So, instead of “showing off what I can do and teach”
Then wait for responses. Wait for interested people. People who want to learn.
Such as the topic “how to idle” or “how to ride backwards”
Let’s change the format and do a 180 deg turn.
I will post a Request, and wait for tips.
Teach me how to do a rolling mount. a.) How is it done, exactly. b.) What is best method or process to get me there?
This is my next skill i want to learn.
I am tired of “stopping” and free mounting.
I want to walk, jump and ride.
I can ride backwards, idle, SIF, SIF idling and Step-up mount(stand behind saddle, foot on pedal at 6 o’clock, rise and sit like getting on a horse)
…slam
by the way:
a.) I still am working on my thesis: “how to learn to ride without falling”. Those demanding answers. I got none. Work in progress fellows. Continuing work with beginners to prove the concept, when I can find them. I will leave just leave that topic page as scratch pad for you cartoonists and comedians.
b.) I haven’t been riding for last few months. I get regular bouts of an extreme bursitis/lupus condition. This affected from dec 2025 to march 2026, so I am on the “mend” and building my flexibility at full squat and strength for proper uni power and dismounting. During my “re-learning” phase I take note of what I do as I am almost a beginner in the early stage but then skill returns rapidly. Thus, I need true beginners to understand the learning process for my report.
Just walking along and jumping on would present a problem for me. For me the keys to a successful rolling mount is timing and going for it. The timing part is complicated when just walking along with it hard to get the jump and pedal position just right. I stop then start walking with the correct foot with the starting pedal position the correct position.
For me that is start with the right pedal in 6:00 position, start with left foot, right foot step, left foot step and jump to right pedal that is coming up to the 9:00 position.
I’m interested in this too. I’m going to try uniusa/iuf level testing in a few weeks and need more mounts.
The iuf doc says for a rolling mount, the wheel can’t stop or roll back at all. I’ve seen that done on big wheels, but on a 20" that pretty much requires zero weight on the first pedal, at which point it’s almost a jump mount?
We’ve touched upon this before but the moment you step on and move your body forward the uni stands still. But maybe the intention of a rolling mount is just that: to make sure you yourself keep momentum so as soon as ur on the uni you can start oushing down on the front pedal.
This is kinda my problem on the 36 with a static moment. Without enough momentum, I stay perched on top but fall back again on my feet.
As for how to best do the rolling mounts, the videos are the best way to show.
Im still lousy at them and always use static mounts.
That’s a great question.
It’s a 24" mtn uni and the crank is 150mm.
I weigh 170lbs so the ability to “cheat with wheel inertia” is out of the question.
Wheels and crank is not going to “escalate” me up like a static machine.
Thus, the examples with a 36" big wheel unicycle is great to watch but my attempts will not be the same.
Moment I step on it I will get a “whip back” like a failed 3&9 o’clock free mount.
If I happen to step on “too late/too high on crank cycle” I will get throw up/over the unicycle.(do I need to do this a few times to get over the fear?)
I know “what it should look like” but any explanation of:
a.) How you get there?
b.) Step by step progression exercises.
c.) Mistakes, failures, injury stories getting there.
Thanks for the video Unitort.
What I see is a “perfectly timed” jump into to 3&9 trad mount. Is that how it feels when you execute this properly?
That “perfect static” moment when the unicycle does not roll backwards from crank pressure and does not roll forward with momentum created by the body moving forward.
You see I have long given up on the 3&9 for freemount. It never made sense to me, after falling straight down a few times. I have almost exclusively been doing the roll back free mount even when doing SIF.
Do I need to revisit the trad mount?
What I am trying to achieve is a constant rolling motion as seen with many 36" rider, but I will be using a smaller unicycle and don’t have the added advantage of wheel inertia to lift me up and over.
Thanks for the video JimT.
Have you tried this on smaller unicycles.
If so, does it “feel” the same?
I think of you as having “superior” balance and coordination.
I do not have that, but i think there is a process for building that.
I would like to find a systematic way to build skill and confidence with “minimal” injury. I hope it’s not a case where you gotta do it to learn it. Doing it = faling.
I am an older rider so I want to avoid injuries unless controlled like on grass.
Have you ever failed in your attempts to execute the rolling mount onto the big wheel?
Have you bailed out safely when something did not feel right?
