It’s been 5 months and I still cannot ride the uni. I’ve been trying off an on during that time and I’m hardly making any progress at all. People learn like within 24 hours usually. Not 5 months! I keep making the same mistakes and I don’t know how to correct them. I’ve read peoples advice, made videos and such, but I’m making very little progress. I can’t even ride in between two rails that are like 5 ft apart. I might just sell the stuff…I don’t think ANYBODY can ride. Most people, sure, but not all.
Maybe you got dependent on the railings. Find a parking garage or somewhere flat (or with a slight downhill) and just go straight out away from the railing.
More practice all at once is better then a little practice spread out over 5 months, I would say…
'nuff said.
Yeah, how often do you practice? For most people, practicing 30 min a week for 5 months will get you nowhere. With 10 hours a week though, most will be able to ride as long as they want within a month.
I was in the same boat the first summer I tried to learn on my own. I wound up finding people who could help me (by standing on my right and left for support as I rode). This really sped up my progress.
I spent three months alone, making slow to no progress, before finding the help. I recommend getting away from walls and railings and finding one or two supportive humans if at all possible. I hope you don’t give up!
Don’t you dare give up.
People usually don’t unicycle at all. Why should we care? We ride because it’s fun, don’t we?
Don’t be discouraged because there are people who learn faster, that’ll just be counterproductive. Seriously, why should you care? You try to learn because you think it’s fun too, right?
Now to the issue. What ivan quoted is indeed enough, and learning to unicycle made me believe it even more.
Maybe you are psyching yourself out? Try to go easy on yourself and if you can make a little progress each week, eventually you will learn. You can do it!
Bullfeathers divebomber. If an old fart like me can do it, anybody can!
It took me longer than 24 hours to learn, but I kept at it, and it all worked out in the end.
I will never be able to hop skip and jump a unicycle, but I don’t care. Just being able to ride my unicycle and go off road a bit is enough for me.
Keep at it, riding unicycles is great, think how good it will be when it does fall into place. Try not to get too frustrated as you learn, set your self very small goals, and as you improve, keep setting new goals.
Good Luck, and keep posting.
Innes
do give up. just keep trying, get someone to help you and what ever just dont give up. quitters never win!!
If you find yourself getting angry while trying to unicycle, just set it down and walk away. Never unicycle when your angry or frustrated, because you’ll suck really bad.
Uh I hope this helps:)
Thanks and that’s funny. I was in a pretty bad mood before I went out. What an encouragement! Thanks guys!
Don’t give up!!! If you’re using a railing, it’s a possibility that you are too dependent on that railing and have a “death grip” on it while riding, try to either, ride totally independent of the railing after you mount,(it’s certainly ok to use the railing to help you mount the unicycle) use the railing as minimal as possible, have a friend walk next to you also giving you support. Most likely you’re friend will be taller than the railing so that will get you in a more upright position and hopefully find your balance better if you use their shoulders as support.
Hopefully that can be of some benefit to you and certainly don’t give up.
These guys are all giving you good advice. I think a person your age can learn in about 20 hours or so if they practice over a few days or a couple of weeks. That means a couple of hours a day at least. If your practice sessions are 30 minutes once a week I don’t think you’ll make progress very fast. I think you’ll forget too much between sessions. Riding a unicycle is not about balance, it’s about determination.
The mantra (you’ve heard it all before):
Weight on the seat, not on the pedals.
Look ahead, not down.
Weight on the seat, not on the pedals.
Good posture.
Weight on the seat, not on the pedals.
Round, smooth pedal strokes.
Finally, weight on the seat, not on the pedals.
I would also tend to agree that you might want to wean yourself from the rails. Let go and go for it. Try not to chicken out. Ride until you fall. This is how you learn to make corrections. Good luck.
Everyone learns at a different pace. The average is a total of 15 hours, including the extremes (I read of one guy who took him 5 hrs. a week for a year).
Longer cranks and/or a smaller wheel may get you out and riding (see below).
