how to glide?

Off-topic
1

how do people glide? i’ve tried to but i can’t even get 2 inches… what is the best way to learn to glide? do you need a certain wheel or riding area?

2

It is generally better to glide with a smooth tire, shoes with a smooth bottom, smooth surface, and a slight decline.

How well are you at WW, or one-footed WW?

3

i can glide about a ft when the need arises

just learn to 1 ft wheel walk and then your pretty much set

4

i learned to glide before i could one foot wheel walk but once i could glide, one foot wheel walk was really really easy but you need to know the difference between gliding and coastng. gliding you use your foot to control your speed and coasting you cant touch the tire w/ your foot

5

It’s good to start by posting in the correct forum.

6

and even better to start by searching

7

its good to check how old threads are before posting in them…

hehe i learned to coast(sort of, could only go a few meters before i could glide) first…now i have worn holes in a pair of cheap wal-mart shoes and have a supply of rubber to glue onto the bottom a pair of decent running shoes when the previously glued on rubber wears off…

8

Or mentioning you spent time on doing so.

Gliding; you go from riding 1ft’ed to the gliding position. The only thing that changes should be your feet, your upperbody should remain in the same position. Then;

  • if you fall forward you’ve been braking too much
  • if you fall backward you’ve been braking too few
    and needless to mention:
  • if you fall straight to left or right you don’t have any speed.

It’s realy as simple as it looks like, but you have to practice. It wouldn’t be fun if you if you could archive all your targets without any practice. So use your patience.

9

Guide to gliding a unicycle.

10

That clip raised lot’s of questions to me:

  • Why do I need to be able to ride 1ft with BOTH feet?

  • Why do I need to be able to do a ww?
    (I’ve seen people who can’t ww, but can coast.
    And I’ve saw pictures of a kid that can ww, but can’t reach the pedals)

  • Why do I need to be able to do a ww1ft?

  • And wy don’t I need to be able to do a ww1ft with BOTH feet?

  • Why is a slope the best way to learn?
    (I didn’t get it on a slope -I tried-, but on a surface that was level thing went better for me)

  • What does that last instruction “firts push then pull mean”?
    (I’m affraid this kind of pushing makes it a ww1ft with long steps)

  • Where is the part that shows the actual gliding?

So, I don’t know about it, but I would try what works best for you.

11

Yeah that video wasn’t really that great a way to learn. Your best way is to just throw yourself into learning. There are things that will obviously help but if you just want to glide then just go straight to it. I learned by riding one footed down slopes then just pulling my foot up off the pedal and onto the tire.

I also tried running them jumping onto the uni like a normal running mount but instead of my feet landing on the pedals I land into the glide position and the speed of the running is enough to glide a bit.

I can now glide about 25 on an average slight slope after about two weeks.

I can’t really wheel walk with one foot yet although I can do both feet pretty well.

So as you can see you don’t need to follow any steps, just do what feels right.

I also learned how to coast first which probably helped but is usualy the opposite of what most people do.

12

Probably just to get you used to having both feet in the position of sitting on the frame.

To get yourself ready for one footed wheel walking, which obviously leads right into gliding.
None of this is absolutely necessary prerequisites obviously, someone could learn to glide before they learn to ride a unicycle in the first place. But that would just be silly, and ridiculously difficult, and stupid too.

Because one footed wheelwalking is the exact same foot position as gliding, and actually if you are one footed wheelwalking downhill or if you start to fall backwards, you’ll probably glide a little bit by accident anyway…so ww1ft is just like gliding but a little easier.

If you eventually want to learn to glide with both feet then you need to learn to ww1ft with both feet, but if you just want to glide then you won’t care about learning with both and so you only need to learn both skills with one foot.

So you don’t need to concentrate on leaning back enough to push the wheel forwards, and also keeping your foot pressed just hard enough on the tire so you won’t fall over backwards. Going downhill you just roll automatically…gravity does that.

To each their own (:

It does at first, but then you take longer and longer between steps till eventually you’re gliding…so basically, you push one step really hard, then you press on the tire till you slow down and then push one step again and do the same thing. This will get you used to the feeling of having the tire roll under your feet till you’re ready to do it for longer periods of time.

I haven’t even watched the movie (:

So, I don’t know about it, but I would try what works best for you.
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13

You know your stuff James. :smiley: :smiley:

14

I think leo was asking those questions, not because he doesn’t know but because he wants the person to explain to new gliders. I agree with Leo that the tutorial lacked alot because the explanations were really lacking, although he could have done it a bit nicer.

On another note, I found today that it was really easy to turn when gliding, you don’t even have to think about it.