idling?

Hi all, I’m new to this post and still fairly new to unicycling. I
started at 40 and am now 50 but I live in Maine and only ride in good
weather. Over the years I’ve learned to mount and dismount and I can ride
down the street comfortable for a fair stretch, but I’m bugged by the fact
that I’ve never gotten the hang of idling. Any thoughts on how to master
that skill would be appreciated.

Practice in a doorway so you’ll have something stable to hang on to when you need. Also, one foot down. Thepedals should not be parallel to the ground when idling.
-David Kaplan

Re: idling?

“Peter Rearick” wrote…
> Hi all, I’m new to this post and still fairly new to unicycling. I
> started at 40 and am now 50 but I live in Maine and only ride in good
> weather. Over the years I’ve learned to mount and dismount and I can ride
> down the street comfortable for a fair stretch, but I’m bugged by the fact
> that I’ve never gotten the hang of idling. Any thoughts on how to master
> that skill would be appreciated.

Here’s what worked for me:

I read loads on the internet about how to idle. Pendulum motion, weight on
seat, sit up straight and whatnot.

There’s only so much you can learn by reading though.

Then I spent half an hour every day for one week practising idling whilst
holding on to something.
At first the fact that I was putting too much weight on my ‘down’ leg caused
tiredness in the ankle. I decided to practise for 5 minutes with each foot
down.
The routine was simple,
Left foot down for 5 minutes (remounting with left foot when I fell off)
Right foot down for 5 minutes (remounting with right foot)
Left foot down for 5 minutes
Right foot down for 5 minutes
Left foot down for 5 minutes
Right foot down for 5 minutes
Tea.

One week of half-hour-a-day-five-minutes-per-leg-practise later I was trying
not to hold on to the the nearby window sill but not managing more than a
few seconds without doing so.

Despite this, the following week I ventured into the open and tried mounting
straight into an idle. Again, 5 minutes practise of this on each leg for
half an hour a day.

One week later I could idle for a minute with my left foot down and almost
as long (but not as gracefully) with my right foot down.

I’m not usually so regimental about practise (and there were times when it
was frustrating but I stuck with it for those last 10 minutes and enjoyed my
tea more as a result) but I’m glad I was because it taught me one of the
most fundamental unicycling skills I’ve ever learned, in one fortnight.

Since then through regular usage my idling has become more stable, so much
so that I’m now almost up to a 3-club cascade on my unicycle.

Once you can idle, one-foot-idling is easy.
Once you can idle (particularly if you can do so with either leg down) you
can learn to go backwards quite easily.
There is no doubt that idling gives you much better poise and control of
your unicycle since you no longer have to fall off when you stop moving
mid-skill - you can just start idling and continue what you’re doing once
you’re back in your balance envelope.

Good luck and stick with it.
Some day soon you’ll wonder how you ever found it difficult.

Andrew (who was 20 when he learned to idle.)
0xADF

Re: idling?

“Peter Rearick” <prearick@megalink.net> wrote in message news:u9v9lpmfl3iq6f@corp.supernews.com
> Hi all, I’m new to this post and still fairly new to unicycling. I
> started at 40 and am now 50 but I live in Maine and only ride in good
> weather. Over the years I’ve learned to mount and dismount and I can ride
> down the street comfortable for a fair stretch, but I’m bugged by the fact
> that I’ve never gotten the hang of idling. Any thoughts on how to master
> that skill would be appreciated.

I unconsciously discovered that swinging my arms in
the opposite direction of the pedals helped my balance.
That is, when the right pedal swung back, my right arm
would swing forward and left arm would swing back.

I kept my arms way out from the sides of body at first,
and then gradually brought them in closer as I got better.
I also started out doing roll-back mounts, which is basically
1/2 of an idle cycle.

Re: idling?

“Peter Rearick” <prearick@megalink.net> wrote in message news:u9v9lpmfl3iq6f@corp.supernews.com
> Hi all, I’m new to this post and still fairly new to unicycling. I
> started at 40 and am now 50 but I live in Maine and only ride in good
> weather. Over the years I’ve learned to mount and dismount and I can ride
> down the street comfortable for a fair stretch, but I’m bugged by the fact
> that I’ve never gotten the hang of idling. Any thoughts on how to master
> that skill would be appreciated.

