How long did it take you to learn?

Riding Advice
61

A. 12 years old.

B. 8 Hours, over 4 days.

C. Male

62

a) 13
b) 5 or 6 hours (over a couple of weeks)
c) Male
d) A friend’s 20"
e) Same friend’s coaching (and his father’s car which I circled, and leaned on, and scratched, more times than I can remember)

u) The unibike took a little longer. I started at about age 10. Didn’t cut the forks off until I was 42. Slow learner I guess.

63

A: 12
B: estimate 20 hrs over 3 weeks
C: Male
D: 20inch Norco
E: Self taught
F: I saw a performer at my school

Caleb

64

Re: How long did it take you to learn?

A. Age when you started to learn?

39 years old, today in fact, my new Torker 24" is still in
the box under my desk at work. When I get home I plan on
putting it together and trying it out.

B. Number of ‘solid’ hours you practiced before you could
ride 50 metres?

I dunno, I have read this Newsgroup and found this
particular post very interesting. It seems to me that the
longest people take to learn is just about 20 hours. That
encouraged me enough to go out and get my own.

>>C. Male or female?
Male.

-Paul

65

well…

A: age 13
B: 14 hours (in 2 seperate years)
C: male
D: Cheap 24"
E: No Instructor
F: Wanted to master my balance to help with Mtn Biking and I saw Kris Holm on TV

66

A: age when learned— 29 years old.

B: 45 minutes to get first ride of well over 50 meters.

C: male

D: chrome torker 24" wheel, bought new off ebay.

E: self taught with help from online tips. Started practicing between a wall and railing on long deck in front of apartment building. When I rode the full length in 20 minutes, I left the deck and hit the parking lot and down the street.

F. wanted to have better balance for mountain biking when crawling up and down super steep, slow rocky trails. Saw a woman in my running club riding around a pool on a uni, picking up beers and drinking them as she went. Knew this was the way. Had no idea about MUni at the time, but soon afterward happened to see a 5 minutes story about Kris Holm on some variety sports show and the rest is history.

67

Re: How long did it take you to learn?

On Tue, 15 Apr 2003 14:35:29 -0600, Paul Whyman
<pwhyman@manta.colostate.edu> wrote:

>B. Number of ‘solid’ hours you practiced before you could
>ride 50 metres?
>
>I dunno, I have read this Newsgroup and found this
>particular post very interesting. It seems to me that the
>longest people take to learn is just about 20 hours. That
>encouraged me enough to go out and get my own.

Paul,

Your datapoint cannot be used as you cannot ride 50 metres yet. No
problem.

In a couple of days you will be able to download a spreadsheet that
enables you to get the best estimate of your learning time. It will be
part of the results of my now almost finished analysis. Stay tuned!

Klaas Bil - Newsgroup Addict

“When someone asks you, ““A penny for your thoughts”” and you put your two cents in . . . what happens to the other penny? - George Carlin”

68

A. 12-13?
B. 12-16 hours over 2 days (ouch!)… it was summer, and I had no life at that age. And that’s still a disputable point.
C. Male
D. 20" wheel in 24" frame, cottered cranks, Taiwanese Miyata rip-off with worse-than-savage seat. (But it did have a cool white-walled blue tire that the seat matched).

69

My leaning to ride experience will probably not be useable information for your survey:

A: 14, then 17

B: Somewhere between six weeks to two months, maybe 1/2 hour a day but not every day. Estimated 10-15 hours total time on the Troxel. I rode 50m once, but on a 24" Schwinn, not on my P.O.S. Troxel. The Troxel fell apart when I started trying to turn on it, and my driveway was less than 50m. Three years later I rode over 50m for the second time, on a Schwinn Giraffe, after about 45 min. practice in November 1979.

C: Male

D: 16" hard plastic tire on Troxel, 20" wheel on Schwinn Giraffe

E: Self taught with no instruction. A group of kids in the neighborhood were learning to ride around 1976 on the neighborhood Schwinn. I had a borrowed Troxel.

