About the tire…so do a lot of people learn to ww on a trials tire? Is it easier on a freestyle uni? I mean flatlanders do things like sideways wheel walk…though when you are learning, any advantage you can get helps.
I find myself always veering off the left after a few kicks. I wonder why that is. I am right-footed, so I suspect I am kicking harder with my right foot off to the right side of the tire, thus pushing the uni to the left. Is that likely? Maybe I need to work on more even kicks on each foot.
In my experience it’s easier on a freestyle uni with the seat as high as you can stand it. I sometimes have the kids I teach wheel walk with my freestyle even when they can’t use the pedals because their legs aren’t long enough.
I can wheel walk with my trials uni but it’s a lot more work keeping the wheel at the correct balance point.
The treads can be a complication but you learn to adjust to that. The bigger issue is having the low seat on a trials uni will put your knees in your ears while wheel walking. The result being more difficulty in positioning the wheel right under your center of gravity. I know people who ride trials/street/flat unis almost exclusively and can wheel walk them, but they all learned on a longer necked freestyle uni. The same is true of one foot idling.
A word of advice on wheel position: you should be able to look straight down over your front handle and just see your hub. That will put you over your center of gravity. If you are always falling off forward your wheel is too far back. If falling off backward your wheel is too far in front. Look down to see your hub and use that as a guideline. You will eventually feel it instead of having to look.
I have been practicing WW but am only able to get two or three kicks on the tire before falling. Watching Ducttape’s video has helped understand it better.