Increase sidehop height from 57cm to 70cm (in 2 weeks before trials demo)
Backwards wheel walk
Coast 5m then transfer to glide
360 degree stationary hop twist
Pedal grab 90cm object without using crank
Stillstand for 20 seconds consistantly
I’ll keep you updated on my progress. I really want to learn to hop higher before this big trials demo I’m doing because I want to put on a good show. Tomorrow I’m going to film my current technique and figure out what I’m doing wrong, then film my technique in teh afternoon and also in 2 weeks.
I’ve made empty goals before and only successfully completed some, but I really will try to complete these ones.
Do any of you have any particular goals for your unicycling?
-less pogosticking before hoping or jumping
-pedal grab (as oposed to crank grab)
-hop onto skinnies and still stand and go rather than hop around for balance then go
-learn my sweet spot
-rolling hops to a decent hight to make it useful
-wheel walk
-one foot uniing
I have a few goals, none of them really that likely to be fufilled.
Land a 2’ hop onto my 6x8 pole-thingy. I’ll probably land that in the next week.
Land an 81cm (32") hop. Highly unlikely, as I’ll be away for 3 of the next five weeks.
Land an 18" hop onto my 4x4-thingy.
Pedalgrab to rubber my 4x4 thingy.
Land a 36" (92.5cm) pedalgrab. Probably not too far off, as I can already hop 28" pretty easily, so it’s only 8" higher. The only problem is that I have no idea where to find a 36" object to pedalgrab!
Land a 6’ flat gap.
Get a cf base for trials.
Land a 6x8 gap line I should already be able to do on film.
Now for the ultimate insanely hard goal to fufill:
There is a creek crossing I eventually want to do, but it’s very intimidating. It’s some 4" diameter metal pipes that run parallell to the shore. They are shaped like triangles so that the top is a curved surface about 8" wide, but only about 4" of it will actually stick to your tire. Basically, the top makes one of the angles of the triangle. The tops are about 5’ off the creek (the creek’s pretty shallow, so losing my unicycle downstream is not an issue if I fall). It’s about a 12" vertical hop combined with about a 2.5’ gap to get to the first one, and then it’s a 4-4.5’ gap to the next, then another 4-4.5’ gap, and then a 12" drop/2.5’ gap for the last. It’s a potentially nasty fall if I miss a gap, but then again it’s just a creek and some dry creekbed below me. I’d loike to get it on video if I ever land it. But seriously, I think it’ll be at least 3 months before I even try this line.
My goals would be:
Get a 360 hopspin, consistently
Become completely consistent with unispins, possibly land a 360
Complete level six, consistently
Just work on consistency, mostly
Get longer rolling hops
Land a five foot drop
Jump a seven stair
Make my seat out hops much better than seat in hops
… man, I really need to get started.
EDIT Oh, and become really really good at gliding. That’s a lot o’ goals…
the sweet spot is the very bottom of the tire that actually makes contact with the surface that you are on. having control of it is what enables people to be in control on posts and other small surfaces, even smaller than the spot, or to be perpendicular on skinnies. for example, right now i don’t have good control on sandwich boaards.
as for my goals, after a mediocre street trials session, i managed to ride with one foot for 30 meters. big thanks to JCtheAcy for the tips. so the summer is going well.
I think that the sweet spot is a only partially useful way to think about moves. The concept of a sweet spot only involves half -or less- of a move. At least half the difficulty in doing a big or technical move involves the size of the takeoff and landing, which can often be smaller then your sweet spot. For example, if you want to gap to a rail and then procceed to ride it, often times the rail will be smaller than your sweet spot. I myself visualize my entire self and the object as a pole. This especially helps when pedalgrabbing onto poles:) . there’s a joint in the pole where the bearings are. If i rotate the pedals too much, the pole gets a kink and collapses and I have to jump down. If, on the other hand, I land perfectly balanced over the pole, the pole stays straight and strong, allowing me to procceed with the next move.
Or, if the poles don’t meet up, such as if I miss the pedalgrab and my tire hangs off the front of the obstacle, then there can be no support and there’s a catastrophic collapse, often characterized by a nasty fall where I go one way and the uni the other. Basically, ideally the bottom of my pole will always meet the top of the obstacle’s pole. Then, if there’s a kink, I can recover sometimes. However, if the top of the pole is missed, no matter how well balanced I am, the entire structure collapses.
I think poles are good analogies because describes the balance involved well by accounting for the entire move. It’s like balancing two straws on top of eachother whereas a sweet spot really only deals with the unicycle and not with the obstacle. I make these explanations way too long-winded .
My goal for the end of the summer holidays (in Australia these do not start for about 15 weeks) is to be able to do everything on the skills levels confidently. I can’t do much practise during school weeks, but in 3 weeks i got a two week break, and i hope to uni 1 hour every day (at least).
In the summer holidays, i got 8 weeks or so. I plan to do about 1-2 hours every day so i can to get uber good. Robbie and I worked out that i’m already an (unofficial) level 7.9. I’ve done everything up to and including level 7 (but can’t do some things very well/everytime). I’ve got about half of level 8 i think and a couple of skills from level 9 and 10 of which most are incomplete like side ride, coast, drag seat in front.
I’m going to:
-wheel walk farther than 8 feet (and get in and out of it)
-start working on gliding
-get a new uni for MUniing and little trials things (Qu-ax)
Has anyone else made any progress yet? I was going to practise all day yesterday but ended up working all day…oh well, that just means I’ll be able to buy my Maguras and muni frame and make my 12" two wheeler sooner.
Today I got a high jump PB. I set up the bar at 62cm, looked at it, and thought to myself, “My best is 57cm…I’m never going to make this”. And I didn’t for 5 minutes. In fact, I fell about 10cm short! Then I let some air out of my tyre and thought about my technique a little more. I decided I wasn’t tucking up enough, so I corrected my technique a little and tried again. A minute later I decided I was tucking better but now not focussing enough on actually jumping high at the start - a very important element of unicycle high jump. So I combined these two things and soon after, I cleared the 62cm bar. I increased my PB seat out height by 5cm in under 10 minutes, so I’m very happy. I think 70cm in these two weeks might just be possible. Clearing the bar also required about an extra 10mm clearance over the bar so it was a 63cm high hop.
I also did a rolling hop over a 35cm bar for the first time (I’ve just started them) which was interesting.
Bend my legs quite a bit more on take-off, but make sure it’s a quick motion.
Get my arm up higher before the tuck (so it can travel further downwards when tucking resulting in a tighter tuck…maybe?
Get the seat out further forwards Ryan Atkins style in the tuck.
I don’t feel at all comfortable doing the Kris Holm style sideways tuck…I just can’t do it.
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