I think the key to hopping is the pressure on the pedals through the handle… And/or replacing the pins with longer ones.
Please do that, the life of a unicyclist is lonely around here 
On my 24", I did a 10 mile ride today, around a lake, in 1h 30 mins (including one 10 Min break). It was the longest ride I did so far but it was a real pleasure. I did the first hour w/o any stop.
Wow!! Fantastic.
Hugo, don’t you use metric there, like us Canadians? Did you translate for the benefit of the Americans!?
I can, maybe, go for 4 or 5 minutes on my 24" or 29", then my legs turn to jelly (I still have too much weight on the legs.) But usually I hit a dismount device (a bump) in the road before 5 minutes though. I am improving, just too slowly. I also found that if I ride until my legs are mush, the inevitable UPD is very shaky since there is little strength left in my legs. I come close to twisting my knee or faceplanting because there is zero power left to get off under control. I kind of pedal to exhaustion. That’s what I get for being a kayaker… no lower body strength.
Yes I did. It was a little less than 16 km.
I feel like I can ride forever since I really sit on the saddle. You have to put your weight on the saddle, otherwise you are completely exhausted after a few minutes (which was the case when I started unicycling). 3 months ago I could barely ride down the street, which is only a distance of 200 meters.
Cool! I’m von Burnerdave!!! That’s class.
I love this thread! I’m just getting back into unicycling after a 20 year break and have had my Torker LX 20" for 6 days now. I rode when I was a kid, and could ride forever, but never tried hard enough to learn to idle or ride backwards. Thats what I’m working on right now. I pretty much practice whenever I get a chance, which ends up being on breaks at work, and when my 4 month old is napping.
Yesterday Jack took a nap and I took my 3 year old Maddie out in the backyard. She rode her bike with training wheels around on the porch, and I would mount on the porch and ride out into the yard a bit, come to a stop, and try to go backwards for half a rotation and go forward again. I had some success at this, but not as much as I would have liked.
I had my first big fall yesterday in the parking lot at work. I was just riding around, about to try backing up, was manuvering around a speedbump, looked at some people standing by a car talking, and just went down really fast. I landed on my hands. Today I went out and got some gel cycling gloves because that really hurt.
I’m actually taking the day off today from unicycling because I have some serious bruising going on in the seat contact area and I know I will be practicing this weekend, plus going to football practice on Sunday and Monday. I was surprised at how hard it was not to get on the unicycle before work. This is like an addiction. It’s a painful addiction though. I don’t remember it being this painful when I was a kid.
I also spent the past few days going through this thread, and have really enjoyed following each of your progress. I’m really impressed with all of you older types like me who are learning this for the first time. I remember falling a lot when I first learned and I know I sure don’t heal as fast as I used to.
I just wanted to introduce myself, since I feel like I will be most at home in this thread, and despite previous experience, I think I am right about where most of you guys are as far as progress in this awesome sport.
Hi Nachowayne.
Welcome to our happy little family! It’s nice to see that you can find the time to ride with such young ones around! I’ll bet they’ll be riding real soon too. Hint: get your wife into uni or at least doing camera.
Today I rode my 29" around the local park. I am trying desperately to get more weight onto the seat and off my legs. Other than spending more time in the saddle (i.e. paying my dues), are there any suggestions to speed up the process?
Yeah, it is a little difficult. Its nice that Maddie is learning to ride her bike now, so we get to practice together. That may become a regular thing with us now that Jack is getting a regular nap schedule. Thank God for baby monitors.
As far as trying to sit on the seat more, I can’t really offer any more advice than to just try to keep it in mind while you are riding. I’m having problems with that myself, especially when I go over rough ground. I definitely can’t ride as far as I used to. I get the jelly legs too. The most I’ve spent in the saddle without stopping since I started riding again is about 5 minutes or so at practice on Monday, and that was just riding in circles in a parking lot throwing a football around. I think I might try to ride around the block on Saturday when my wife is home to watch the kids. Its about .7 miles and hilly. Should be quite a ride on a 20 inch.
“Zitat von” equals “Originally posted by”. That happens when you use the German version of the forum.
Darn, I liked the wikipedia definition of ‘von’ better than simply 'posted by"!
I was out for a ride on my 29" yesterday. During a break, a kid about 16 years old stops by on his hot rod bike and says he can ride a uni too, and asked to try it. He showed me a few tricks with his bike and he was gooood so I let him try my uni. He said he had a 20" trials and never tried a 29". He missed the first freemount, but landed the second try and was hopping around like New Yorker on a hot Miami beach in July. Jeez, he was good.
So he hung aorund for a few minutes to talk about his bike setup (it had no seat and a strange brake system), and unis.
yer i met some guy walking his dog who said he used to own a bike shop and at one time tried (but failed) to learn to unicycle… then we got onto talking about swing bikes which you can youtube easy.
Well i was practicing idling on my break at work last night and decided to try a few hops. I fell off and hurt my wrist pretty bad. I probably should have gotten some wrist guards earlier, but I’m definitely getting some now. Its kind of funny how I’m spending more on protective equipment than I did on the unicycle.