I unconsciously discovered that swinging my arms in
the opposite direction of the pedals helped my balance.
That is, when the right pedal swung back, my right arm
would swing forward and left arm would swing back.

I kept my arms way out from the sides of body at first,
and then gradually brought them in closer as I got better.
I also started out doing roll-back mounts, which is basically
1/2 of an idle cycle.

Re: idling?

I had the same problem for a while, and found the onyl time it actual
improved was when I was doing longer distance rides and started idling
in places where I would normally get off or put my hand out to balance
on things…

I came off heaps to begin with, but with regular places where I knew i
was going to try idling, the skill suddenly turned up and I’m now
quite comfortable with it.

SOunds corny i know, but just find someway to prcatice it regularly,
as most of us (me especially) tend to avoid those things we can’t do
and move on to the other skills.

And, of course, we all learn slightly differently, so take my advice
with a grain of salt…

idling

a thought
when the uni moves to and fro, try n keep the lines it moves on parralell
when u have to correct to the right going forward, correct to the right going back as well
dont circle around, rather try n ride something like the gate a gearlever would move in (stick shift)
hey, it worked for me!
enjoy the practise

namaste
dave

What worked for me is a combination of things.

A) I forgot about trying to be balanced right/left. At first I just tried to learn with my left foot.

B) I attacked the problem from both ends at once. First, to practice the middle part of the idle (when you are actually idling) I practiced by holding onto a fence for quite a while. My left leg would get tired very fast and I’d unintentionally dismount many times. I’d switch direction on the fence to change arms but keep using the left foot. Rather than time myself I’d count crank crossings like they do in level testing… at first I could only do a few, then after a few weeks my leg strength and balance built up so that I could do more and more. I started doing sets after a while with other practice in between. My legs became unbalanced strength-wise but that corrected later on. Second, to practice the initiation and exit of the idle I began practicing riding forward, then coming to a halt with left leg doing the braking, then do a half-cycle backwards, then riding forwards again. Since my left leg was doing all the work mentally and physically my body could learn the left-side in conjunction with the crank-crossing practice mentioned above.

C) I practiced each every practice time, either with a fence or not, for a couple of months until they started succeeding, then merging by themselves. Then I began trying to ride, do the half-backwards idle, and then do an increasing number of crank-crossings before riding off again. My skill and leg strength improved together, but it took a long time to finally get up to 25 crossings.

D) When I finally started actually idling, I’d count full idle attempts (trying to ride, idle, ride off) with numbers, and count crank-crossings while idling with letters (A, B, C,…) so that they wouldn’t interfere with each other. Learning to idle takes a lot of concentration and I’d lose count otherwise.

E) Not until I was reliably doing 15-20 (O or T :D) crank-crossings did I start learning to right-foot idle, and then it was like starting over again. The right-foot intelligence and strength had to develop on their own so I started back with the two-sided approach - idling with a fence and ride-halfcycle-ride. Now the left and right sides are not quite, but almost balanced.

Additional thoughts:

  1. I learned on a 26" and I found that changing my cranks from 150mm to 170mm helped a lot to learn to idle because of the leverage. I also found that the longer cranks reduced knee stress a lot although I still had to pace myself (Vioxx helps too ;)) Now that I’ve improved a lot, the crank length is less significant.
  2. When I say “crank crossings” I mean one set, forward and back.
  3. Idling to a unicyclist is like the tuck position for a skiier – “burn, baby, burn!” quadriceps-wise.
  4. I think that idling is fundamental to many uni skills, including mounting and backwards riding, and really helps a lot in MUni because it vastly improves one’s low-speed balance. Idling in rough terrain especially improves one’s sensitivity to terrain irregularities and cants.
  5. Apparently there is idling from the seat, where the top of the pendulum is at the seat level, and full-body idling, where the top of the pendulum is at the head level, but I am still learning to distinguish the two in actual practice.
  6. Idling is one of those super-cool things that distinguishes unicycling from other types of cycling.

Re: idling?

A lot of good advice in all the replies. Wheelsize was not emphasized
but I tried for some time to learn idling on my 24". When I could
borrow a 20" it went a lot better because of the far better
responsiveness.

Klaas Bil

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