I’m pretty new to unicycling but getting bored just riding around. Anyone have any ideas on what to learn next? Or is there simple tricks I can learn to make things interesting?
Chris Huriwai has playlist called UniQuest, where he teaches everything from learning to ride the unicycle to intermediate level at flatland and street.
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Well, how much can you do right now?
Do you wear full protective gear?
How’s your free-mounting?
…slam
Start small. Get riding down well. Freemount is the first ‘trick’ all riders should learn. It lets you ride anywhere without requiring assistance to get on and ride.
The uniquest videos linked above are good. IIRC Eli brill had some videos as well.
Welcome to the wide world of one wheeled riding. It truly is a blast.
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I can freemount easily (still working on idling and going backwards), I can turn sharp corners, modulate speed on up and downhills, and can go on trails (if they aren’t too rough for my 20 Inch road-unicycle).
I think you are ready for a new unicycle.
Something a little larger like a 24" with fat tires. Just that 4" taller frame and fat tires will change your experience. Now you have something that will feel different again, but not anything like starting from scratch. So, the challenge again is to work on your balance, response and reaction time to match. You already have the base skill, but now it forces you to calibrate and fine tune everything.
That in itself is a challenge that some people enjoy. Doing the same thing but with different methods and tools. Does this madness remind you of anything, like when you first tried to learn how to ride the damn thing?
Ofcourse, this might feel like a waste of time for some. Some people just want to go to a big wheel and hit the bike trails.
However, there are a few that like to just master simple skills and tricks like idling, bunny hopping, curb dropping, SIF, backwards,…etc. That’s me and I also like to ride on rough terrain, grass and uphills where you are forced to take things half pedal at a time. Pump, Pause, Balance,…repeat. I am never bored or lacking of refining the tricks that I can do. (Especially, my left side telling me to learn everything that I can do with my right foot down).
Let me know what you want to try. Maybe you tried but failed. I will go more into details if you are interested.
…slam
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You may want to get a larger wheel unicycle and explore some distance riding.
I’ve been trying to find a large wheeled muni but most mountain unicycles are exspensive. But I am interested in learning what I can on my beginner unicycle. Recently, I’ve been working of keeping a tennis ball in the air with a racket while unicycling. That helps me focus on reflexive unicycling. Do you do foot-plants at all? And what is SIF?
Okay, I can tell. You are getting bored with idling.
(“…bored now…” Willow Rosenberg)
So let me ask. How good are you on idling?
The 3 basic levels for idling:
a.) Beginner: Mainly, shuffling your foot back/forth rapidly with “heavy” force on the down pedal. Also, using quick radical hip twist motion to arrest falling to one side. Also, the snake hands help you balance.
b.) Intermediate: Now, you can rely on leaning upper body forwards and back for a controlled rocking action. You still rely on heavy “bottom foot” and “twist” to get out of trouble. This uses a lot of energy, so you can’t go more than say 30 idles.
c.) Advanced: No more rocking. No more twisting. You have the finesse to accurately rely on your “top foot” as the main control. Not only push that top pedal fore/back, but you can accurately apply “equal” or “offset” down force on each pedal for balance. If you start falling to one side, you simply apply counter force on the pedal to correct. This leads to the next trick. SIF.
SIF = Seat in Front. Is it possible, to ride a unicycle without sitting on it.
I don’t mean standing up. I mean standing off the saddle and “behind it” and holding with your hands. Only feets on pedals. This isn’t me, but a guy trying to learn.
There are 2 ways to learn:
a.) Holding a wall or rail: which is first thing to do, because just “holding” your saddle is tremendous work.
b.) Next, learn to idle in this position. Not as hard as you think if you are “advance” regular idle capability.
c.) Finally, learning to pedal forwards. This can be learned by doing both “holding” a rail and also “working that 2nd step” from an SIF idle.
BTW, do you notice this guys unicycle. It is what they call a “trials” unicycle it is 19 or 20 inch with “fat tires”. That combination gives you tremendous control and ability to do tricks. If you have a beginners 20" with skinny tires it will be 2x as hard to do any tricks.
Any questions…slam
I have to admit, I can only idle for about 3 seconds. I lost patience. I’ll keep trying to get better at it though. I didn’t know the proper name for SIF but I have tried it a couple of times. Do you prop yourself up on the seat or just hold the seat out of the way for SIF? Would it be bad if I skipped a 24-inch tire and went to a 26 inch tire?
