Hey all,
Does anyone know why Kris Holm always gaps forwards? Is it because of his 26/ 24" uni or what?
probably because you can jump higher seat in front
and if your doing a big gap you’ll want to land in a grab which is easier seat in front.
and it looks cooler.
I think its more about getting a good push off the object your gapping from, you can jump off the edge of something with alot more power when your tire is perpendicular to it.
I could be wrong though
Chex
I believe unispin is refering to gapping forwards not gapping seat in front. Evilewan is correct that seat in front is much better for gapping than seat in however. After noticing the same thing as you, I decided to perform several tests. I jumped forwards for hieght and distance, versus to the side, versus rolling.
Results.
Distance - Rolling Hop in the lead with forward and side hop about even. The forward hop was alittle behind on average but I think with practice on this technique it could be improved.
Height - Rolling hop came in the lead again followed by side hop with forward hopping far behind.
I believe that KH does most of his hopping forward because for muni, and even certain trials situations, you do not have time to turn to your side and hop. If you really want to know, email him.
- Sal
He’s not really jumping straight forwards. It’s more like a 45 degree angle or so. If you jump sideways (perpendicular to the wheel) you have problems with the tire folding over. If you jump at an angle the tire is not going to fold over on you as much. Also, when landing on skinny things like a log or a railing it helps to land at about a 45 degree angle on the object because you’ll have more error room and don’t have to hit the landing as accurately.
Kris talks about this in his workshop at the Toronto convention.
<http://lutkus.com/video/Kris_Holm_workshop/>
The videos are in DivX format so you’ll need the DivX codec available at <http://www.divx.com/>. You just need the free non-adware version to be able to see the videos. No need to subject yourself to adware when you don’t need to.
Re: KH Gapping Style?
On Thu, 6 Feb 2003 19:23:20 -0600, Unispin
<Unispin.igigm@timelimit.unicyclist.com> wrote:
>Does anyone know why Kris Holm always gaps forwards and seat out?
In addition to the answers given: could a reason be that you can pedal
upon landing a forward gap, to regain / keep balance? I’m
theoretisizing (SP?) as I’m no gapper to speak of.
Klaas Bil
"The national sport on Naura, a tiny Pacific island, is lassoing birds in flight. "
i’m sorry i didn’t mean seat out, i accidently typed it 
I agree, that it is best to gap starting off at a 45 degree angle, and then turning in the air to best suit where you’re landing. I think the reason to take off at 45 degrees is that it’s a good compromise. i’ll explain.
I used to take off with my tire cradleing (sp?) the side of the ledge i’m gappin from. This gave me good stability, but it was hard to feel comfortable there. Then i tried stait foreward. I found that sometimes the unicycle would shoot out underneath (behind) me when i gapped. So this wasn’t very pratical. Then the 45 came along, it gives the right on the edge feel, very consistant, and you never have any unicycle “shoot outs” from underneath. So i agree that this works that best. Also it makes it so you never have to turn the full 90 in the air for your landing, it’s either 45 turn (either way) or just land with the same angle. If that makes sense 
Hope that answered some of your questions.
-Ryan