Learning Journal

Riding Advice
569

Risk: U+28 Log

I had a very good day on the UC.

Lots of practice. Mantra today was mainly “peddle faster”.

Mid afternoon, I set a new PR. 10 pedal pushes (5 revs, about 25 feet) I had about 10 sets of 7 pedal pushes throughout the day. Lots of 5s.

That 5 rev PR is one rev short of my original goal. It is 4 revs short of someone’s definition of being a unicycle rider. Yea! :smiley: Learning is coming along.

I replaced the pedals, as the stock ones on the hopper were falling apart.

On a somewhat negative note, a friend wrote that he saw a youngster riding 100 yards up and down the street. He said that he had gotten his new unicycle on Friday and was just learning how to use it. Yeah, I guess that if I had learned how to do this in junior high I might have been a bit braver than I now am. But maybe not as persistent.

Nothing much else to note.

570

Since dishing out the pep talks, I decided to aim a bit back at myself! Set out to do a 2 mile ride tonight. At the end of the long sidewalk (.5 mile), I’ve been wanted to turn left and go uphill for the next mile. Decided tonight to go a mile out, and a mile back. Well, I got to the mile mark, looked up the rest of the hill, and said, JUST DO IT!! So I went up the rest of the hill, 1.5 miles out. Turned around, rode maybe a half mile back. It got pretty dark, the road is quite narrow at that point, so I walked it almost a half mile to the long sidewalk, and rode the last half mile back.

I’m psyched that I did the whole uphill, and some of the downhill coming back! My legs were on fire, and I loved every spasm! I’m SICK, I tell you.

GREYLOCK! GREYLOCK! GREYLOCK!

571

Way to hang in there AC. Next time you do it, it may start to get easier.

572

Way to go AnimalCage!

Gotta ask a stupid question now and then…
What is Greylock!?

573

For sure!

574

http://www.unicyclist.com/forums/showthread.php?t=89202

Mt Greylock is in western Massachusetts, and the site of a time trials that I am getting sucked into (I mean I honestly and truly volunteered for it). I love a challenge, and anything that gets me motivated to push myself beyond all reasonable limits will translate into greater and quicker success.

I have 2 1/2 months to train for an 8-mile uphill race. On a Club 24. Sanity check? Anyone? Anyone? Anyone?

575

New & New

First, let me say how cool it is to see the learning reports! It is motivating and fun :slight_smile: I gotta say that persistence was THE #1 thing that made me learn as a brand noobie, and it is still the thing that makes me progress. My attempts, starting at age 13, and then several more scattered across the years, were all short-lived because I lacked persistence. The #2 thing was this Learning Journal. It was incredible how much it helped me; both because I had to come back in and ‘report’, and because there were so many useful tips and such overwhelming encouragement. I am glad that it is serving the same purpose for so many of us. Isn’t this CommUNIty a cool place?!

OK, now for my post;

New #1 -
I went out Saturday afternoon with my pal Bert (UPD in Utah) for my first real Mountain Unicycling experience. I have been on a dirt road a couple times, and in the mud (same road, just very wet), and in the snow. I also had one ride with Bert where we rode on a wide trail but it was not very challenging. Saturday’s ride was anything but easy, but it was worth all the challenge. I never liked MT Biking much (I love to ride my roadie), but this MUni thing is easy to get hooked on! We went up, down, narrow, wide, hard, soft, smooth, rocky, pretty much everything. It was a great adventure, and there were many times that I totally spiked my heart rate. The best part? Not crashes! :smiley: I had a couple UPD’s and a few more PD’s, but no contact with the ground with anything but my feet :stuck_out_tongue:

#New #2 -
I took the 36er down from the hook in the garage ceiling for the first time since the big crash. I rode over at a park that is very flat and has lots of wide sidewalks and smooth road around the perimeter. I totally focused on form, balance, consistency, control, and forced myself to ride slowly the entire time.

Unicycling has taught me a lot about myself that I kinda knew, or thought I knew, but didn’t really understand. The biggest of these is that I expect too much from myself too early when learning something new. This causes me to either get frustrated, or to make irrational choices. My big crash on the 36er (I have actually had 2 now, but the second one was quite a bit worse than the first) was just such an instance.

The good news is that I have not been seriously injured (no broken bones, not hospital visits), AND I believe that I have learned to back off my expectations a little, and set simpler, more realistic (rational) goals ;).

So the 36er ride this evening was about 2 miles and it went very well. I am going to really take it slowly as I learn to ride this big beast. I was in way too big a hurry before to make progress and to ride long distances. For now I am very satisfied with a 2 mile ride at a very slow pace.

Sorry for the long post, but it has been a while. This summer will be very busy so my posts will be spotty. But I still love coming back here to this thread to see how everyone is doing, and to post my own learnings and progress.

Key Learnings:

  1. Don’t set expectations in the unreasonable zone!
  2. Don’t attempt any comparisons to others - be motivated and inspired by them, but don’t try to keep up or out-do, etc. (I have been doing this a lot more than I recognized)

Thanks 57UR, AC, IMR for all your cool posts the past few weeks, and everyone else too.