I think I need some practice falling. I’m not really used to it anymore. I keep trying to catch myself with my hands instead of rolling or something. I’ve had three bad falls and every time, I’ve landed on my hands. My left wrist is killing me whenever I do anything with it and its all because I don’t know how to land.
I try to roll if i fall, doesn’t hurt much
Thank for the inspiration!
Hi all!
This is my first post and I just want to start by saying thank you to all of you who posted so many great descriptions and videos and stories about learning how to unicycle.
I’ve read the entire 24 pages of entries now over the past 3-4 days and it’s really given me a lot of useful information and inspiration for what I am soon to experience myself.
I also found the journal of dudewithasock extremely informative (Journal of a New Unicycler) and that is so far the only thread I have read back-to-back in addition to this one.
My new uni was ordered almost a week ago and I just can’t wait to get my hands on it 
I hope to be able to get some video of myself falling and flailing and doing the first few rides and mounts, so I can share it with you here.
And I look forward to reading more of your eloquent posts of course!
Now for some of my thoughts before even touching the new uni:
-
I went for a Coker/36er as my very first uni. Everything I’ve seen and read online tells me this is insanity, but I’ve been given some hope and reassurance in the later posts here in this thread where you people say the 20" (which is recommended for learning) actually in some ways is more difficult to handle than a larger wheel with more inertia. Also that you say you quickly “outgrow” such a small wheel and feel more comfy on 24" or 29" unis makes me feel good about my choice.
-
However, I noticed that in more than 300 posts nobody mentioned a 36" uni even once…
-
I have seen a lot of uni videos on YouTube and I found uni_geezers videos very entertaining (in addition to your vids of course) and instructive on using a 36er. So I can’t wait to get going, and I will be sure to wear all kinds of protective gear… The online shop (unicycle.uk.com) where I ordered my new Nightrider were out of gloves, so I will need to get those at my LBS or sports shop. I did order wrist guards (in a set with knee and elbow pads) so I guess I just need some gel-padded gloves with that (will try to go for skater or trials gloves if I can find them - no regular sports shops would have any unicycling gear here in Norway, at least I can’t imagine that - perhaps in the future).
-
It would be really great to have a unicycling organisation here in Norway. So far I haven’t found one (that doesn’t mean there isn’t one) but there is a big national organisation for cyclists that could perhaps have (or make) a subgroup for unicyclists. Also, there’s a newly started forum for unicyclists (a bit like this one, but minuscule) where I plan to write more about my learning (since there’s tons of stuff in English online, but not so much in Norwegian).
All right, that’s (more than) enough for a first post. Thanks again for being who you are and sharing it with the world, so new people like me can get introduced to the sport/lifestyle of unicycling
Hey lillestrøm, welcome to the world of unicycling 
Well, without disrespect (we’re the same age :P), this is not insane, it’s stupid. I may have watched too much House M.D. though.
Let me explain : do you learn to drive a car with a 2 stories bus or a Formula 1 ? No, because it’s dangerous, and impossible. You need to know how to drive a normal car to learn all the principles of driving, then you experiment with different car shapes, engines, etc.
20" are NOT more difficult to handle than a larger wheel, you’re fishing to convince yourself…
And last, you don’t outgrow a 20" wheel. It’s not like a baby tricycle to learn unicycling, it’s a full fledge “machine” with applications on it’s own that you can’t perform well (or at all) on larger unicycles. Think trials, freestyle, team sports, street… In fact, apart from Muni, XC, road and races, the 20" is the big unicycle standard.
Now I can understand you way of thinking, wanting a challenge, etc, I do the same for many things.
You’ve read my history I guess if you’ve read this post, so you know that I own 3 unis in less than 2 months. The last one I ordered, a KH 29, was inspiring to me in the same way I guess the 36" was inspiring to you, with the exception I already knew how to ride (more distance/road than tricks of course) so I understood the 36" was going to be a bit difficult.
Well, I just received my KH 24" wheel from Roger, which I installed on the KH29 frame, and this size is just perfect for now. I’m still too scared and not enough muscles to control the 29" wheel. I can ride it of course, but even after 2 months of intensive training on the 20" wheel on which I feel fearless, every time I get on the 29", I’m impressed, the inertia needs more experience to control, and I go back to the 24" or even the 20" to regain assurance (by learning more skills). As many people said here and in many other threads, time spent on any sized wheel helps on the other sizes too. But I may even not want to get back to a bigger wheel after mastering the 24" : as strong as my legs may become (improving control), the 29er will always have more inertia, thus less control and I’m simply afraid to get more speed with less control. I believe KH/Schlumpf will be my saviour
I hope I haven’t been mean or anything, though I’m known to be quite direct sometimes. But you really have no idea what you’re doing :o
At least order a cheap 20" from ebay that will break in 3 weeks, just enough to get you riding…
Or a bit more difficult, but still doable, get a 24" muni : that’ll complement your 36" well for rougher riding…
I totally agree… you dude. I’m 15 now… and I’m not sure if he has cat like reflexes or anything but the general rule is that those decline with age… for me even to attempt a 36’'er off the bat is slanderous, and downright stupid.