IF you “upgrade” from 20" to 26" size unicycle “and” use that to learn stunts. I would applaud you for it, and harass all the Level 5 stunt riders(Chris Huriwai, Mr. Brill,…etc.) to try to do the same.
Yes, if you are determined go for it. Just know it’s always easier on small wheels.
So, let’s talk about the idling:
Beginner method:
a.) Lay down “tremendous” weight on the bottom foot. This acts to keep the unicycle down like a pendulum.
b.) Now, “add” a little force with the top foot to get the unicycle going either forwards or back, but always maintain weight on the bottom pedal to “reverse” whatever motion you create. So, back/forth/back forth…
c.) Balancing(fore/aft): Now, this “should be” easy/kinda instinctive, if you can ride a unicycle you got it. Plus, you are manipulating this with the “back/forth” idling motion. Start to add some upper body motion and try to synchromize.
d.) BAlance(lateral); Now, this is a new weird feeling. Trying to use/throw your body side to side for balance is not fast enough. Try this. From “bicycle technology” if you are falling to the right side, then you twist the handlebar to the right to stop that fall. Same with a unicycle, but no handle bar, but instead use your “hip”. Fall to the right > twist the unicycle to the right. Left? same thing. Twist left. Don’t just turn your body. A lightning quick but controlled twist from your hips.
Ofcourse, everybody who tries to learn idling “should know” to grab onto a pole, wall or something, while learning. Get used to the back/forth idling motion. Faster you rock back/forth the more stable it seems at first.
Let go for one or two idles, but grab hold again. Eventually, you will get it and feel confident to completely let go.
When you do, then that “magic” feeling comes back. You know like when you first “got it” on the unicycle. Trust me.
…slam
Quit reading that thread at some point and just took up again today.
I learned to ride seat in front by simply moving the seat forward while riding. It‘s a bit of a hassle because the wide rear part of the seat has a hard time to pass between the thighs, but that can be addressed by lowering the seat beforehand.
The advantage of this method is in my opinion that it is a more gradual move from sitting to riding SIF than when you start directly SIF. You get a feeling of wat it‘s like to be before you actually move the saddle to the front.
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Wheelou,
I think you should be leading the topic of SIF. You have super powers.
It seems you must have already had some “preliminary” skill that allowed you to simply “just do it” from a riding transition:
a.) ride the unicycle
b.) lift off the seat and be on your feet
c.) take saddle in the hand(did you grip back or middle of saddle?)
d.) balance, pedal and ride without falling down.
Just like that!!!
Some questions:
1.) Was it just like that?
2.) How long had you been trying?
3.) Did you an instant “bail out” when something went wrong?
4.) Any injuries?
To share my own experience:
-
6-9 months of “slowly” attempting to do this while holding a stationary rail. It felt like strength work for my knees and hands.
-
Trying to hold the saddle took incredible strength, which had to be developed slowly.
In addition, learning to hold the seat “in the middle” to minimize torque twisting. I had to wear gloves to maintain grip from sweaty hands. -
There are a few more steps(which I will get into later), but in meantime I was able to learn how to SIF idle at the same time I was trying to do all this. This was very helpful for setting up the initial movement to SIF.
Anyways, I’m curious to know your experience.
…slam
Ha! This is exactly what has firmly stopped any attempts at trying SIF.
In the mean time I have been reading the advice at the advance idling coarse (even though Slam kicked me out for no obvious reason), and have been focusing on equal pressure on both feet. Not that it has helped much: I steel keep falling off at the top foot side and idling is frankly so incredibly boring to practice that I want to take my unicycle and just do some awesome riding on it instead.
However, this approach, and mentions of SIF idling and stuff made me want to just freemount into SIF (I am allergic against practicing on a wall or railing). And it took me just two attempts to commit and maybe 10 attempts to figure out the riding.
Thank you @slamdance ! The key was indeed equal weight on both pedals all the time. I am a firm believer of doing things intuitively, trying them out how I expect them to be, and then adjusting the approach, before seeking advice. It is a very fun and sometimes frustrating approach.
But my grip on the saddle is two handed and just weird. But this is how I end up when going into SIF from riding, which I then managed after indeed lowering my seat ridiculously low.
I can’t do SIF far, and this is tremendous work. I need to both ride and hold back on the same time, while wrestling my seat into a stable position. I will check out the tips stated in this thread to see if this can improve things a bit. A one hand grip would be awesome. I would probably hold the middle of the saddle with my left arm, but the front grip would give me more flexibility and ability to remount maybe 
4: No injuries, no falls.
