our club met last night and after most everybody left, i was one of the two straglers hanging around, still working on the one foot idle
when suddenly i decided to give the kick-up mount a go
the thinking was something along the lines of ‘since i cant do this yet, let me try something else impossible and hopefully that’ll inspire me’ - it was late, ok?
i recently read a thread about the kick-up and thought i’d try some of the things i read and who knows
on my third attemp i actually aquired the seat and realised that when u have the seat and your fav foot on the down-pedal, u r basically in a position to apply ‘normal’ mounting principals in order to complete the mount
17 attempts later i rode of, completed my three pedal revolutions, and screamed
i managed to land two more and then called it a night and went off to go buy me a beer
The straggling is kind of nice isn’t it? Since Mary and I direct the club, we have the keys to the facility and are the last ones out. Most times, we hang around the gym by ourselves for awhile and enjoy riding and practicing by ourselves. It’s amazingly refreshing after all the loud commotion of the meeting over the past two hours. Last Monday night after everyone left, the boys were working on coasting. No way they could have done that with a gym full of people.
Well, my well hung friend, you might try changing your sadle height; while I can’t quite imagine (honest) how you’re striking the specified area, it may help. Rase the sadle until it starts bouncing off your backside, then lower it a tad- it should be slapping your inner theigh. Lowering the sadle too much is a good way to kick-up to seat out front. (Humm… I wonder if that counts as a seperate mount?) It also may help to focus on bring in the sadle in from the side, instead of the back, so that the side of the sadle hits your thigh.
"What advice or observations did you find most helpfull? What size wheel did you stick it to? "
i only had my 20" and the giraffe (anybody ever kicked-up a giraffe?) as the 24 is on loan to one of the club members who decided he’d be a test case and try n learn on the 24 so we can compare notes
the most usefull bit of advice in that thread was the suggestion that u have to commit to the move, there is no place for half hearted attempts
i was a bit worried about doing an ankle during a failed attempt and promptly realised that that was the kind of thinking that would cause it to happen
i wasn’t wearing my high-top boots and took a bit of a scraping on the inside of the right calf and ankle
not too bad tho
is this mount easy to learn the other way around?
i didn’t get around to try it but i did wonder if a more ‘intelligent’ kicking-up foot wont be more beneficial than being stuck down on a pedal
the straggling is wonderfull
i’ve often achieved personal bests in numbers juggling and passing at the death of an evening
it’s as if everyone fills the hall with juggling and unicycling magic and when they all leave u can go and drink it in
or something like that
I’v only been successfull with my favorit foot as the kicker- I’m struggling with left foot kicking. Presently, I get up, but kick the sadle past/across my backside instead of between the legs…
I’m at about 50% now on kickups. They can be violent and I put on my leg pads for them. You definitely have to commit to them but an over-zealous lunge puts me off-balance to the other side. A plus is that spectators think that even a failed attempt is spectacular.
There are at least 2 failure modes that are pretty nasty. The one I use the legs pads to protect from is when the seat flies past the front of my standing leg. The seat hits the ground and the wheel whacks over very hard against my standing-leg shin. Another is when the nose of the saddle thunks into my nether parts in various places. Bike shorts help a lot to keep the most sensitive parts out of the way. I get bruises on the inside of my thighs from this failure mode.
One thing that has seemed to help is to spread out the practice. Instead of doing 100-attempt sessions I do 25- or 50-attempt sessions. I think my body “flinches” less subconsciously this way and is less fearful. Now that my percentage is going up I can do more at a time because I experience fewer violent-mode failures.
Curious… I’ve tried it a few times but haven’t managed it yet, but I’ve always done it with my best foot on the pedal, kicking up with my other foot. I think the idea probably was that when you’re nearly on my best foot will be the one on the pedal, rather than the best foot still floating around.
Hmmmmm… it’s raining right now, otherwise I’d go and try…
Uh, could somebody tell me: was I on crack when I wrote this? I got it bass ackwards. Favorit foot on pedal, chocolate kicker. I’m working on the chocolate foot pedal, favorit kicker…
