I'm a hopeless one.

General
1

I’ve recently been very interested in unicycling, but I don’t even know how to ride a bike yet. (I’m 16 years old.)

I never learned because of the geography of our street. I live on a hill, and at the bottom of the hill is a sharp curve. The curve goes directly over a bridge, for which there are no railings or walls. The bridge goes over a drop, which ends in a shallow, rocky river.

This is not a good place to learn how to ride a bike.

Of course, no one knows how to help a person learn how to ride a bike this late in life. I would go directly into learning unicycling if I didn’t think it would be the cause of my imminent doom. I’ve never been a fan of bikes, but I know that they are the necissary middle step between standing on two feet and balancing on one wheel. =)

Does anyone have any advice for me? I’d really love to start unicycling ASAP.

Thanks in advance,

~Chedd

2

Although I do think that riding a bike is a helpful step, I would like to see if you can skip that step and start unicycling. I think it’s one of those things that “you never know until you try”.

My advice for you is to get a unicycle (something cheap) and spend a few hours learning to ride it.

Please keep us posted on your progress.

Daniel

3

If John Drummond (of Unicycle.com) had thought the same about his house, his three boys would also never have learned to ride bikes. They have a real steep driveway that comes out onto a busy road which I think has no sidewalk. In any case, you have to go to a different area to ride around.

Though it would be real fun to learn to unicycle without ever doing a bike, it will probably be harder. If you want to cheat then, borrow a bike from someone, go to an empty parking lot and play around with it. You should be riding it around within a half hour or so. Then pretend you’ve been riding it for 10 years, and advance to the unicycle. There isn’t that much to learn in basic bike riding on flat ground.

Good luck!

4

Thanks for the advice, guys. I’d love to try to just start on an unicycle, but I figure I’d need some assistance, and I don’t know anyone who’d think it was a good idea, let alone help me out.

I’m sure my mom would blow a gasket. ((She has bought be maybe 4, 5 bikes in my life, and I haven’t ever touched one of them. She’d probably be livid if I told her that I want to unicycle.)) I might have to keep it like some crazy conspiracy from her.

I need an Underground Railroad for newbie uni-riders.

~Chedd

5

Sell the 4-5 bikes and buy 1 uni. I am certain that you can learn to ride w/o ever having ridden a bike. As a matter of fact, I know that Keith (Chirokid) taught his youngest to ride a uni before a bike. I learned to ride a Uni before I found this forum. This forum did help me learn to freemount and just about everything else.

6

I think it’s definately worth trying to learn to ride a unicycle before a bike. It would be great to be able to say you did that.

When you do get onto unicycling, you might like to check out www.unicycle.2ya.com for some written tips, photos, and video tutorials on riding. There’s a Word document in that site that Klaas Bil and I wrote that goes into quite some depth on the basics on unicycling. Maybe that would help.

Good luck!

Andrew

7

But not too cheap, then you’re just asking to pay a bunch more money in maintenace.

Daddy, I got cider in my ear.

8

Don’t worry about never having ridden a bicycle. It might make unicycling a little harder, but with a little practice, it is possible to learn almost anything. In “The Unicycle Book” the author, Jack Wiley, tells of a man in his mid sixties who learned to unicycle even though he had never ridden a bike.

9

If you have been bought all those bicycles and can’t ride them it’s because you don’t want to. All that stuff about geography is nonsense. Get off your backside and learn to ride.

There is a clear and definite methid for an adult to learnt o eride a bicycle. I’ve used it to teach people.

You will need a 15 mm open ended spanner.

You will also need to right size spanner to undo the seat clamp so that you can lower the seat to its lowest setting.

Right.

Lower the seat to its lowest setting.

Use the 15 mm spanner to remove the pedals. the left hand pedal has a (conventional) left hand thread. The right hand pedal has a right hand thread.

Now, hold the handlebars, and, placing yourself on the left hand side of the bike, walk, pushing the bike. Learn to steer, and get familiar with the action of the brakes. Just push the bike for a few minutes.

Now, sit astride the bike. You have lowered the saddle so you should be able to put your feet falt on the ground.

Practise moving the bike forward by pushing against the ground with your feet. Don’t try to go fast. Just get the bicyle to move. Steer it. Stop it gently with the brakes. As you gain in confidence, you will experiment with “gliding” for shor distances between pushes. You will develop a feel for how the bicycle remains stable wen moving.

Now, get off. replace the pedals. (Rememebr, the right pedal screws on the “wrong” way.

Put the left pedal at the bottom of its travel. Stand on the left of the bike and put your left foot on the left pedal. This means stepping across yourself. Now, scoot the bike by pushing on the ground with your right foot, supporting your weight with your left foot on the left pedal.

Now, raise the seat slightly.

Sit astride the bike. Go back to the exercise where you pushed the bike with your feet, and glided for a bit. During the glides, lift your feet and place them on the pedals. When you feel confident, start pedalling. (Keep the bicycle in a fairly low gear.)

Now just practise.

This system sounds long winded, but it works. A friend of mine was forbidden to have a bicycle when he was a kid because a cousing died in a road accident. He is not big on coordingation adn athleticism. He learned to ride a bicycle in about an hour.

Kids learn more intuitively. Adults have to do it in logical stages and feel in control. The very basic nature of these exercises will frustrate you into moving onto the next one, and therefore learning.

Good luck, and no more excuses.

10

It’s the other way around in North America. The right hand thread on the right hand pedal is “conventional”. The left hand thread on the left hand pedal is the “wrong” way.

