Ive been riding trials for about a year now and would like to teach myself some freestyle tricks, i have a nimbus trials. I have been attempting to; walk the wheel, ride one footedly and the odd other things which i know not the terminology and was wondering that if i bought a freestyle uni would it help? or just keep soldiering with the nimbus?
i imagine a freestyle uni would only help significantly if you were tyring to do pirrouettes (where you spin around on the spot all nicely) because of tyre grip and whats not and other high-end tricks
however for the stuff you’re doing i’d stick at it with the nimbus and then later on when you get good and decide you wanna still do it, get a good one.
i can ride one footed, my mate who’s got the same uni walks the wheel and does other freestyle stuff on his nimbus. and we’ve got a 24". i’d say you can do it on your uni as is.
good luck with it!
edit: i’ve got a 24x2.7" tyre and it does affect the ability to do freestyle tricks a bit, it’s easier with a skinnier tyre.
if i were you i’d get a skinnier tyre and shorter cranks and see how that goes.
For those tricks buying a freestyle 20" won’t make things easier. Just keep at it and you’ll get them. Sometimes it helps to concentrate on one skill at a time until you see progress.
Some skills, especially outdoors, are easier to learn on a trials uni since it has a larger volume tire. This includes 1-foot riding, and probably wheel-walking. However others are more difficult, such as tight turns, spins, and the like.
im his mate. hooray! (hmmmmm)
i do a fair bit of freestyle stuff. when i change from Muni/ trials to freestyle. i switch to a suitable tyre. i would suggest keeping your uni and then maybe getting shorter cranks and maybe a suitable tyre. freestyle is challenging but all the tricks come with persistance.
if you start doing heaps and heaps of freestyle stuff then you should probably think about getting a freestyle uni.
if you are definetly interested in freestyle then i would highly recommend it, but if you are like alot of people who are just interested in learning some skills then you can double up with the trials, which works pretty well for the kind of tricks you mentioned and many other flatland tricks that street riders are doing today.
yea, I have a KH trials(with 140mm cranks), and am trying to learn freestyle/flatlandish tricks, and spins have proven pretty much impossible, and standup WW and seat to the side have been really really hard and I still can’t do them more than a rev.
would a freestyle uni help significantly?
ummm, I thought the posts above you already addressed this issue.
The gist of the answer, if you missed it, was “no, you needn’t get a new unicycle to be able to do those tricks, you just need to practice with what you have.”
I have 127mm cranks with a 19"x2.5" maxxis creepy crawler tire and I can do unispins, wheelwalk, 1ftww, and 1ft ride without difficulty. It is easier to do tight spins on a narrower tire (maybe 1.75" or 2" would be best), because there is less surface area touching the ground = less friction between the tire and ground. so, perhaps a new tire is in store for you. you could probably get a good one for less than $20 from your local bike shop, and save your hundreds of dollars for when you really think you’ll need it.
I can already do all the tricks you listed, but tricks like seat to the side riding and idleing and crank idleing are eluding me.