Finally! After 4 months of avoiding it I knuckled down and gave some serious time to freemounting.
If I’m honest with myself, I’ve been avoiding it. Once I have spare time to uni, all I want to do is go places. It was only because I bumped into the missus while we were on our lunch hours today. I wanted to learn how to hop and idle, but she made me practice freemounting. She said it was more important.
I’m glad she did now.
I was trying on flat grass, and after around 15-20 attempts I was getting frustrated. The missus stood behind me and told me where I was going wrong with weight positioning and seat height.
Then… a glorious moment when I’m up, up and away! Ten revolutions, totally out of control and straight into a bush.
But once i knew what it felt like, I could replicate it quite well.
Then I was up and away around 7 times out of 20 attempts.
Go me!
Level 1 here I come!
You rode for 4 months without learning that? Now THAT is stubbornness. 
Good job!
I know! Shocking, ain’t it? :o
Still, wide open spaces are mine now!
i learned to freemount like 2 months after i began to uni becausei avoided it but i am teaching my friend to uni and as soon as he can go 75 feet or so without falling… im gunnu teach to freemount
Congratulations! It’s nice to be able to just hop right back on after you UPD, isn;t it?
I know the feeling. The weather (mostly) has been so lovely since I got my semi-coker that I just want to ride it. I’m rubbish at freemounting but that hasn’t been a problem so far. Except I can’t ride it on the beach unitl I can freemount. Never mind, I console myself that there will be plenty of weather that is more appropriate for freemounting practice than riding now that the heat wave is over.
Congrats at being able to freemount by the way. It’s a lovely (if surprising) feeling isn’t it? One minute you’re just standing there and the next one you’re riding away. Cool.
Cathy
how did you learn to freemount… by grabbing the tire and pulling up because that was my first freemount, or did youjustput your foot on the bottompedal and push up?
Grabbing the tire? That’s an odd way to learn.
It was a static mount. I tried the roll-back a few weeks ago and couldn’t get to grips with it. I found the static much easier, especially if I gave myself a tiny roll forward as I hop up. This kind of gets me out of that ‘dead-zone’ where the pedals are at 12 and 6 o’ clock.
yea i did it so it didnt role out from under me and it was actually pretty successful until i felt comfortable with a regular freemount
If you do want to learn to idle, getting used to the motion in the rollback mount will help lots.
I’d recommend, for a beginning freemounter, to static mount with the pedals at 9 and 3. I made the same mistake you did with the pedals vertical when I learned, and it took me longer to learn than it probably would’ve if I had learned it the other way. That dead-zone is a killer for new riders.