F: Wanted to ride one ever since seeing Pontiac Unicyclists (or St. Helens) in Detroit Thanksgiving Day Parade in 1967 or 68.

70

Re: How long did it take you to learn?

On Thu, 17 Apr 2003 13:19:18 -0500, johnfoss
<johnfoss.m1lgb@timelimit.unicyclist.com> wrote:

>My leaning to ride experience will probably not be useable information
>for your survey:
Why not?

>B: Somewhere between six weeks to two months, maybe 1/2 hour a day but
>not every day. Estimated 10-15 hours total time on the Troxel. I rode
>50m once, but not on my unicycle.
Was it on another unicycle? I reckon that counts too.

>F: Wanted to ride one ever since seeing Pontiac Unicyclists (or St.
>Helens) in Detroit Thanksgiving Day Parade in 1967 or 68.
Then you have controlled that urge for a long time :slight_smile:

Klaas Bil - Newsgroup Addict

Nearly 85% of the people killed by lightning are male.

71

Re: Re: How long did it take you to learn?

Because depending how you interpret my data, it took me three years to learn to ride, and this was accomplished on three different wheel sizes. Plus my age varied by three years in the process.

It was on my neighbor’s 24" Schwinn, which I didn’t have regular access to. I got on, probably holding onto a car, and rode probably 100 meters or so. That was it; I had to hand it to the next person after that. One ride only. Meanwhile on the Troxel, my best ride was probably 10m. Which is pretty damn hard on one of those, if you’ve never tried one…

Well, a six year old doesn’t get to choose his vehicles. Though I knew I wanted to ride a unicycle someday, I didn’t think to ask for one for Christmas. Good thing too, because knowing my parents, they would have found me the cheapest one available! Ironically this is what I ended up learning on anyway :slight_smile:

But, contrary to the parameters in your study, I do not consider my learning process to have been completed until that day in Nov. 1979 when I managed to ride from the hood of Bradley Bradley’s car, turn 180°, ride up his driveway, and stop at the basketball hoop. That was a great day.

72

[list=a]

  • Age when you started to learn? [B]16 years old[/B]
  • Number of 'solid' hours you practiced before you could ride 50 metres? [B]Approximately 10 hours over a couple of weeks. I can not remember the exact time it took me, but I know that in two weeks of practising 30-60 minutes per day I was going places.[/B]
  • Male or female? [B]Male[/B]
  • Wheelsize learned on? [B]20" Unicycle with cottered cranks, a plastic rim and a nasty hard seat. The seat was discouraging to learn on and I eventually improved it by strapping some extra padding on (after learning the hard way).[/B]
  • What sort of instruction you had? [B]I was inspired to learn to ride a Unicycle after wondering whether or not I would be able to. I phoned all of the local bike shops. None had any in stock and none but the last one I tried was able to order me one. No one taught me but somewhere in the back of my mind I had seen Unicycles being ridden perhaps on TV or something, and I knew I just had to lean forwards and pedal. It took me a lot of practise before that simple theory worked in reality.[/B] [/list=a] I took my Unicycle to School and a lot of people tried it out. One sticks in my memory as the best first attempt I have ever seen. Stacey Amor got on and for his first try he adopted an awkward looking position which had him leaning with his torso forwards and his backside sticking out behind and his arms out. He pedalled tentatively for about 30 metres before dismounting (there was a building in his way and he didn't figure out how to turn). [IMG]http://main.viper-resource.com/images/smilies/icon_eek.gif[/IMG] I was [I]most[/I] impressed. I have never seen anyone else just get on and ride on their first go without any prior Unicycling experience. One method of learning that I have not heard suggested is to use a Supermarket Shopping Trolley as handlebars. It can help to give you the feel of the wheel turning while providing a moving wall/fence/rail to lean on, a little bit like trainer wheels.
    • 73

    Age:13 (my age right now)
    30 hours, 2 weeks
    Male

    74

    finally!! riding in the hall of my dormitory does not allow for much movement(approximately 100 ft) so finally i took my unicycle outside (late, late at night) and accomplished the requisite 50 meters to reply to this post!! oh it’s been fun learning to ride. first the pain in the crotch, then the burning in the thighs, then the blows to the shins. well, here i am adding data to an already data-filled spread.
    A. 18 (eek, forgot how old i was)
    B. i would have to say 8-9 hrs over 3 weeks. college(berkeley) doesn’t leave much time for entertainment
    C. i would have to say male.
    is klaas bil even using the below information?
    d. 24"
    e. unicyclist.com thanks guys! weight on seat… weight on seat… ow! … weight on seat…

    can’t wait to see any sort of correlation… though. the data probably is very skewed…

    75

    Re: How long did it take you to learn?

