Hi anyone who is the slightest bit interested.
I have recently been struggling to freemount my 29er (since I put 125 cranks on her). I think (tentatively) that I’ve cracked it.
(I do the rollback mount).
The trick seems to be to put my right foot on the pedal with the toes pointing outwards. This seems to give it more of a steady rollback. It’s then cruicial to put second foot firmly full onto the pedal to get a firm roll forward. And wahoo, I’m off.
Sorry if I’ve bored anyone.
Cathy
I guess whatever works for you is good. I started riding my 29er a few months back and now I don’t miss too many freemounts. I too have 125 cranks. At first it was a real challenge but like anything else related to this sport, it gets better the more you do it.
At least you are freemounting.
I almost never use a roll back. I do a static with a slight forwards push. Also, if you lean the unicycle slightly sideways, then the force of your leap into the saddle is diagonal, wich somehow makes it easier.
Surprisingly, short cranks make mounting easier on big wheels - if you use a static mount.
I remember how weird and awkward it was the first time I tried to freemount my 28" (coming up from a 20"). Keep working on it, and with time you won’t think twice about freemounting it.
I guess its a smaller jump to the forward pedal.
Maybe this is because longer cranks have more torque so they are more tempermental with preasure which can cause them to roll from a static horizontal position easier.
Curious–I have found quite the opposite. With shorter cranks I find it distinctly harder to mount. Shorter cranks mean you have to jump up higher, and then you have less torque to help you deal with any imperfections in your jump.
Mind you, my experience is with a 36" wheel, so maybe the extra jump height isn’t as critical on a 29".
I’m with you on the static mount though. Roll back is fine on small wheels, but static or rolling mount really wins out on big wheels.
this may help- I started practicing static mounting with a small stone/kerb/chav wedged behind the the wheel to prevent rolling back. eventually I reduced the prop until I could do it on the flat.
Hi, Cath! I hope all’s well in Wales. Is there going to be another meet soon? I was happy to see you’d pulled it off in August. Good luck with those!
As for the 29" mount Q: Yeah, avoid the rollback if you can. As others have noted, rolling back tends to force you to use a great deal of force to stop the wheel and then make it go forwards. There are balance issues with that as well. And you don’t have to have the uni straight before you – it should def’ly be tilted outside (if you’re a righty, it should tilt to the left). You need a big hop (you’re not that tall, so I know), so have the right crank a bit above the horizon, then push it back a tad (not that full half-rev – just a few inches). Then swing the left foot onto the pedal. Meanwhile, your arms and upper body can help. Start with your arms low, then raise them forward (like reaching for sth in front of you) as you mount. Then, once you’re up, I tell my Jewish friends to daven. That’s the prayer style you see at the Wailing Wall (and in orthodox synagogs) where you lean back and forth. In this case, just do a quick forward lean.
You have to be careful not to let the left pedal rise up to 12 o’clock or you risk having the uni shoot out behind you and you could get injured. Practice next to a street sign or lamppost to get the arms and davening thing down.
Good luck! And regards to Stu et al.
Hi David and everybody.
Thanks for your contributions. I use the rollback mount with all my unicycling. It seems to work for me. Eventually I will learn other mounts and to do it with my other foot.
Yes we are going to have another meeting. Stu has made a unilateral decision to team up with a guy called Tom (who does trial biking but has been lured into unicycling at the last meeting) to hold a joint unicycling and trial biking trials comp. They would charge people for entering and would have a ‘free’ unicycling day on the Sunday.
I had a bit of a strop cos no-one asked me but I’m cool with it now. It has both advantages and disadvantages, but we’ll see how it goes as to the formatt of any other meetings.
Will say hi to Stu for you.
( A note of sadness, however, is that the circus club that some of us used to belong to is no more. Due to one thing and another it has shut down for now).
Anyway, thanks for the comments guys.
Cathy