yard, down the badly broken concrete lane, onto the road again, and away. Not quite as far this time, and no turn, but it was genuine progress (long walk back though). Then another wood blocked free mount, first one I stepped off, the second gave me two complete pedal turns before I went UPD forwards. The third attempt made the unicycle shoot out the back end of the edifice… :astonished:

I came home in well failing light with a smile the width of an angry Great White Shark mouth… Oh, happy day :smiley:

The exact method I am using to mount, is a basic amalgam of all your suggestions, and images put together, and for that I thank you all for your keen interest in an old man, thanks folks… :slight_smile:

I really do hope this thread, and others like it, may be of use to others who follow us in the future… :sunglasses:

36

I was on grass yesterday purely because of a soft landing, plus, it is here and no traveling, trouble is that we have had so much rain here lately that it is almost waterlogged, I got a rather damp posterior a couple of times as a result. Today, after the previous suggestions and comments etc, I took heart and braved the concrete again, much easier to be honest, and others have said the same.
I am now taking things slower, but still as keen as a razor… :roll_eyes:

37

That’s awkward, and will eat up your tire! Instead, try accelerating and leaning into your turn. My first two unicycle tires became threadbare in a matter of weeks from all my twisting, thrashing and grinding around. Now they last a year or longer, though that may also be because I stopped using cheap tires!

38

Yeah you are spot on correct Song, when I did the 180 in the road this afternoon, I did go faster and leant over quite a bit to carry me through, although on the broken concrete area, the raised edges mean a substantial steering manouvre needs to be taken to eliminate UPD’s. Not only is the concrete broken, the weight of the vehicles has rutted the concrete substantially as well, inexperience means that I slow right down to turn, hence the almost stopping method… not the best area to learn on I will admit, but it is hidden from the public gaze somewhat as I strive to make myself presentable on a unicycle…!! :roll_eyes:

39

Not really. The two worst surfaces I was ever paid to ride on were:

  • Soaking wet astroturf (that's the green, plastic, artificial grass that doesn't look very real)
  • Lumpy carpet (a decorative carpet placed over the horse-worn, 101-year old ring floor of the Riga Circus in Latvia)
I have also been paid to perform on grass, with roots in it. That's still pretty bad, but not as bad as those. :)

I respectfully disagree. Even if Canoeheadted learned in his 60’s I still disagree, but he probably learned a lot younger, which changes some parameters. Learning to ride a unicycle on grass is like learning how to drive in a manual-shift old truck. If an automatic transmission vehicle is available, you’ll save lots of time (and money, if using a driving school) by splitting up those two tasks. I used to work for a driving school.

Learning to ride on a hard, smooth level surface will indeed put you at a disadvantage on grass, or bumps, or any surface irregularities. But you will overcome them in time. Less time.

40

Every way of learning has its pros and cons.

I took a long time to learn riding because I started out on rough grass in my front yard. But the learning curve was not so steep when I subsequently had to tackle rough surfaces riding on the street.

I recently met an eleven year old unicyclist who learnt in isolation starting about eight months ago. Having only seen a unicyclist riding, she decided to start out with a free mount (static/rollback) before she tried to ride at all. Later when it came to riding backwards she simply rode off on her first attempt because she already had the feeling for how the uni behaved when near stationary. She could very nearly idle too.

Sometimes getting the fundamentals very deep into the model being built by the brain could have advantages. It might produce better mid and long term results compared to the expedience of other learning sequences that bring more rapid improvement at basic skills.

Ultimately though it doesn’t really matter what order of skills you learn or how long it takes. Unicycling is mostly about persistence.