I don’t think you really have to think about it. Your legs will get sick of holding you off the seat… You will know you have got it right when you start thinking “I need a decent seat”!
Congrats, you are learning a lot faster than I did 
I notice your signature mentions a shortwave radio, are you a HAM by chance?
Don’t underestimate the Seat. The first one, on our first cheap 20" learner Uni, had to be replaced after a few weeks, and now, two years later, is only rideable for a longer time (>30 min) with two bike pants.
The Qu-Ax Muni seat (on my 26") was really comfortable at first, but now, a half year or over 100 km later, i also start wearing two bike pants for longer rides.
And i’m sure that there’s still plenty of weight i could shift from legs/pedals to the bum/seat. Would like to compare the KH freeride and the nimbus gel for some time before i really buy a new seat.
Greetings
Byc
You’re making great progress! Relax your body as much as possible, put your weight in your saddle, and in a couple more hours you’ll have it 
Well Done uncommitted You’re doing great.
You’re certainly progressing faster than I did when I first started to learn.
I agree with the gang, BOS = Bum on seat.
Also wiggle your fingers a little and …try and remember to hold your head up straight as you go along. Nasher told me this, imagine you are being pulled up by your hair 
Right I think I’ve said enough for now, don’t want to over do it.
BTW, looking at the piccy…4 unicycles in one piccy! That’s Cool 
P.S.
Have you been here?..
It’s great!
Something weird happened today.
I went over to the school and started to ride my wall, planning on trying to get 10 laps in. Didn’t even get half way down the wall and the whole thing started shaking and becoming unstable. Damn seat screw was coming loose, so I tried to hand tighten it and try again… didn’t help much. I decided screw it, may as well head back and call it a day, it was late kind of and I was pushing it anyway.
I stopped by the bottom of the stairs, which leads into the open quad, and decided to see how far I could make it on this shaky-ass falling apart thing before I head home… just to say I did something. Did well, like 20’. Not bad… Tried again, 30’… Wow.
Even though the thing was super unstable because the seat screw was loose, I kept hand tightening it and trying again. All in all, I made it over 30’ like 10 times! A couple of them over 40’, and two runs of over 50’. Another day, another 10’ to add to my longest distance. 
I know I keep saying this, that it’s feeling like it’s getting close, but I swear I feel that way. Even today, if felt like it was clicking… more so than it did yesterday. I only was out there for about 20 minutes but it was by far the best 20 minutes to date.
Cool.
If you can do that on a “shaky-ass falling apart thing” you CAN ride. Stop trying so hard, relax, and go. You have it, just go.
Hour 9. Actually, I’m not even going to count this hour because it’s been so messed up. 
Had some pretty major setbacks this past week.
My 20er was falling apart, so I wasn’t able to really ride at all this week. I replaced some bolts and did some tightening after my last success and went out but had to cut it short because now the pedal looked like it was coming unscrewed. Took it back to the bench and took the pedal off and it looks like all of the crank threads are stripped. So naturally I put it back on as tight as possible and went out again! It didn’t last 15 minutes and it came off.
So now I need to get some cranks for the little guy.
I did jump on the 24 for a quick minute, don’t think I should be jumping back and forth. The leaning and correcting are completely different on the 24. I keep falling forward because I expect it to stay under me like the 20.
Kind of bummed, had a great outing last week and can’t get back to it because this thing is old and creaky. When I started to do well I didn’t want to stop, so frustrating.
I’ll admit to hour 9 now.
I haven’t gotten around to fixing the 20er yet, but I’ve been getting antsy so I took the 24er out a couple of times. Got another “record” (for me) of 66 feet.
I was getting pretty frustrated, but I’m better today than I was last week. And I’ll be better next week than I am today.
Ha
another half hour and you will realize that feet are a useless measure and start using meters
And you will also be aiming for your first 400m without a upd.
You’re certainly learning much faster than I did too :o
cheers
I do agree, imperial units are dumb… but… 66 feet sounds like more of an accomplishment than 20 meters does!
Which makes me wonder, what do you guys call a 24er in non-imperial terms? A 61er (cm)? 
We still call it a 24", eventually (when ordering a tire or rim) we may refer to 507 mm.
At least in german there are still lot’s of measurements in inch (or “Zoll”), for example tube diameters and tv-screen size, and wheel(rim) diameters.
Greetings
Byc
Hour 10.
Sorry, this is going to be long winded… but I’ve really figured out some good stuff.
