I haven’t said hello and introduced myself yet, so hello I am wobblysteve from Adelaide Australia.
I have to say there are so many helpful people on this forum. I have already posted some other things, probably should have made a post like this first but was keen to find out about getting started. Lots of really good advice on here that’s for sure.
I am new to Unicycling and recently bought a DRS Solo from unicycle.com.
I have been practicing every day for 15 minutes to an hour on grass and also on a concrete path against a wall.
My best effort was 14 pedals before falling off.
It is getting easier, although progress is very inconsistent. Just a simple things like knowing where to position the pedals when getting on and generally getting used to sitting on the Uni are becoming easier.
I have been at it for about 10 days…
Welcome Wobblysteve nice to meet another Australian even if you’re in another state. You also got a good quality uni to practise on, I bought the ALDI one and I pretty much rode it into the ground. Sounds like you’re making progress, really just need to keep at it. The fact you’re practising daily is a huge help and it won’t be long before it all clicks into place.
Right now you’re just learning how to ride more efficiently as you are getting the basics. At this point try not to ride along a wall at all, just mount up at a wall or post and just go for it. Sure you’ll fall a lot, sometimes you’ll go 10 feet and other times only 2 feet. It took me 3 weeks before I could ride it up to 100 meters without a UPD.
One thing about unis that is handy is they’re so small so don’t be afraid to throw it in the car and go somewhere completely different and practise. Maybe a change of scenery can help. I initially learned mostly at the same place and I still go back there occasionally but I did mix it up and take it to many different places. Especially once I could ride for a bit.
Thanks for your words of encouragement Unigan. Yep I’m just going to go for it… Its amazing how all of a sudden you start noticing spots that would be good to practice at. I suspect once you can ride you start seeing interesting places to ride…
Yes I agree… I can’t think of anything more “imposssible”.
Walking through walls… Flying… Levatating… maybe these things are possible but no-one has tried hard enough or practiced long enough…
Impossibility was an impression I got at first. So looked up the internet but the instructional videos I found didn’t seem to help much.
There were videos that did help though in an odd way. I decided it must surely be possible for me to simply ride down the road after I saw videos Kris Holm and the like doing the ridiculously extreme on unicycles.
Yeah, I agree. I got a heap of inspiration from watching Edd Pratt from the UK who unicycled aroud the world. https://www.youtube.com/user/worldunicycletour
I simply did not beleive that a uni could be a viable mode of transport until I saw this.
Hello kwan4d. Are you able to ride yet or are you still practicing.
I’m still practicing. My best effort was about 14 pedal strokes. I did this a few days ago and have not been able to do more that 4 or 5 pedals since then.
Yes, I initially ordered a 29er, but got advice here to go smaller to start. The folks at unicycle.com were able to swap my order to a 24" (they recommended that size for me vs. 20" as I’m 6’ tall).
Thanks Gockie, appreciate the encouragement. I can see this becoming an obsession… The scope for skills development is huge… My next steps might be to extend the distance and try to mount without a wall.
Awesome progress, you’re well on your way. This is the part where you start tracking how far you can go before you fall off. Slowly you will become much more efficient in your riding technique.
Watching this video, it occurred to me one of the reasons why learning on a 20" is superior. In the video, Steve is completely true to his name wobbly. If that amount of wobbliness happened on a larger wheel, I don’t think most beginners would be able to stay on. So, the smaller wheel allows Steve to be wobblysteve. If Steve learned on a 36", on the other hand, I might now be responding to faceplantsteve.