After three years I was beginning to think I might never be able to do it. My kids could do it, but every time I tried to ride backwards, I would just accelerate until I fell off. Plus I was chicken, basically. Three days ago I decided I would try it 100 times per day until I could do it. I expected that with luck in three more years or so I MIGHT be able to get it. My very first night, after fifty or so tries I went about 20’. Two nights later after another fifty or so attempts I caught myself making a riding mid-course correction and got really excited. Within a half an hour I made a successful 100’ backwards ride. I screamed and beat my chest like when Tom Hanks made fire in the Castaway movie. I am just totally stoked! Plus!..Plus!..Plus!.. I’m idling, hopping 10" and riding increasingly difficult terrain. People stop to watch us instead of just looking as they drive by! It keeps getting more fun! I can hardly wait for each day’s ride, and the kids love it too!
Re: I’m a little backward
those two phrases have no bussiness being in the same paragraph.
well done!!
collect your persistence badge and move to the front of the FUN-CLASS
(and remember, riding backward is all in the hips, keep them relaxed and u’re kewl)
((ps. what’s the next skill u’re learning?
))
What next?
You mean there’s something else? I guess I thought I was done; that I had reached the pinnacle! O.K. well then, since you’ve challenged me, I’m thinking maybe…No hands!? Perhaps after we go to Moab this March I’ll have some better ideas 
vocabulary words
And anyways, haven’t you ever heard of “Trying your luck”
Re: What next?
shortly after i got backwards i started on the one foot stuff
i got one foot idling (foot on crown) relatively easily but one foot riding is still proving to be a bridge further than i’d like it to be
u fancy a challenge to one-foot riding?
btw, while working toward one foot idling (foot extended), i seem to have gotten stuck at what i like to call CAN-CAN IDLING
where the UP-foot flies off the pedal or crown, extends and at the end of the stroke returns to the pedal or crown
when u have a couple of unicyclists in a line doing this, the effect his hillarious
is this a recognised something or just a place where everybody gets stuck on the way to one foot extended?
Re: Re: What next?
We need to see a video of that…
Re: Re: What next?
I hate to say it, but it’s a fairly easy move (if you can one-foot, of course), so it was probalby overlooked in the creation of the Standard Skill List. If you come to a convention like NAUCC that has a lot of Freestyle competition, you may see a lot of kids using this move…
Meanwhile, the original post brings me back to the days of learning the first moves:
I…HAVE RIDDEN…BACKWARDS!!!
Those were the days. When all that practice starts paying off!
congrats, backwards is a huge step…so far it has been the hardest and most time consuming thing to learn, for me personally.
it’s great to get over those BIG road blocks, it proves that just like simply learning to ride, all things can be done on one wheel through persistant and consistant practice!