I’ve been able to freemount for a long time now, but every now and then when I do, I accidently twist my whole body to the side of my front foot and have trouble starting out straight. Is there any way I can fix this?
I’ve been able to freemount for a long time too, but every so often I get into a situation where it all goes to pieces - usually on rough ground on a narrow track. The twisting to one side thing is a problem I recognise!
Go back to basics. Check that the back pedal/bottom pedal is in the right place; check that the top pedal is ready to receive your foot. Look a long way ahead. Funny thing about balance: the further away you’re looking, the better your balance. (This is true of everything from motorcycling to white water canoeing.) Are you looking at the ground immediately in front of you? Or worse still, at the pedal?
Do you hold the front of the saddle with one hand? This can improve things. Do you keep your inner thigh pressed against the ‘instep’ of the saddle? This helps to steady it.
Sounds to me like you’ve got the same problem as an out of form cricketer: you know what to do, you’ve been doing it for ages, but somehow it’s stopped working. Back to basics then: line and length! :0)
Okay, thanks. I’ve never heard of the looking ahead of you part, so I’ll try that, and I’ll make sure I’m doing everything right.
[QUOTE]
Originally posted by mitchell
Okay, thanks. I’ve never heard of the looking ahead of you part, so I’ll try that,
>>>>> There’s a thing called ‘target fixation’ which is big news in motorcycling because it is posh words for ‘you go where you’re looking’. On a motorbike, you should look at the furthest visible point of the road when you’re going round a bend, and the bike will follow. Strange but true. And if someone pulls out in front of you and you look at them instead of the gap, you hit them.
Apply this to the freemount problem. If you look straight ahead, the uni will tend to keep pointing straight ahead. If you look at the ground or at the pedal, or at the obstacle you are trying to avoid, you’ll either hit the ground or hit the obstacle.
Of course, it isn’t that simple, because on a uni you need to scan the ground ahead for obstacles as well as looking ahead for balance. I find that I often fall off on a simple bit of rough ground because I’ve already dismissed it as ‘easy’ and I’m looking too far ahead to the next obstacle.
However, I do find that when I get into the ‘can’t freemount for love or money’ situation, it makes a real difference if I make a deliberate effort to look ahead. Not literally at the furthest visible point, but a good 30 - 50 feet ahead.
Another thing is to keep that weight on the bottom foot and don’t park your behind on the seat until the uni is under control.
I sure had an experience of going where you look the other day. There is this big move in the climbing gym here and I have been throwing for it and missing for like 3 weeks. Friday I focused on the far part of the hold instead of the near part and hit it on that very same try. I guess this is a little off topic so: Yes, it is very true that you go where you look and looking further ahead improves balance. For a while I could only idle when looking into the distance. One of the early skills in mountain b*king is to not look at all the junk you don’t want to hit.
-gauss
Dang. I’ve been paying to mount all this time. Rhysling makes me send him $0.37 every time I get on my unicycle. I’m tricking him though. I only send him the money for HALF of my mounts and he never catches on. What an idiot.
Re: Freemount problem
On Sun, 12 May 2002 05:31:45 -0500, Mikefule
<Mikefule.4jd0z@timelimit.unicyclist.com> wrote:
>Are you looking at the
>ground immediately in front of you? Or worse still, at the pedal?
Ummm… I look at the pedal when mounting. I never thought anything of
it and it seemed logical. Do the more experienced people in here feel
that I should make a dedicated effort to look ahead and NOT at the
pedal when mounting? I tried today but it felt dangerous and difficult
to force my gaze upwardly away from that sub-horizontal direction. (I
successfully mount 90% of the time. I mean that’s OK but not rock
solid.)
Klaas Bil
“To trigger/fool/saturate/overload Echelon, the following has been picked automagically from a database:”
“gorilla, ~, 1080H”
For a while I was trying to mount perfectly straight to prepare for riding on logs. I found that looking straight ahead of the tire, and catching the pedal with peripheral vision, helped to do that. Looking at the pedal, which is to the side, seemed to increase the amount of startup wobble.
I’m not working on logs yet, so someone who regularly mounts on narrow platforms may want to comment.
That looking in the distance trick is pretty helpful. Here’s another problem I’ve had. I’m getting better at freemounting, and I tend to do OK on flat land or facing downhill. If I try to freemount facing uphill, even just a gentle slope, everything goes to hell. Is this typical? Do you guys know of any freemounts that are better for uphill?
Klaas,
I also look at the pedal. If it works for you, do it. I can see how looking in the distance can help, but for that, you have to (in my opinion) already have a very solid mount, that you do very much the same every time, without variation. I’m still trying to have my sweet foot land on the pedal in the same place in the same way every time (with not much luck), so for me, looking at the pedal is vital. I have tried looking straight ahead and it was worse (for me). Maybe when I achieve a more exact foot placement, I may be able to look to the distance instead of looking at the pedal.
Personally, I do a rollback mount. Despite repeated attempts, I have not been able to get my forward (normal) free mount attempts to work very often. I have some kind of mental block when trying to spring up with the same foot that I have to place on the forward pedal. So, I just do the rollback mount. In the off-road, variable terrain prevents the rollback from being easy, but on the road it is easy. Still, I just keep doing the rollback.