When I couldn’t ride my uni, I road my bike everywhere and practiced w/o hands as much as possible, and kept making it a bit harder all the time (one eye closed, around turns, over speed bumps, and weave around lane bumps on non-bussy streets). Definately not as good as riding my uni, but I felt it helped a bit.
I was a slow learner as well. It took me 40 hrs over two monts. After a while it felt like I had to look w/ a microscope to notice improvements (one eye closed, one or both hands on the seat, too much/little air in the tire, and on bumpy dirt allong a fence in my back yard). I found it easiest to ride w/ about 50 psi but after riding w/ what felt like way too little for a while, I got used to it and then 50 psi was harder, so I switched it up a lot untill it didn’t make any difference.
I watched “Introduction to Unicycling with Dustin Kelm” after every practice session for reminders of what to or not to do, and looked for details in how the kid was riding and tried to imagine what I was doing and dicide if that was good or bad and try to aply that to my next practice session.
A UPD for me meant not landing on my feet so riding in open spaces was too terrifiing to me. I found a LONG railing a few blocks from my house. It was 80-90 ft long and 2" in diameter. I found this significantly better than a wall (so I could push or pull myself to the rail), or a short rail (saved a lot of time in turning around and could work on consistency more).
After 6 wks of practicing on my 24 I could fairly consistently ride the full length of the rail on each side, but I didn’t have the guts to ride in the open, so I ordered a 16" CX. When I got it 2 wks later, I could ride all over the playground w/in a hour. UPD’s were still scarry, but not as bad.
When I could ride around the neighborhood on the 16" for an hour w/ few UPD’s (two months later), I got a 20". Two months later I started doing my 2.5 mile commute a couple of times a week on my 20 w/ 127’s. Then another two I could do it at night on well lit streets and I could finally ride my 24 w’o fear of injuring myself in basic UPD’s (8 monts after I first started).
Later I got some 150 mm cranks to experiment w/ and put them on my 20 and used it and my 16" for learning to ride backwards.
The easiest to ride fpr me, from easiest to hardest of my unis,have been:
16" w/ 127 cranks
16" w/ 114’s or 20" w/ 150’s
16" w 102’s
20" w 127’s
20" w/ 114’s or 24" w/ 170’s
24" w/ 150’s
20" w/ 102’s
Edit
I don’t know how universal the skill is.
I’ve ridden a bike quite a bit, and I was able to ride down the street in a straight line within a month or so after I got my unicycle. Practicing probably 2-3 hours a week at first.
I started off going up and down the hall, balancing with the walls. Then went down to a local overpass with a bike trail where I could ride a long ways with a handrail on one side.
I’ve been at it since Thanksgiving, just now getting where I can free-mount. Still have trouble with sharp turns, can’t idle, haven’t tried to jump or anything.
The seat is lowered a bit now, but once before we lowered it a bit, and that really messed with me.
By the way, I’m 47 and about 260 lbs, so not your normal beginner unicyclist.
Good luck, whatever you decide.
my friend is learning and i have found some things;
-u gotta get over th fact that you cant do it and say you can
-u gotta have a desire to do it or u wont care that much
And when you fall, try to analyze why. When I was learning, I always fell backwards (because I though it was more scary to fall forward from my 26". I also tended to save the unicycle when falling, which was easier done when falling backwards. Not recommended behavior when you’re learning).
So I just sat on the unicycle, and leaned forward until I fell. Many times, until I felt comfortable; landed on my feet every time.
Next, I set up a rule: when I fall, I have to fall forward. This forced me to lean more, especially when I was about to stop because I was afraid of falling.
This, plus learning to wobble, was my keys to success. The distance increased, and I could work on reducing the wobble and flapping with arms.
Just an example of what I mean with analyze. My “rule” system works good for me (I had some other rules and goals), but I’m not sure I would recommend it to everyone else. After all, we’re all different.
A handy tool for learning is visualization. I’m sure you’ve heard about it or someone’s already told you. Basically, just visualize yourself mounting the unicycle, try to remember every feeling you feel when doing it for real. Next ride along the rails, as you usually do, in your thoughts. And suddenly let go, and imagine/think of how it feels to be able to ride without support.
Just do this from time to time, for example before you fall asleep.