Ok, so I have been trying to ride my uni for about a month now. I am riding it along the railing of the deck at my house, and also on the grass that the deck is next to. I can ride holding on to the deck fine, but as soon as I try to ride on my own I fall or bail. Any suggestions? (And yes, I have been practicing everyday!)
Force yourself to do it. Yoou’ve probably become too mentally dependent on the wall, and when that isn’t there, you freak out. Try to get as “in tune” with the motions of riding as possible when you’re using the wall, and then when the wall runs out try to stay very “in tune” and do all the things you were doing while on the wall.
oh, and practice. 
Man, did I see that coming
Well you won’t learn if you sit in here reading tips all day now, will you?
Don’t worry, I hate that answer too…but not as much if it’s given with real tips
just go out in the open and start prcticing. try to not use the rail unless you have to
I just learned. the best thing I did was… Practice!
I rode down our hallway fine… when i took it to a corner of our building i made it about half a pedal rotation and fell off. I just kept bringing it back to the corner and tried it for an hour. an hour later I was making it 30 feet reasonably consistantly (every fourth time or so)
Advice:
FLAIL your arms and the unicycle as much as possible. the aim is to make the wheel turn like 45 degrees every half turn or so. Itll look to someone else like you have no control over it. . . don’t worry. Just be willing to whip the unicycle… as SOON as you feel yourself starting to fall in one direction, overcorrect in that direction.
another mistake i made was in grabbing the seat before i fall… do your best to catch the seat when you fall, but dont catch it BEFORE you fall… I’d feel a fall coming on and instead of trying to correct it I’d catch my precious seat, losing one arm and thus, half of my balance, guaranteeing a UPD. Tie a sock onto the seat and let it fall.
Best of luck to you, dude. let us know when you succeed.
Basically, what they said. Practice, and practice more. That’s pretty much the bulk of what is needed for all unicycling skills - the other portion of it is getting past the metal block.
oh yeah, and pay attention to where you’re looking. some people do better if they’re staring at the horizon, my best runs were when i picked a leaf on the ground twenty feet away and fixated on it til it was three feet away. then on to the next leaf. relax, and let the unicycle do the work. try thinking about something other than unicycling while you’re practicing, in an effort to make unicycling a subconcious deal. it helps. try riding a bicycle and paying careful attention to which way you turn the handlebars and how you lean, it will be harder than riding it subconciously.
Reiterate:
Arm flailing will let your body’s intuitive balance mechanisms correct up top and then just follow the wheel where it wants to go. The one thing you can’t do is go static, you have to keep correcting with the wheel and keep your arms out.
(But then I look like a jackass when I ride)
Re: Help!
On Fri, 18 Aug 2006 09:35:15 -0500, benjaug wrote:
>I can ride holding on to the deck fine,
>but as soon as I try to ride on my own I fall or bail. Any suggestions?
I had the same thing when I learned. Except that I also could sort of
ride alongside a railing not touching it. But I fell as soon as I rode
in the open, as there was no ‘mental support’.
The key for me, at the time (after 35 days of practicing), was to ride
hand in hand with a good rider (this was actually Yuri Abrahams, the
brother of Sem), holding his hand for as long as I wanted, and
loosening the grip as much as possible. Within a minute or two I
reached the breakthrough of riding alone.
Klaas Bil - Newsgroup Addict
“I’m slowly but surely stealing Wales and bringing it back to my house on the wheel, frame and cranks of my muni. - phil”