I have a lot more luck with the jump mount, so I may focus on improving that one, since my performance rate responds to practice on that one.
For now, I just look at the pedal. When I am mounting correctly, I remember to keep the tire rolling perfectly straight forward and backward as I mount. I try to avoid letting the tire twist any (though it does twist slightly because of the way I stand to keep balance as I prepare to mount, but I straighten up as I spring up). When I start twisting frequently, I know to straighten up my technique and/or take a break.
Nbrazzi,
I think your normal mount will probably work on a hill. You might just want to practice it on a hill. I mean find a hill and just stand there on the slope of a hill and practice mounting on it over and over for 15 minutes or so. You should be able to adjust. Heck, I do a rollback mount, and I still do fine on hills, because I think about the hill’s impact on my mount, I practiced a lot, and I worked on it. It helped that in some off-road scenarios, I was forced to work on my rollback mount big time. Now I can do it on hills, especially streets, with not too much trouble.
Good luck. I’m just a beginner but I hope I might be of some help (whether as an example of what to do, or what to do, I’m not sure :)).
Lewis
Re: Freemount problem
On Tue, 14 May 2002 10:25:39 -0500, nbrazzi
<nbrazzi.4ng0m@timelimit.unicyclist.com> wrote:
>If I try to freemount facing
>uphill, even just a gentle slope, everything goes to hell. Is this
>typical? Do you guys know of any freemounts that are better for uphill?
My “static” freemount also is a lot worse when facing uphill. But a
rollback mount is fine. If I face uphill, I initially point the first
pedal more downward as opposed to near-horizontal. That way, the
larger amount of rollback because of the slope is complemented by a
smaller amount of rollback because of my weight on the first pedal.
Conversely, for the rollback mount to work downhill, have the first
pedal higher.
Klaas Bil
“To trigger/fool/saturate/overload Echelon, the following has been picked automagically from a database:”
“Li Hongzhi, CFD, Lexis-Nexis”
Re: Freemount problem
On Tue, 14 May 2002 12:24:39 -0500, Animation
<Animation.4nlkm@timelimit.unicyclist.com> wrote:
>
>Klaas,
>
>I also look at the pedal. If it works for you, do it. I can see how
>looking in the distance can help, but for that, you have to (in my
>opinion) already have a very solid mount, that you do very much the same
>every time, without variation. I’m still trying to have my sweet foot
>land on the pedal in the same place in the same way every time (with not
>much luck), so for me, looking at the pedal is vital. I have tried
>looking straight ahead and it was worse (for me). Maybe when I achieve a
>more exact foot placement, I may be able to look to the distance instead
>of looking at the pedal.
Lewis,
Everything you say above applies to me as well. And the rollback mount
is also my preferred mount, although I can do the “static” mount (but
only on one side). I am notoriously weak at mounting.
Klaas Bil
“To trigger/fool/saturate/overload Echelon, the following has been picked automagically from a database:”
“Li Hongzhi, CFD, Lexis-Nexis”
For me the static mount is best so far on hills, especially downhill or off-road. For uphills, four additional things help:
-
Lots of forward-upward launching. Jumping upwards at an angle, and a vigorous free-arm swing.
-
Pushing the wheel forward during the mount. This almost turns it into a rolling mount, but not quite because the wheel does stop as in a normal static mount, and your feet do not walk forward. This motion helps a lot because the slight linear and angular momentum gained by the wheel translates directly into body lift by the back pedal.
-
Putting the uni at an angle to the hill so that the effective slope is quite a bit less; then turning straight uphill after I get on.
-
Using the seat-holding arm in a hill-climbing way (pulling on the seat in time with leg action) immediately upon mounting.
I found that for me, this works much better than the rollback, especially on trails where I am trying to mount from the edge where the slope is less. In those situations the rollback may be impossible because of the off-trail terrain behind the uni. On a road I’d wait for the way to be clear of traffic if possible, then mount sideways to the hill and turn afterwards.
Your mileage may vary.
>There is this big move in the climbing gym here and I have been >throwing for it and missing for like 3 weeks. Friday I focused on >the far part of the hold instead of the near part and hit it on >that very same try.
good to hear a fellow climber on the forum
what grade was that? (just curious)
i’ve had the same experience and have passed that lil’ snippet of info onto many other climbers stuck at one particular move
when i started out on the uni, i found looking into the distance very difficult yet remarkably usefull
i would suggest to anybody to try it with the qualification that u may need to discipline yourself to do it for the first while
i’ve also found that my attempts at exact footplacement work better when i’m not looking at the pedal
quick personal test
stand on one leg and look at your foot
stand on one leg and look at the wall
Re: Freemount problem
On Wed, 15 May 2002 11:28:22 -0500, GILD
<GILD.4pdoz@timelimit.unicyclist.com> wrote:
>quick personal test
>stand on one leg and look at your foot
>stand on one leg and look at the wall
DAMMIT. You make your point.
Klaas Bil
“Seems that quotes are quite fashionable these days” - Bruce Edwards
“To trigger/fool/saturate/overload Echelon, the following has been picked automagically from a database:”
“ie.org, Blenheim, WWSP”