But hey if you can pull it off send me a video… By the way I learned a 20’’ in 2-3 weeks but could ride it at 1ish.
Hi again!
I am more than happy to get your feedback and in fact, I have come to the same conclusion myself. After reading this whole thread and quite a bit of other stuff, I actually wrote Roger already on Friday, so before I posted here, about buying another smaller uni with the coker. I assumed they had already shipped it on Wednesday since that is when I got the email receipt, but he wrote back yesterday and said they hadn’t packed it yet and that they probably could fit another uni in the box so I would save on shipping. Buying another one separately would have been twice the shipping, for two shipments…
And I have indeed been thinking about a 24". I am 189cm and 95kgs so even if I could still use a 20" with a massive tyre I have this feeling that I will feel strange with such a small wheel and such a long seatpost. I should also mention that I tried a uni something like 15 years ago, for 3 minutes. That was probably a 20" and I remember that I felt the small wheel just disappeared under me. I understand of course, from seeing videos and reading your stories that this is the entire point of learning how to unicycle, but I still have this idea (perhaps wrongly) that a slightly larger wheel will not “run away” so quickly.
On the other hand there’s the fact that you are not supposed to keep your body above the wheel, to have to get the wheel under your body (this is obvious physics: 1. the wheel is much less massive than your body and 2. anybody ever trying to balance a tall stick in your hand knows that you have to move your hand around to keep it under the COG).
And then it is probably easier with a smaller wheel.
In any case, I don’t feel like getting a small cheap 20" on eBay. Why? Well, the shipping from the US (where 99% of such second-hand unis exist) would be more than the uni itself… And even though I would surely find a friend of somebody to pass it on to, I’d rather buy a uni that I could use for a while.
I further figured that a Muni gets banged up anyway (obviously) so I might as well get one for learning. So I am now discussing with Roger to buy a 24" muni of some kind, not too expensive but at the same time sturdy enough that it won’t break even after learning and jumping around and going off-road.
I’ve also realised that I need different crank lengths and pedals for different situations, this is something I’ve learned from your posts, so again thank you for all the knowledge that has been passed on here
So I do expect to get 2 unis and some more gear to be able to adapt them for learning and so on. Hopefully this will make me seem a little less stupid
Types of riding
PS: I guess that muni, road and races are my interests more than trials, freestyle and street. Though I would like to hop around and be able to do different mounts (e.g. 180 jump), as I believe this is important for general balance and safety, as I will be more proficient with the uni than if I just learn mounting/dismounting and riding (which in theory is all you need for distance riding I guess, but which in practice is not good enough for avoiding UPDs). Also, on long downhills when distance riding, I assume it would be a big benefit to be able to just glide and use the brakes, so as to rest the legs.
Hello,
I never said YOU were stupid. Just it was an uninformed idea… But you know that and it’s the only thing that matters… I was more “afraid” for you than anything else, starting on such a big wheel can really be dangerous for your physical integrity.
But, seen you’re tall and correspondingly heavy and that your intended goals are more oriented towards riding than doing trial tricks, a 24" muni would probably be your best choice. If you’re dealing with Roger, better take the best he has to offer in quality/price ratio : The Nimbus 24" ISIS Muni.
You might even consider building a custom one, with a 24" wheel and a 26" Nimbus II frame so that you can learn on 24" but later do some real muni on a 26" which is faster and/or prefered by some muni riders. Plenty on post on this question, so I won’t elaborate anymore.
Or if you want still more choices and can spend a weee bit more, get a KH29" frame with a 24" wheel, if you like quality machines, this is going to make you happy (at least it makes ME happy :P)
PS1: BTW, why don’t you shop at the Swedish, danish or german unicycle.com ? It would cost less in shipping I believe ? Of course, Roger is the most stocked up european shop, but Roland from Germany is not far behind, and he offers an excellent service as well. To offer a comparison, UDC UK shipping for a unicycle to Brussels is 15£/19€ while UDC DE shipping is 12€. UDC UK shop is a little bit less expensive for people in the € zone, due to the strength of the european money for the moment…
PS2: Uni-Geezer is here on the forums, and he’s been an example to me too (at last some “old” guy that doesn’t take himself seriously - although that’s much more common amongst unicyclist than any other community in the world 
)
PS3: You’ll see that we cerebrally tend to think a lot about unicycles before we actually can ride, and once you’ll be riding, many “problems” will disappear by themselves, because to understand unicycling, you don’t need your brain. Weird, yes, I know.
That’s why I like so much unicycling : brain holidays. To enjoy your sport, you leave it at home and only get pure fun 
The only usefull teaching you need, is to train your muscles memory by getting used to the different positions. You don’t need to think a lot, just insist on repeating the right moves over and over. And suddenly, it’s totally natural, and you can do it without thinking. It’s like that to learn riding and any other skill on a unicycle : learn the basic movements, repeat over and over, one day it’ll fall into place without you even noticing it ! Magic, really.