I learned how to ride a bike with 2 wheels, at the age of 18 mos, in of all things, an interior hallway of a house. My first muni is on it’s way and should be here next week. I’ve been watching a ton of videos and reading about how to ride for noobs. It got me to thinking that maybe learning to ride it in our 25ft long interior hallway might be a good idea? Maybe there is too much side to side movement sway on a uni? Or my arms can’t balance check right since it is so tight width wise?
I can’t decide if this is a good idea or not? Any thoughts?
The muni I got is a 24" surly conundrum with large marge rim and 2.5 hookworm slick tire.
And it comes with a brake, but isn’t on it currently as it needs a longer cable the guy said. Should I learn with a brake or without?
I have zero uni experience. I ride road, fixed gear, and fat bikes and I am a marathon runner. I certainly am in shape and have the drive, but obviously lack uni exposure.
I tried the hallway. The first time I scuffed the wall the wife said “No more!”. So if you’re not scared to get some tire marks on the wall go right ahead!
I think you’d be better off at a local school or parking lot maybe. I started in my backyard patio, then went to the school down the street once I outgrew it. Find a nice wall and introduce yourself, you are going to be good friends for a little while.
About the brake, probably a good idea to skip it for now. There’s no way you’ll be able to use it until you can ride. Also when you’re learning you may damage it. I’d wait until you’re proficient enough to actually use it.
If you learned to ride a bike at 18 months old, you should have no trouble with a unicycle! Wow!
The hallway should work great but you might do some damage to the walls once that you start “going for it”. If you have a deck with a railing that works really well, or a local tennis court where you can hold onto the fence.
Being small and having a small, close to the ground bike was probably a much better idea in a hallway vs a large uni and an adult. I might just try it when learning to mount and during the wall hug stage, move it outside to our garage after that.
I don’t mind if I scuff, I’m the wife, I’ll just repaint.
You can do your hallway rides until you get comfortable on uni. Just learn sitting position. That should take about 1-3 hours. But after that go to open area because you will not be able ride there properly.
I also learned in my dorm hallway! I think that is the best kind of hallway to learn in, long, hard floor, indestructible.
I think it just slowed me down a bit as I got better and needed to be able to swerve and catch my balance, but for getting the first revolutions in it was perfect!
My kids learnt to ride in the hall. As long as it’s not too narrow and it’s not carpeted (the pile on carpet tends to drag the tyre in one direction), and as long as you own the building and take responsibility for any damage, go for it.
NBT, glad to see you made it over here (from MTBR). The best advice I took from the vids and books…keep ALL your weight on the seat. Too much weight on the pedals will send you side to side.
And don’t give up. 10 hours of practice allows your inner gyro to adapt. No longer do you have side-to-side to learn (biking skill), now you have fore and aft to add to it.
Start one peddle forward-> one pedal backward…two forward, two backward…etc., etc.
Oh, ya. Don’t give up.
My house doesn’t offer much of a hallway, so I learned on a public tennis court surrounded by a chain-link fence (for grabbing a hold of). A nice, smooth surface.
Thanks for the tips! Yeah, I was lucky enough that another mtbr member read my post about the conundrum muni and happened to make me a decent deal on it, so here I am. It should be here later this week and I can’t wait!!!
In addition to scuffing the wall I’d be worried about putting a dent or even hole in the dry-wall from a hand, wheel, pedal or seat handle.
Smoother the surface the better & highish pressure. Tennis court and 50 psi was the ideal surface for me.
More important than a super smooth surface for me was a long railing (can pull or push yourself away) about chest height while seated on the uni. I found one 90 ft. long at my local elementary school.
Your uni prob comes w/ pinnied pedals. I’d take out the pins at first or better yet, get some good plastics to save your shins (Odyssey JC’s are good).
(in case you haven’t found out already)
-Stabilize yourself w/ cranks at 6 & 9:00 w/ a highish seat, leg should be slightly bent when foot is at 6:00.
-Sit upright, weight ON THE SEAT and look out ahead, not down.
-Pedal a half rev (try not to hold on in between), then another, when you can do ~ 10 1/2 revs in a row go for full, then 2, 5, etc. Put your arms out for balance if it helps and feel free to wave them as needed, eventually w/ no arm movement (eg lock fingers behind back).
when you can ride the length several times in a row w/ rail on each side dismount at a specific spot and foot, then the other foot (doing this will reduce nasty UPD’s). When you can do several in a row ride about.
For turning just start doing WIDE circles (I think I started w/ 40 yds diameter) and then figure 8’s w/ your first big goal of 3 yd diam each.
It is natural to drift to one side or the other at the beginning. This may be set-up (crooked seat, tilted surface) or more likely technique. You can solve this w/ LOTS of circles in the opp diir of your drift.