11

:stuck_out_tongue: lol! wouldn’t that be hilarious to not let your mom know about it until you’ve learned how to ride?

12

Re: I’m a hopeless one.

On Fri, 20 Aug 2004 22:17:23 -0500, “toddw9” wrote:

>Mikefule wrote:
>> * the left hand pedal has a (conventional) left hand thread. The
>> right hand pedal has a right hand thread.
>> …
>> Now, get off. replace the pedals. (Rememebr, the right pedal screws
>> on the “wrong” way.

>It’s the other way around in North America. The right hand thread on
>the right hand pedal is “conventional”. The left hand thread on the
>left hand pedal is the “wrong” way.

It’s also the other way around in the UK, must have been a blackout
from (with? by? in?) Mikefule. Otherwise his advice on how to learn
riding a bike sounded very workable.

(Not sure if this was posted already, my system had a hickup.)

Klaas Bil - Newsgroup Addict

I like the idea of not having to balance when out on a ride - joe

13

Re: I’m a hopeless one.

“zambonijones” <zambonijones@NoEmail.Message.Poster.at.Unicyclist.com> wrote
in message
news:zambonijones.1baxca@NoEmail.Message.Poster.at.Unicyclist.com…
>
> I’ve recently been very interested in unicycling, but I don’t even know
> how to ride a bike yet. (I’m 16 years old.)
>
> I never learned because of the geography of our street. I live on a
> hill, and at the bottom of the hill is a sharp curve. The curve goes
> directly over a bridge, for which there are no railings or walls. The
> bridge goes over a drop, which ends in a shallow, rocky river.
>
> This is not a good place to learn how to ride a bike.

For a 16 year old you seem very timid, and maybe even unimaginative. You
appear to have given up before even starting, and God only knows why your
mum keeps feeding you bikes that you won’t use. If your geography is all
wrong, push the bike to a place where the ground is more level. Then learn.
Its easy, no need for any complex lessons just get on and give it a go. I
rode one, in a straight line, the first time I tried it. The only thing
to remember is that the bike does have brakes: so use them, and that you
will have to lean sideways in order to turn.
The 16 year olds that live round here would be pulling wheelies on their
bikes down the hill ( probably dodging the traffic as they did so).

If you, as a teenager, cannot find a way to deal with your geography and
ride a bike , then I have no idea how you are going to get the drive and
determination required to learn ride a unicycle. It is worth spending 20
or 30 minutes mastering a conventional cycle first before climbing on a
looneycycle. You need that iota of confidence, to give you some idea of the
mechanics of motion.

Hopeless…yup, but you needn’t be.

Naomi ( in stroppy mode 'cos I just don’t believe all this)

14

Re: Re: I’m a hopeless one.

Oops. Brain storm.:o :o

15

Allow me to clarify a little: the reason that I was unable to ride a bike before was not only geography, but also transportation. Being that young, the only person around to drive me to a flat surface to ride was my dad, who was most unhelpful.

I still don’t have my permit yet, but I’ve given up looking for the ‘easy’ spots.

I’ve called up one of my friends to help aid me in using a bicycle. She’ll come over Monday, and we’ll spend the day watching me fall and skin my knees. I’m sure I won’t be able to do it on the first day–everyone here seems to have had easy learning experiences but, yes, in physical activities, I am as timid as they come. I’ll probably sabotage myself by going too slowly, anyway. But I am going to try, which is more than I have ever been able to say for myself before.

[I am afraid of most things with wheels, especially cars. My mother finally forced me into driving around a parking lot a few weeks ago. It turns out that I wasn’t that bad, but I still had a panic attack.]

However, there is something different with unicycles. I should probably be petrified of them, but I am not at all. It’s just that my balance was always terrible (I am not sure if that is because I never learned how to ride a bike, or, the reason that I never learned how to ride a bike).

Anyway, the above suggested method for learnging to bicycle would be great, if I had someone with me who knew how to dismantle and repair a bike! Unfortunately, all I have to work with is my mother’s (fairly nice) bike, in the grass behind my house. She’s already warned me that I will fail at this. I’m afraid to even mention unicycling to her!

Oh well. Thank you so much for all of your advice. I wish I had the opportunity to try to master the unicycle before getting the hang of a bike, but it seems like that will end badly. Be damned, the straightforward path.

I’ll keep you all updated…

PS–Does anyone have any tips for improving balance without large bulky machines (balance beams, tightropes, bikes…)? Something appropriate for inside the house that I could work at in my spare time? A friend suggested laying a plank over a cylendar and balancing on that, but I don’t know if that uses any of the same necissary muscles for riding.

Thanks again,

~Chedd

16

I taught my fourteen year old cousin how to ride a bike in 5 minutes last week and she is as stubborn as a bag of hammers. Just go for it. Try kicking off the ground first before you start to pedal. It’s easier to balance with more speed.

David

17

If you want to try to improve your general balancing ability, try learning to balance objects on your hand or face. It is really not that hard to learn, especially if you start with something long and heavy, such as a broom or cue stick. Just set the object on your hand, upright, let go of it with your other hand, and move your hand back and forth and from side to side as necessary to keep the object balanced. Keep your eyes focused on the top. You could also try balancing the object on your chin, nose, or forehead. Although it is harder at first, it is easier in the long run. I think the balancing abilities you would learn this way would probably transfer to unicycling at least a little bit. Its fun in any case.

Jonathan

By the way, I can understand your fear of cars. Anything with that many wheels is way to complicated.