Ya, I’d say anyting you can do in a gym or outside on just flat ground is freestyle/flatland. Therefore by my definition crankflips would be freestyle/flatland as well as street. My two cents.
yes freestyle is pretty much dead here. in fact its pretty much been dead here since i first joined but i suppose its more dead now that street has truly taken over.
freestyle tends to occur in concentrated groups for the most part. like in japan or europe and twin cities in USA. i only know one other rider who would actually call themselves a freestyle rider in australia.
i agree that freestyle should be replaced by flatland. i think the term artistic should be used more to describe gym riding.
once my exams finish i’m going to start riding again. i have a 3 month break and a whole heap of ideas that have been building up in my mind. at the end of it all should hopefully have an awesome freestyle video made.
What I meant was when you drop the seat and continue riding with the seat dragging. Don’t know what it’s called.
Glad to hear your trying to learn seat drags!! For myself there were a few things that helped:
- Learn how to ride seat out front very well. While riding move the seat as far from your body as you can and try to use as few fingers as possible, eventually using one or two fingers to hold the seat.
- Once you are comfortable at this drop the seat. I personally found that if I keep my arms up (like the ‘crane’) it forced me to have better posture and subsequently was able to drag the seat further.
Also, the unicyclopedia has some great tips for learning various freestyle skills:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/The_Unicyclopedia/Freestyle#Seat_drags_front_and_back
Hope this helps,
Tynan
The first post asked which trick we consider the coolest… I will make a not priotised list : (maybe we need a new thread for this)
Hand riding
Coasting when standing on seat
Backwards coasting (any coasting is cool, but backwarts just feels better)
Jumping from pedals to standup glide freehanded
Using the other side/foot at a trick
Piruottes and spins
The list is much longer, but this is the ones I consider the coolest
I think we should definitely keep the term “freestyle”! Overall there are probably still much more freestyle riders than flat/street riders. There are just not as many discussions in the forum for many reasons. One is probably that freestyle as a discipline has already matured, so there is less discussion about new tricks and riders have local contacts or even clubs.
Freestyle and flat have many differences:
freestyle:
- takes place in a gym
- is done on freestyle unis (high pressure tire, high seat, short cranks)
- mostly continuous tricks like wheel walk, coasting…
flat:
- outdoors
- street unis (19" low pressure trials tire, longer cranks, low seat)
- mostly instantaneous/stationary tricks like seat wrap or flip
Off course there is much overlap between the two (just as there is between flat/street, street/trial, trial/MUni). But in general there are many tricks that are very inconvenient on the wrong uni (e.g. flips with 89mm cranks, standup coasting on a flat uni) and clearly belong to only one off the two (with a few exception like unispins).
The distinction as it is works very well, so why change it? It does not hinder you to do both and mix them. It is great there is such an creative transfer of tricks between freestyle and flat, without loosing their distinctive flavour.
If two discipline should be merged then its probably flat and street, since there are hardly any flat riders who do not mix it with street (e.g. flipping down a curb). But I think we can keep the distinction there as well.
P.S. One should also distinguish between freestyle as a style of riding and freestyle as a competition discipline (where half of the deal is the presentation). Note that there is also standard skills as a freestyle discipline.
All flatland skills are freestyle skills. And if this is true, the reverse must also be just as true. The difference is in the type of event they are. Flatland is about doing cool tricks (see the new rules) and Freestyle is about putting cool tricks into a performance. That’s not a minor difference.
“Artistic,” at least the way we use it in the rulebooks, stands for all forms of competitive trick riding. That’s Freestyle, Standard Skill, Open-X, Street, and the new Flatland (or Flat-X). Unfortunately the waters of definition have been muddied for years and years by the software that’s used as database when running most IUF and USA competitions as it arbitrarily sticks the word “artistic” randomly in event names, perpetuating the misunderstanding of what the actual competition event names are. Basically they’re what I listed above, with the addition of Individual, Pair and Group to some.
The reason to have them separate is because they are very different styles of riding, and forms of competition event. Niko’s list above is a pretty good generalization of what tends to be the difference these days, though I see this changing over time. If someone makes a Trials-type tire that can be ridden indoors without marking up the floor, it’ll suddenly be a real popular Freestyle tire. But some tricks require the high-pressure tires, namely anything involving long-distance gliding or coasting.
But Freestyle doesn’t only take place in a gym. When I perform, part of my show is definitely Freestyle but it’s usually either outside, or on a very non-gym-like stage. Also I learned most of my Freestyle moves outside (due to lack of gym).
There’s another distinction of Freestyle that shouldn’t be ignored. Pretty much any unicyclist who makes a living by performing is doing Freestyle. Though there is a growing market for Street and Flatland-type performances, I don’t think anybody is doing it for a living.
o just call it dropping the seat. a good tip for that is make sure to bend your knees sufficiently so that the wheel doesn’t sway from side to side.
I have no experience, but I’ve read the same several times. I think shorter cranks would help, also a balding trials tire w/ high pressure (flatter profile - less side to side waddle).
wikibooks has lots of helpful tips for all types of riding.
Well instead of giving the names of all my favourite tricks (of course I can’t do them), Ill just post this…
I don’t know if you’ve seen it, but if you haven’t then you need to. Does anyone have any other awesome freestyle videos?
Heres one that I love watching these. The first isn’t really freestyle.
backflip off unicycle
An amazing artistic video
I think what the name freestyle should be dropped and the names artistic and flatland should be used instead.
Here’s Shaun J. Doin some freestyle http://www.unictube.com/view/44/shaun-freestyle
There’s really good vid called “Call Out Video”
http://www.unictube.com/view/13/callout-video-(freestyle)
But it’s been removed from Youtube. 
It was my favorite freestyle video.
Freestyle has got to be the most impressive, and my favourite style. I mean come on, COASTING STANDING ON THE SEAT? Most of the things I can just about understand but that is like an illusion to me.
Does anybody know how [yogi?] did it?
It’s not Yogi but I can’t remember the guy’s name.
Edit: His name is Julien Monney
best freestyle video = koxx roadtrip
julien money = god in that video.
Heres some freestyle vids of me(mostly freestyle):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubWmJbaVUvw
and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKWJJsE9yiY
yea tell me wacha think.
Sweet man. Nice music on the second one. You’re really good.
That’s the best ever freestlye video.
This is mental. 1440 unispin!
That’s so wrong… any idea on how much time these guys have to practice to be so amazing? I can’t see myself ever hitting some of those moves.
I hope there was sarcasm in both of the 1440 unispins posts.
That video is very fake. People dont float, nor do they travel back and forth with a uni while floating.