3: I jumped off when things felt wrong, but also tried to wrestle with the SIF the best I could even when things felt sketchy.
I always ride with a really high seat position, and doubt I will ever be able to do the transition into SIF while doing actual riding. The seat will just get stuck in my thighs or pants 
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No intentions of taking the lead, and absolutely no super powers involved, I can reassure you. But you got me wondering if I wrote some BS from memory (I don‘t do SIF often, mostly just ride around and enjoying my time on the uni), so I went out to verify. And yes, that‘s how I get from normal riding to seat in front. I grab the seat, stand up, move the seat to the front and hold it about at the center with one hand. Even tried to hold it with two hands, which to my surprise worked pretty well, too. Instead of using the free arm to keep the balance I used both arms to „steer“ the uni. I did a handful of attempts and the one time I had to UPD I just jumped off the pedals with both feet simultaneously and landed safely on the ground. Can‘t remember to ever having had any real falls. But like I said, I don‘t do SIF all too often.
Even gave seat in back a quick shot or two. I knew I did this about a year ago, and I managed to do it today, too, although only for a couple meters. As long as the seat kept touching my bum it sort of worked, but when I pushed the seat further back I had a hard time to keep the balance and the stress on the wrist was more than I was willing to accept (bear in mind that I‘m still curing a wrist injury on the other hand, so I‘m a bit prudent).
Moving the seat to the back is even more of a pain than moving it to the front, by the way, despite it being narrower at the front. Instead, the front part is much longer and the bumper/grab handle touched the bum. At my current seat height I couldn‘t pass it in a single attempt but had to ride a couple revolutions „in transition mode“ before it would eventually pass the bottleneck.
Like I said earlier, the advantage of trying to get into SIF while riding is in my opinion, that you get a feeling for the behaviour of the uni and how to counteract, because the transition is gradual. This gives you time to adapt. Maybe a good start would be to stand up while riding and grab the seat, but at the center instead of the front. When you feel somewhat confident just move that seat forward and continue riding. Oh, and make sure to lower that seat beforehand! 
EDIT: Gave seat in back a second try this afternoon and it worked „like a charm“, not really more difficult than riding seat in front, once the seat is in position.
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Before upgraging you should decide what type of riding you want to do:
- muni/offroad
- trial
- street/flat (like skateboarding)
- freestyle (artistic tricks)
I would recommend trying to learn some tricks and see what type of things you might be interested in to get an idea of what type of riding you want to do, e.g.:
- Hopping
- Idling
- one-footed riding
- hopping up stairs
- riding on paths and trails
For freestyle, flat and street you can learn quite a bit before upgrading. For trial and Muni you could just ride till you break your current one and then upgrade. For Muni/road you will need to upgrade but will take some investment.
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Yo Wheelou & Pedasprell,
I watched the video and the “two handed saddle grab” is very interesting technique, and I will give you my observations on “why” it works:
My own observations from learning/doing/SIF, which took a freakin long time almost a whole year.
SIF riding:
1.) Leaning forwards “more”. It’s obvious but you may not “feel it” because your body wants to “rely” on the existing sense of forward lean in normal riding. Never forget normal riding=sitting on the saddle. SIF= it’s in front of you, so you have to be even more “leaning forward” over the saddle and over the crank/wheel/axle. It seems obvious but when riding we resort to our body feel/response/panic. So, there is a learning curve on this to find this “extra forward lean” groove/feel. First, we probably don’t lean enough. Then, lean too much(UPD time…worse kind, helmet won’t help, a full chin guard helmet is needed). Then backing/forth process… Stick with it.
In meantime, you need to learn a Safe Bailout. You cannot safely do it “mid pedaling”. How can you practice the ability to find that 3/9 o’clock(flat pedal position" and jump off and land perfectly? From idling practice.
2.) Lateral balancing: How do you prevent from falling down, when one pedal is being pressed down. Say right pedal down, and you/unicycle wants to fall down to that side. How do you counter it in real time?
a.) Leaning upper body to the opposite side and twisting. (works for normal riding, but needs to be more exaggerated for SIF balancing force.)
b.) Maintaining weight on the opposite side pedal(even though pedal is at 12 o’clock/top position…sounds familiar?..like advance idling)
c.) Forcing saddle/unicycle frame to lean the opposite direction. The two handed approach that I see Pedasprell apply. I believe that is how this method works.
what do you think gents?
…slam
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