@finnspin has a bit of tutorial on the rolling mount in the Muni training video here: Unicycle Basics: Muni Tutorials . I mostly rely on the static mount but am working on the rolling mount too.
No, I very seldom ride a smaller uni and when I do I normally do a jump mount.
I’m old at 77 and even after thousands of mounts have never failed in a crash when doing a rolling mount. If I fail it is mostly because I was complacent and did not “go for it” with enough vigor. Then I just step back off the back and try again.
OKay, as an mech engr who is ever fascinated by the amazing but complicated “device” the unicycle, which by the way no A.I. Boston Dynamics or Honda robot has ever been able to “achieve riding” without ziptying the robots feet to the pedal or “building in a stupid flywheel rolling control system” autonomous control.
The unicycle which is a double inverted pendulum to you physicists is a very complex device. However, the human brain and “trial/error/feel” system can conquer the 3 axis deg of freedom insanity machine. It does this because humans have 2 simultaneous control systems. The “pedal/back&forth” and the “lean” for perfect balance.
This explains the skilled “tight rope walker” but applied to riding a unicycle only a “few” can successfuly transfer that principle. Not to worry, the “active pedaling/feedback” is a redundant balance system that is a “gift” to us who have lousy balance.
Okay enough stupid A.I. correspondence chatter(a few know what I mean).
BAck to learning the rolling mount.
My initial criteria(probably fkn naive, but gotta have a plan)
What is a rolling mount: 1.) It is a mount that utilize the forward moving momentum both system(unicycle moving and rider walking) into a seamless rise, land and continuous motion.
2.) It is not a walk > pause > mount > go. Otherwise, skip the “walk” just mount>go, right?
So, that’s the definition of our objective.
From here l totally appreciate any feedback/explanation
…slam
Unless you are exceptionally floppy, your muscles are strong enough to make you more of a single inverted pendulum than a double.
The unicycles momentum is actually not important, more important is that you use the forward momentum of the rider.
Correct, but “walk > pause >mount >go” is not a bad exercise to learn how to space and time your steps. That’s one of the pieces you need to learn, coordinating your walking with the timing of your pedals. To learn it you don’t need to do a rolling mount yet. Even just pushing the unicycle and learning how to adjust your steps so that at some point, they are correct for you to mount the unicycle with your preferred foot ready to go onto the pedal.
Start with little momentum and little coordinative effort:
Get into a mounting position (foot on the back pedal somewhere between 45° pointing down to horizontal, seat between your legs).
Take the foot of the pedal and the seat from your legs. Make a half step back, so that the foot that is on the pedals first when you mount is now at the back.
Move that half step forward, while putting your seat between you legs and foot on the pedal.
At first you do the forward motion slow and with no intention of mounting, just learning the coordination of your body and unicycle. When that feels safe, you can start trying to mount, slowly increase the speed of the movement and try to push yourself onto the unicycle. If you do that cautiously, you will pretty much always end up with a pretty safe standard backwards dismount, until you put in enough momentum to get you to a point where you can get your second foot on the pedal and start riding.
Once you can dmount with this half step consistently, you can try two steps or three. Eventually when that works, you can work up towards not needing to measure out your steps by walking backwards, but instead walking while pushing your uni and adjusting the steps so that you can do a rolling mount more casually.
This guy(Chris Huriwai) and his channel is a great reference. Although, I can only hope to ever master 5% of their talent.
Do you see what he is doing? (0:22)
a.) Simultaneously, sitting on the saddle and placing his "top foot"on pedal.
b.) Then place the other foot as everything is rolling “with stability”
What is amazing to me is that for a split second.
He is merely sitting on saddle without it squirting forwards or backwards!
He has perfectly “landed” his weight on the saddle and transferred his forward walking momentum, perfectly.
This is what I would like to achieve.
There is no “step” > “pause” > “go”.
Also, I’ve seen Jack Sebben do a “walking jump mount” that he calls a rolling mount.
This is my plan B. However, it’s 2 things at once. Jump mount + walking. Not ready for that yet.
My plan is probably to put on my knee pads, find flat grass area, and do this a few hundred times. Does anybody have a better method?
…slam
PS, ofcourse he has a very small “trials size” unicycle and when sitting during the walking mount, the unicycle barely “flips up”. That could be the advantage. Anything taller will “flip up” increasing difficulty.