Haven’t posted in this thread in a couple of weeks. I started to regress badly and frustration set in. I started another thread asking for advise here:
Basically I got to a point to where I couldn’t get past 10’ hardly ever. I kept falling to the left, each and every time. So frustrating. So the good folks in that thread gave me some pretty good advise, which included attempting to ride while inebriated and cutting off an extremity.
Well, riding while intoxicated didn’t work (I don’t recommend trying this!), and I decided to forego cutting off my foot… so I took the only advise on there that I knew I couldn’t mess up and walked away for a while. I suck.
During my 10 day sabbatical I didn’t stop thinking about these failures.
My brother-in-law asked me a while back why a unicycle? I told him because nobody else could, so why not?! He laughed and told me that I might kill myself in the process, but that he knew that the way I go after things that me killing myself would be the only way I didn’t figure it out. I took take as a compliment. :o
Time off equals reflection, and then finally leads me to an epiphany. Or two.
I’ve recently started a new job where I have to take crowded public transportation. Me being a middle-aged male means I get to stand for the 30 minute ride in the morning and in the evening. I noticed my leg going numb kind of during these commutes, my sciatic was starting to act up. Weird part, I’ve never had any sciatic issues. I noticed if I kept my weight on my left leg it was acting up a bit, but if I shifted to my right leg it didn’t. Weird, where did this come from? Lets shelve this for a minute… it’s pretty important though.
I couldn’t stop thinking about me being a failure, so while I forced myself to abstain from actually riding my uni I did find myself watching some videos. Not just watching, but rewinding and constantly watching how people were riding. I noticed that people that know what they are doing seems to ride with their knees on the inside of their legs… like if you were to walk pigeon toed. Okay, something to add to my ever growing list of things to adjust.
So today is the day. My sabbatical is over, and I’m going to give it a go. I grab my uni and head down to the school. Going to go well? Not so well? Argh, lets just get this over.
I got over to my step, stood on the first step while the uni was pressed against the bottom of the steps, put my arms out, jumped on… and went 10 feet and went down. sigh
I repeated this for about 10 minutes, trying to figure out how in the heck I can get my knees positioned like all the folks in the videos. Try angling my feet inward? Unpossible. Try just willing them there? Didn’t work. Finally after a few different attempts I noticed that if I concentrate on squeezing the front of my seat with my inner thighs this worked.
I went a few times with my thighs squeezing the seat and things started to get better quickly! Instead of going my usual 10’ 90% of the time I was making it 20’, and 30’ and 40’ on a regular basis. Like… every time! 
Success! For a bit… Then I started back my regularly scheduled 10’ fall to the left. ARGH! I wasn’t ready to give up, so I kept at it… and ten suddenly sciatica in my left leg. Just like when I stand too long on my commute. I quickly analyzed what I was doing… Seems I would stand on the step, my right foot on the near pedal, and stand with all my weight (somewhat awkwardly) on my left leg. It suddenly became so clear, the way I was standing was causing back fatigue on one side of my body?! How did I not ever notice this?!
Okay, I immediately changed this. I hadn’t done it enough today too cause much fatigue, and now I know how to avoid it. I’m pumped at this point, I just figured out two major stumbling blocks that I would have never figured out without waling away.
I kept going and having great success, and noticed I fell at the 10’ mark. It was actually okay though, because I HADN’T FALLEN THAT EARLY FOR 20 MINUTES! Each and every attempt was 30’, 40’, 50’… this is getting repeatable! Consistently repeatable!
I was still falling once I got to these longer distances, but for a new reason. Once I get about 30’ I just simply don’t know what to do. So I started doing what any reasonable adult on a unicycle flailing their arms would do. Started making airplane noises!
I had so much fun today. Best. Day. Ever. The only reason I stopped was because my shirt was soaked and I told myself, I said “Self… you’ve done good, walk away now and we can come back later today.”. I am on my way now, watch out world.
Sorry about the novel, but I found out some really good information. It helps me to write it down so that it might sink in, and if somebody else reads it with similar issues it might help.
tl;dr
Regressed badly, walked away for 10 days. Came back better than ever.
Nicely done!
Hour 11.
I’ve read on here somewhere that when you can make it 100’ that it’s not a fluke anymore, and at that point you can call yourself a unicyclist.
Well what’s got two thumbs and can call himself a unicyclist? This guy!
Obviously I’ve still got a long way to go, but today I’m claiming a victory on “learning” stage. I know how to unicycle now, I just need to fine tune it.
I can easily say that riding 100’ on one wheel was the single most difficult and single most frustrating thing I’ve ever done. Feels good.
