How to mount on a giraffe without wall

I’m looking for good ideas or some training exercises, to free mount a giraffe.
Some advice step by step ?

When I try the left foot on wheel, and pushing on it to put the right foot on right pedal, I lose balance, and I never got the opportunity to push on my right foot, it’s like my left foot get fixed on the wheel… When I see another time some videos showing how to do it, it looks like so easy, but … NOT. haha… :slight_smile:

Boboxo, I’d suggest adding onto one of these already existing threads about mounting giraffe’s. I found them with the search function.

http://www.unicyclist.com/forums/showthread.php?t=28780

http://www.unicyclist.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11130

http://www.unicyclist.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11217

In additions to the past threads if you do a Google search for “free mount a giraffe” you should see at least eight videos first thing on the list.
Jim

If your chain is on the right side, you will do better to put the left pedal down and start with your right foot on the tire. Practice standing up with that foot on the tire, and just stopping there. See how long you can balance in that position. Get comfortable there.

Then take the second step. Ground to tire to pedal, and stand up on the left pedal. But just stop there. Try to find the position to get up on that pedal and be balanced. This will take a (large) number of tries. Straighten your leg on that left pedal and just work the balance. This will also give you practice in the dismount from that position, which will reduce the fear of being up there.

There are two more steps after that:

  1. Get on the seat. Put the seat where it needs to be before you go for that other pedal. If you go for the pedal first, you might be stuck behind the seat.

  2. Right foot onto right pedal, from the front. Push that pedal back to bring your feet close to horizontal. Eventually you will ride away from there. Don’t try to ride away from the “dead spot”, with left pedal down. That’s a lot harder

Along the way, get comfortable letting the unicycle fall in various directions and learn how to dismount without getting tangled up. Catch the unicycle whenever you can. The more you do this, the less scary it will be.

Now follow those links and watch the videos, but don’t obsess over them. 90% of your learning time should be with the unicycle, teaching your body the moves.

Have fun!

Thanks for the tips John - that’s a useful series of steps to follow which I don’t think I’ve seen set out like that before (I may be slightly more advanced though, as I can fairly comfortably already get onto the pedal in balance, but even stood up on it some of the time, but getting on the saddle seems like a big next step).

I might add that if you’re getting into Giraffe riding, it is highly recommended that you get comfortable with idling and riding backward. The idling is the more important, but being able to do both will save you in situations if you get crowded and don’t have room to move.

Can do both of those - backwards isn’t 100%, so I’m not confident to use it in crowds, but then I’ve not really found a situation where it was necessary. I think I might have even got good enough at idling on my weak side to do that under pressure now - which is handy as I’m still not putting enough weight in the seat when idling so get tired, need to work on that (the strange thing is that I can idle one footed, which pretty much forces you to put weight on the seat so I find that less tiring, just need to translate that to normal idling). Just to add that I’ve also found being able to ride really slowly (less than normal walking pace) really useful - I did perform in crowds in December and also spent a bit of time riding around them whilst not performing and I found doing half revs stop/start less trouble than going into an idle all the time.

I’m far from an expert, but from my experience you’re right, you need to be really confident riding around tight spaces before you do it around people.

Sorry for the late response. Thanks.

Before asking for help, I’ve had search already on other topic. But, lot of them were too old.

Already did on duckduckgo :wink: and I saw different videos about mounting a giraffe.

What a pitty! It’s a double chain! X)

So, the first step, it’s to stand on one foot on tire more time, just balancing.

So, at this time, you’re not using your arms (for pulling)?

YES!!!

It’s why I came here!

:wink:

I had some days before a carnival for learn mounting the giraffe, but working and getting a job is not a good mixing for training and ride a giraffe :slight_smile: so I used the walls to get on the giraffe. And for about 1h30, I set foot on the ground only three times, when I decided -> no falling! Thanks for idling, I can stand a long time without falling :slight_smile: During the parade, I rode the 5ft giraffe, and for fun, later, at the celebrating place - at the end of the carnival; I take the home made 7ft giraffe.
So good time riding a giraffe!

Mine too - I figure that means we can choose which side to mount.