    In article <nosabe332.m9b8d@timelimit.unicyclist.com>,
    nosabe332 <nosabe332.m9b8d@timelimit.unicyclist.com> wrote:
    )
    )B. i would have to say 8-9 hrs over 3 weeks. college(berkeley) doesn’t
    )leave much time for entertainment

    ObPlug:

    Washington School (MLK at Bancroft), unicycle basketball, 6:00 PM on Wednesdays
    Berkeley Juggling Club (plus some uni activity): Lawn west of Evans Hall,
    5:00 PM on Fridays.

    And Berkeley is nothing if not entertaining!
    -Tom

    76

    haha, berkeley is indeed entertaining. allow me to clarify. the college (of engineering) leaves no time to be entertained.

    i have seen, and watched the juggling club practice next to evans. however, i usually don’t see many unicyclists, and only last week did i see someone riding the unicycle, a 24" with a large tire and 661 guards, on the curb and down a small hill. perhaps it was you. i shall need more practice before i play basketball, however.

    77

    Re: How long did it take you to learn?

    In article <nosabe332.m9qyz@timelimit.unicyclist.com>,
    nosabe332 <nosabe332.m9qyz@timelimit.unicyclist.com> wrote:
    )
    )haha, berkeley is indeed entertaining. allow me to clarify. the
    )college (of engineering) leaves no time to be entertained.
    )
    )i have seen, and watched the juggling club practice next to evans.
    )however, i usually don’t see many unicyclists, and only last week did i
    )see someone riding the unicycle, a 24" with a large tire and 661 guards,
    )on the curb and down a small hill. perhaps it was you. i shall need
    )more practice before i play basketball, however.

    That would be me, yes, on my new Yuni (woo hoo!)

    You don’t have to be good to get started at basketball–in fact, playing
    uni basketball is one of the easiest ways to get better, since you’re not
    so focused on thinking about your unicycling. We’ve had participants who
    couldn’t do much more than hold onto the pole and lunge towards the action
    occasionally, pretty quickly turn into real players. Come on down!
    -Tom

    78

    Re: How long did it take you to learn?

    On Mon, 21 Apr 2003 17:19:52 -0500, nosabe332
    <nosabe332.m9b8d@timelimit.unicyclist.com> wrote:

    >can’t wait to see any sort of correlation… though. the data probably is
    >very skewed…

    As has been posted before, results are available at
    <www.xs4all.nl/~klaasbil/agelearn_short.htm> (short version) and
    <www.xs4all.nl/~klaasbil/agelearn.htm> (long version)

    Klaas Bil - Newsgroup Addict

    Studip.

    79

    Finally, I can respond to this (even though Klaas is finished his project)

    A) 33
    B) ~18 hours over 6 weeks
    C) Male
    D) 20"
    E) No coaching. Some help from this list and other web guides.
    F) Wanted to learn for a long time. Couldn’t afford (read justify the expense of) uni until now (I got a great deal).

    80

    Re: How long did it take you to learn?

    On Mon, 5 May 2003 23:06:53 -0500, Mandell
    <Mandell.mzoja@timelimit.unicyclist.com> wrote:

    >Finally, I can respond to this (even though Klaas is finished his
    >project)
    The project hasn’t finished but rather it is in sleep mode. Data
    remain welcome and will be processed in the second batch. Mandell did
    you try <www.xs4all.nl/~klaasbil/talent.htm>?

    Klaas Bil - Newsgroup Addict

    A snail can sleep for three years.