I’ve been learning how to wheel walk one footed, and I can probably get 10-20 feet now on average. My driveway is slightly sloped downwards, too, so I can do little glides in between the wheel walks. But my main problem is that I can’t go from a riding position straight into a gliding. I’ve done it a little bit one footed -> gliding, but I can’t do it very well. Does anyone have any tips on how to learn this?
P.S. has anyone else noticed that unicycling.org is dead? I’m trying to check what level I’m on, but I can’t. Because it’s not working.
Nice work James, it sounds like you are much better at it than me, since I hardly ever practise that stuff. I can’t give you many tips on Gliding, but I can help you find old threads on it since there have been many. If you don’t like the search feature on the Forums, you can use Google instead. Bookmark the page for future use and click “Search only in Rec.Sport.Unicycling” if that is your preference. Good luck in mastering the seemingly impossible task of riding a Unicycle with no feet on the pedals!
Ride along normally, then as your gliding foot (the one you brake the tyre with) comes over the top transfer it immediately to the tyre. Your other foot will still be on the other pedal at this point, but as it follows round stick it straight on the fork. When you first try this you’ll probably judder to a halt and start one-foot wheel-walking, but with practise you should be able to go straight into a glide. Enjoy.
The problem with that, holeinmyshoe, is that I’m not used to taking my left foot off first (that’s the foot I wheel walk with). I always ride one footed with my right foot on the frame. So It’s really hard. It’ll come with practice, I suppose.
hiya,
sounds good so far james. i think i understand your problem with one-footin with the wrong foot, i would just learn to go straight into it, forget the one footin stage.
the best way is to lean back really far when you go into it, when i do it it fells like im catching myself with my foot on the tyre.
hole-in-my-shoe’s advice seemed good tho so keep on truckin now, smilin, wavin your hands!
I got some good advice on practicing going into gliding from riding.
At first I was trying to put the glide foot on the wheel and at the same time place the do-nothing foot on the frame. That just didn’t work.
The advice was to ride one footed, the foot on the frame slightly dragging on the tire. practice varying the pressure so you can do this. Eventually practice taking the drive foot off the pedal and placing it on the frame.
Note this is a quite different technique from gliding in between wheel walking one foot. In this case the glide foot is away from the frame.
It might be easier to practice the foot on frame technique on a flat surface.
If you wan’t to learn to get from just riding to gliding, your drive, as you said is slightly slanted so that will be perfect. Anyway, I learned puting my gliding foot first and giving the wheel the smallist push then putting the other foot on the frame. Once you have done that slightly lean back.
If you don't succed try, try again
Happy gliding -Sabin
gliding for me sucked. it took me forever. i got good where i could 1 foot wheel walk and glide a fair distance but i couldnt ride into the glide. i gave up and went back to it later doing a little better (oddly) i too have the problem of putting my left foot on the frame first and the “brake” foot on second. after practice i can ride into a glide by taking both feet off at the same time when the pedals are parallel to the ground and go to gliding position somehow without crashing nearly every time. when riding, try to keep a decent speed and practice on a gradual downhill. when pedaling accelerate slightly to become balanced upright to slightly falling back and throw your feet into the gliding position. you dont fall because your at a perfect balance so when your bringing your feet from the pedals to the frame and tire, you dont need no control because your coasting and should be falling backwards slightly by the time you get into the gliding position and the balance will be right where you want it to go for a good long glide with little to no pressure on the tire. if nobody understands what i just tried describing dont worry because i too am now confused. i tried to describe it the best i could. longest glide yet for me? not sure but long enuf to kill my sneaks. fastest? just over 16mph on a 20" with cranks blazing along trying to knock me down. too bad i coudnt find that tape anymore
alright im done rambling.
wheel walking one day i woant to be able to do that! (one day!) i’ve just about conquered idling but i need to get confident at doing it and improve, anyone got any tips on wheel walking i don’t really know how to start to learn how to do it… is is hard?
Wheelwalking is fairly hard at first (like everything else), but I actually found it to be one of the quickest skills that I learned. It took me maybe five or six hours of practice to be able to go about 5 or 6 steps every time.
I would suggest you learn next to a wall. Hold on to the wall, and put one foot on the wheel then the other foot. Push forward slowly, then come back and do it again. The thing most people have trouble with is not putting space between each step. This will give you a little more control over the wheel.