And when somebody asks if a fat guy can learn to unicycle? Yes. They can.
Thanks everyone for the advise and encouragement. Truly appreciate each and every word.
Excellent work!
A few short months ago I was where you are upto now.
On the weekend I rode 4 miles without a UPD (including crossing streets etc) and I have been doing this for a while.
I did about 18 miles on the weekend (converting from 26 kms??).
Not much compared with the folk that knock out 100mile rides in one day and I have no idea how they do it but I have slowly improved over the last 6 months to the point where on a 10 - 15km ride I dont UPD more than once or twice.
I have free mounting almost sorted and can ride on the rough and up and down dale and other things I never thought I would ‘crack’ at this stage.
What I am trying to say is that you have broken the back of learning this beast of a thing. Its a bugger to learn and at least as difficult as learning to place and aircraft back on the ground smoothly and possibly way more frustrating and certainly physically harder than almost anything you can do.
But I am sitting here suffering at the moment with a bent big toe and two very sore knees (not much skin missing) and two yet again thrashed wrists…
Had a fall, hard, very hard into the footpath and I have no idea what went wrong.
Even though I only ride a 24 and didn’t feel I (moir!) needed protection, I am now going shopping for some padding. I didn’t intend to buy any until I went 29 or 36 knowing that I couldn’t outrun a dive over the front.
After an un expected stack like yesterday though, and after a broken rib and heaps of missing skin (that doesn’t seem to grow back as fast at 47) I am going to face the facts of what many say here and ‘pad up’!
Another handy hint would be to get a top flight cycle. My Nimbus is superb. Just goes and goes with no issues. Such a smooth tight ride.
Keep at it, you are on the down hill run now to cracking the unicycle code.
Andrew.
> Had a fall, hard, very hard into the footpath and I have no idea what went wrong.
Hope it won’t keep you out of the saddle for very long.
( I’ve abused my padding so far, so I plan on keeping it on! )
Very encouraging to hear that not long ago you were where I’m at, and now actually riding it a good distance. I’m really looking forward to it.
> Another handy hint would be to get a top flight cycle.
I have a nimbus 24" MUNI, seems like a well enough built machine. I did make a mistake and get the nice KH seat, that’s now starting to get some holes in the side from sliding on the pavement when I fall. Also had to take the pedal spikes off, those things aren’t fun when you’re a newb.
I think you did the right thing getting a good quality seat, it will help you a lot while learning. I still use stock qu-ax seat and it caused me so much problems at the start. There were days when i couldn’t go riding because of my thighs that got this “awesome” blue/green/brown colour from squeezing the seat too tight. It’s not the problem anymore but I’m still looking forward to getting a good seat.
Very interesting to see progress and compare it with my own
My story is a bit different (sorry for log post):
Learning alone on QuAx 26" in the mornings. What I did - read a lot of forum topics and watched videos. It happend this spring, so memories and fillings still fresh 
Before starting outside I learned mount near wall and riding holding the walls in my apartment (without furniture - just bought it) for about 2-3 hours in total.
Have no any success even in riding 4 meters. I think it because of walls - I was trying to reach (and hold on) the wall, riding was not an aim in that “falling-forward-thunder-speed-hyper-jump”.
After that I started my “workouts” outside…
First day (one hour) I was trying ride along high fence (made of steel rods) and found that not really good because I have to see where I putting my arm.
Second day (one hour) figured how to place foot on pedal (before I was doing it like on MTB), found flat place with curbs and building corner… started with “step over the unicycle” exercise, then some tries to ride from curb pushing from building corner. With pedals in horizontal position. Max about 2 meters.
Third day (one hour) continue step over and curb + corner starts. Max about 4-6 meters in ~5% of tries.
Fourth day (one hour). That flat training place is about 10x10x10x10 meters with outgoing uphill road and turn - to the right side more steep uphill and to the left side flat road. So this day I did my first 100 meters without UPD and mounting from curb without wall.
Fifth day (two hours) riding about 500 meters on sport ground and ~30% of success free mounts.
Sixth day (hour and a half) ~50% success free mounts and first 4km ride on sea shore (with lots of UPDs of course).
So it was about one week of ~10 hours trainings.
Key moments I learned are - correct foot position on pedal. Leaning forward with “belt buckle” area. Put seat as high as possible (absolutely straight legs) and then lower it on 0.5-1cm. Do not try ride straight (this is strange and you think that you UPD becose of that, but no and this helps a lot).