I can ride, what i feel is a decent distance now (at least until my legs
hurt) and i can mount without holding on to anything pretty good too.
But, When ever i ride, i find my self flaing my arms around constanty,
especially when i turn. Currently, im trying to correct tis by hold ing
on to my seat while i ride, but it doesnt seem to be working to well.
And as far as turning goes I cant make smooth turn, a turn for me
usually consists of several quicks twists of my hip to turn the uni in
the direction i want. Heh, any and all tips are quite welcome. I start
riding last christamas for about 2 months, but my intrest sparke again
and i ve been ridin again for the past 2 to 3 months. So im just kinda
getting a hang of the basics…
Others may have more precise replies, but my best advice is to not worry too much about the jerkiness, and just get in as much saddle time as possible. That stuff will tend to take care of itself.
One exercise that might help is to try to ride in a really big circle without consciously using your hips to turn. Start pedaling straight, and when you’re in a nice open area, just look to the left or right. The uni will want to follow, although not significantly. Just keep looking and pedaling, and see if you can ride a nice big circle smoothly that way. It’s one way of letting your body do the work of directing the turn, without over-thinking (and over-executing) the motion.
Won’t help you much on tight turns, but it’s something to try. I’m sure more advice will be forthcoming…there are lots of vets here that still remember the learning process.
Don’t bother diong anything to correct the problem, it’ll resolve it’s self. Just ride for a while, and things will smoothe out. Tom’s advice may help, but other than that, just ride, and things will come together, I promise.
Holding the saddle is not a cure for arm flailing. You are flailing your arms because your balance isn’t smooth. Taking away the opportunity to flail your arms won’t help.
Look a long way ahead.
Keep your weight on the saddle.
Try riding with your arms up against your chest, loosely, a bit like if you were running or jogging.
A good exercise for smoothness is to concentrate on speed. I was teaching a friend to ride, and he had difficulty with turning. So I set up some chairs to make a circuit (we were indoors) and we did a pursuit race, starting from opposite ends of the room. As he raced to catch up with me, he forgot that steerng was difficult.
A good course to set up is this:
1 2
3
4
5 6
The beginner races around the outside of the simple oblong, 1,2,6,5.
The more experienced rider races outside 1, inside 3, outside 2,6, inside 4, outside 5,1 and so on.
This gives the beginner a chance.
3 and 4 need not be too far inside the main oblong. This is “fine tuning”.
Just keep going. I had the exact same feeling. I started using my unicycle to commute as soon as I could freemount 1 out of 20 trys. Just stay in the saddle and all of your problems will work themselves out without concious effort. Good luck.
I have a couple of observations about turning. First, you have to
lean into a turn. If you don’t - you’ll flail a lot as you steer
the wheel to keep balanced. Leaning becaomes natural with practice,
but I found my turning improved rapidly when I thought about the lean.
Tight turns are accomplished by steering the wheel the wrong way to
initiate the lean, but don’t worry about that now.
Second, some flailing is caused by unequal pedal pressure. If the
unicycle seems to be heading to the right, you can either try to twist
and flail leftwards, often leaning the frame to one side or the other,
OR you can add a little extra left pedal pressure on the downstroke to
straighten out the wheel. So instead of fighting against the
unicycle, subtle pedalling technique will get you there in better
style.
Hey! Maybe I ought to write a book on unicycling :->
Ken “been riding 6 months and knows everything” Cline