I learnt to ride a unicycle nearly 20 years ago at a local youth club. I got quite good at balancing and could ride continuously (indoors). I even learned how to hop as I was mostly into BMX at the time. I’ve recently discovered muni and I really want to give it a go. Is it like riding a bike or will it be like starting from scratch again?
Yes, and no. I pretty much didn’t ride for about 6 years. When I picked it back up a couple of months ago I was still able to free mount and ride, but struggled to go more than a few hundred metres. Riding once or twice a week for a couple of months I’m doing 3 mile rides without dismounting and a bit of light off road now.
By comparison, I didn’t ride my MTB for a couple of years after a bad crash, when I picked it back up I was fine doing 8-10 miles, on moderately difficult terrain.
It will depend a bit on your own skill level, fitness and determination. You will definitely be able to pick it up quicker than the first time, but it will still take time to get used to doing distance. You will still upd, but then even the very best riders do that. And being able to upd safely is a useful skill to learn anyway!
Just go for it, it’ll all come back to you pretty fast if you want to do it!
I would say just do it.
You never know unless you try. Some people can pick it back up instantly, some may not. If you want to do muni then you might as well try and fail then doubt yourself and fail from the start. You’ve already got prior experience with unicycling so you’ve got an advantage over someone who wants to do muni but has never ridden a unicycle before.
As stated above, your body will remember how to ride the unicycle; some people can do it after 20+ years of not being on one; I’ve seen it in person! That doesn’t mean your legs will have the stamina they did while you were learning. You may need to take it easy at first and work up to longer and longer rides.
Riding a unicycle on dirt is harder than riding a bicycle on dirt, but that’s part of what makes it such a cool challenge. Any little bump has the potential of knocking you off. But as your skills increase, you can just blast through all sorts of things.
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I didn’t ride for 12 years. Took me 5 mins to be able to ride again, and one ride to be able to ride decent muni again. And within three outings I was better at some things than I ever was (riding standing up for uphills and fine movement corrections) but I never quite regained my total balance or skill, even after a year of riding (I am 12 years older now, after all).
So, interestingly, the end sum is that I’m just as good as I was before, but through different means.
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Riding a unicycle is like riding a bike but with one wheel.
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When I started to learn, I had to almost re-learn each time I stopped for a while. At one point, I got to a level where I could stop for a while, and pick up exactly where I left it.
I stopped riding in 1994. At the start of 2023, I decided to buy a vintage Schwinn uni off eBay. It was awkward for a few minutes. But it came back very quickly (like riding a bike… You can’t forget how🙂). I now own 5 (again) and can do 10 mile rides before my groin starts to feel it. At 61, I do not own a bike and have too much fun on my unis to want one.
I suggest that the differences between the two far outnumber the similarities, other than picking up a bike or uni after several years (if you had been proficient at riding) and getting back to it easily.
If you are new to riding a unicycle, you will discover that the balance principles, the methods of making corrections, the navigation, the terrain choices, the wear below the hips, and the possibilities for having a blast are very different from riding a bike.
I will grab a good uni over a bike anytime.
From my perspective, the comparison of how riding a unicycle is to riding a bike, is similar in many ways to how flying a helicopter (at least of the type I can fly) is to flying an airplane. A bicycle can balance itself when in motion, which is why you can push it and let go and it will roll on its own. If you push a unicycle and let go, it will just fall down. The unicycle, like the helicopter, must be made stable and operable by the rider of the unicycle or pilot of the helicopter. If I were to let go of the cyclic control (the main “joystick”) in the helicopter I’ve flown, I would immediately crash (likely after rolling upside down and having my rotor separate from the mast). The helicopter cannot fly by itself, unlike airplanes that have flown for hundreds of miles with the pilot incapacitated. Granted, there are more advanced helicopters with autopilot systems, but I’ve never flown that variety. And even in those helicopters, the unstable helicopter is made stable only through the use of electronics and numerous advanced technologies. However, there are much simpler, less expensive types of helicopters (Enstrom is one of them and maybe even the larger than 2-seat Robinson helicopters, I believe) in which the pilot can trim the main rotors to enable the pilot to take his hand off the cyclic when flying straight and level. Trim is nothing like an autopilot system, but at least you you can take your hand off the stick during certain times in your flight without dying. No standard configuration helicopter (one main rotor + tail rotor) is inherently stable without the addition of a stabilization system or trim system (which can only keep it stable under certain circumstances). Sorry for potentially babbling too much about aviation on a unicycling forum, but my initial analogy was relevant and once you get a pilot started talking about aviation, you are always in dire jeopardy of being subjected to ongoing (and potentially onerous for non-aviation folks) ramblings.
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I haven’t been able to parse many similarities between bicycling and unicycling skill-wise. The omnidirectional balance control and constant rider correction required reminds me more of jumping on a Vurtego pogo, with the added challenge stabilizing the body while pedaling. I have never been a skateboard rider, but my brother compared the body control to skateboarding. That being said, I am sure knowing how to ride a bicycle is an important foundational skill, because it does teach you how to stabilize a rolling object while initiating momentum. As for retaining the skill through practice breaks, I have not rode long enough to know. However, comparing it to Vurtego jumping again, there is a finesse to rider inputs that you lose after a long break, but your body seems seems to retain the knowledge of how to stabilize itself, so you just need a brief refresher on input finesse to get back going again.