Those dang Swedes, always stealing our thunder. First they invent VELCRO, and now this! When will it ever end?
edit: it’s worse than I thought. They also invented powdered milk (1860-1869).
When are you going to write a book about all this John?
Say you hold the seat out in front with your right hand, and hop with your right foot back.
Frontside pedal grabs would be to the left, where you hook your forward inside pedal on the obstacle and then swing the unicycle up behind it to go to rubber.
If you are perfectly ambidextrous with your skills, you could do the mirror image of this to pedal grab to your right, and this would still be a frontside pedal grab.
However, most people aren’t symmetrical in their skills, including myself. I find it easier to pedal grab to the right while staying in my dominant (right foot back) position, with my right hand still holding the seat.
This means that when I hop/pedal grab to the right, I have to hook my inside rear pedal on the obstacle. I then pull the unicycle up in front to go to rubber. This is what I call an offside pedal grab.
Kris
I haven’t been in any clubs, events or message boards until a couple of months ago. I find some of the things you guys do to be pretty funny at times. Trying to credit someone with inventing a trick is one of them. Rowan is right that people have probably done this a long time ago. It doesn’t really matter who or when. I can tell you that my friends and I did pretty much anything you can do on a unicycle back in the early 80’s. I didn’t invent crank grabs but started doing them after I watched a friend do it. We used to ride in public schools after everyone but the janitors left. We’d ride up/down stairs, through halls and jump all over the desks, counters and anything else we could. We didn’t take 5 or 6 hops to get from point a to point b either. You just jumped, laned and jumped again. What’s with all this bouncing anyway? We jumped up on desks, over the gaps between them, slid down the edge of slides, jumped on cars, loading docks, rode on top of bike racks, etc. One of my friends could even do a backflip by grabbing onto an overhead pipe and using it to fling himself up. We cruised (gliding) down some of the steepest hills you’ve ever seen at speeds so fast you’d slide a good 50 ft when you fell. Since BMX was a big deal back then, we had unicycle races at the local BMX track. I also met other unicyclists back in the 80’s who did the same tricks. Anybody remember Steve McPeak? I remember him riding a bridge railing that was only about 3 inches in diameter. I learned to coast and stand-up-wheel-walk-seat-drag after watching him. And the kick up mount…there’s an old black & white video of a guy doing that - it’s definately before the 60’s. I still see it on tv every once in a while. Anyway, I know you guys are a new generation of unicyclists but I just wanted to let you know that there’s quite a few that have gone before you (and me too).
Absolutely true, and we’ll probably hear about pioneering riders coming out of the woodwork forever. It’s a lot easier to credit someone with popularizing tricks than “inventing” them, especially because it’s hard to define when activities become organized sports. This is why, for example, Gary Fisher is often called the “father of mountain biking” even though people rode offroad on bikes before he was born, or for that matter before asphalt was even invented.
In any case, the main thing is that thousands of people are now doing these things worldwide, which certainly is a big change from the past.
Kris
dude, it’s also why it’s interesting to ask the question to not just get who popularized it, which is one legit thing, but for those who did it before to emerge. i find it interesting that you were doing it in the 80’s. somebody may have also done it before you. it’s not generational, just keep the contributions to the story coming. and you’re right, it doesn’t matter, however, i for one find it super interesting. please get some pictures up and keep exposing others.
john
I am Rowan, thanks John, that is pretty much what I would have said. My intention was not to take credit away from those who have popularised moves, nor to take credit myself. I just wanted to put forward the idea that others may have been doing this stuff ages ago and we might not have heard about it through lack of communication.
In 1996 I invented riding forwards, backwards, and turning on a unicycle. Not because I was first to do it but because no one showed me or told me how. I discovered how to ride on my own, and many other people probably did too. I also invented hopping up gutters, but that is not much of an impressive trick.
Cool. Sounds like you guys had a blast, at about the same time I was having a blast getting into unicycling as well. Where were you and what was the exact timeframe? Not that either of us “invented” any of this, but if you were in Michigan at the time it’s pretty freaky that we were doing such similar stuff and may have been pretty close by each other.
Sorry Rockey, you were right. I watched George Peck’s Rough Terrain Unicycling again last night, and this is what he said:
I agree with you Rockey, I think George’s claim of 60 inches (152.40cm) is a bit of an overestimation. I thought it was interesting how George has defined the difference between hopping and jumping for us, as being on or off the saddle. It saves you from having to differentiate between seat-in hops and seat-out hops, cos each has it’s own name. His 27 inch (68.58cm) jump on the 26 inch hard narrow tired unicycle is most impressive. I can’t hop that high with a fat tire, and I haven’t tried jumping.