G’night TLJ :sunglasses:

576

So AC, are you asking us to tell you that you are insane?! :wink:

I have a 24" cruiser and I have ridden it 2 miles a couple times. Would I want to ride it 4 times that far?? Not really. On the other hand it is definitely possible. I met a teenager last spring that regularly rode a Torker 20" with a bent crank arm for 12+ miles. I think he was pretty crazy, but he didn’t have another unicycle and he loved to ride.

How steep are the hills? Do you have a comfortable saddle?

I think you can do it! Just go for it :smiley:

577

You will know the week before the ride if you have a chance of finishing. Train toward the goal, but don’t burn yourself out by focusing only on the next 2 months. Long term is the real goal.

578

Risk: U+29

Got an hour of practice in after work. Air temp about 100 with a nice breeze. I have the shade of a tree to practice in, on the street in front of my house.

About 45 minutes was balance rides. No PR. A bunch of 5 pedal pushes. That has become my expected distance each time I start. I kept pushing myself to pedal faster at the beginning, as I was getting behind and had to dismount to the front when the lean angle got to great.

There were a number of 6s and 7s mixed in the bunch.

I tried some bunny hopping as an experiment. I did this maybe 6 times. I could let go of the support for several hops. I mainly did it for balance and to break up the distance runs.

For the same reason, I did some idling practice while holding on to a chair. Tis was a lot different than when I did early practice with rocking back and forth. In the idling practice, I concentrated on keeping weight on the seat and having my upper body stay still while the unicycle went back and forth under me.

I decided I did not trust the cheap Walmart pedals with adapters. So I changed out the pedals that came on my club trainer 29. That set of pedals seems much more robust for my continued training.

579

Correcting unintentional turns

It just occurred to me that when I start drifting right, the correct action is to turn the wheel slightly right so that I lean left and begin turning left. When I am drifting left, I need to slightly turn the wheel left so that I am leaning right and start turning that direction.

Turning on a bi*e is automatic from learning as a kid. But on a motorcycle, that is part of the training. They taught me to pull on the handlebar on the outside of the turn you wish to start. That did not make much sense to me until I tried it. It works.

After a while it will become automatic what I should do to begin to turn left, but knowing what will become automatic may speed the process. The only way to begin to lean left is to get the wheel out to the right and vise-versa. :roll_eyes:

580

Thanks. I have difficulty with that.

3 mile ride tonight, same as Sunday. Problem was, I did a full-out sprint for the first .4 miles, which killed me for the rest. Made it, but still too much walking before I can call it a true 3-miler. I did do it in under 30 minutes, which is a 6 mph pace. Want to aim for 6 miles in an hour by July 10th, 2 months before Greylock. Want to do 8 miles by August 10th, 1 month before Greylock, then start focusing on steep hills.

Key Learning Points:

  1. I tend to cycle between leaning forward about 5 revs, then leaning back to stabilize, and I lose all my momentum. Need consistency, possibly by…
  2. Keep my head up! I look down too much. If I need to look down, I should move my eyes, not lower my chin.
581

Risk: U+30

An hour of practice this evening after supper.

Much more consistency with 5-6 pedal pushes. Several 7s and 8s. No PRs.

Bunny hopping went well. I made it to 6 hops. :slight_smile:

It occurs to me that starting pedaling from the bunny hops, without touching a support, might be a good balance exercise.

582

Mt Greylock ride

What distance is the ride? How much elevation gain? I know that the AT crosses Greylock. It is up there. 3400 feet or so.

583

Woah!
That sounds good.
Couldn’t you call that a PR ?
I haven’t heard you talk about hopping before.

584

I tried it two days ago for the first time, then yesterday. OK. PR for bunny hopping.

I did some thinking about my 50 foot distance goal last night. I believe that I need to work on coming to a stop and dismounting toward the rear. I think that will help me in avoiding the habit I am in of continuing to fall forward until I can no longer control it. So that is one goal for the next couple days.

Tonight is mainly astronomy in the park - outreach to folks that want to see the sun or moon or Saturn in a telescope. Maybe I will get some UC practice in while I am there.

585

Yes, definitely!
Coming off the back feels a whole lot more controlled than coming off the front.
You just step off like you stepped on… and you really don’t have to come to a stop first.

586

Mt Greylock Ride

I wonder…

There must be some point when riding a unicycle is more efficient than walking/jogging.

For a person getting used to bi*ing, riding 12 miles in a few hours is MUCH easier than jogging or even walking 12 miles.

For a more seasoned bi*er, riding a century takes most of the day, but it can be accomplished with a month of training. Very few individuals can ever complete a 100 mile run in a single day.

So it might be concluded that biking is more efficient of time and effort than running for these distances.

I wonder when a unicycle rider reaches that point? Does it take a year before a 2 mile UC ride is easier than a 2 mile jog?

I ask this, thinking about AC’s Mr Greylock attempt. I was thinking of asking him if he thought he was in good enough shape to run the course. I know, for me, there would be no way that I could contemplate riding the course on a unicycle unless I could run it. And a 15 mile uphill running course would be a BIG goal for me. (I have run one 26 mile marathon, and do not plan to do that again.) Bi*ing is another matter. A 15 mile uphill ride would take some time, but is something I could do tomorrow. I would not win any race, but I could complete it.

Maybe a unicycle eventually gets to be more efficient than running, but not as efficient as a geared bi*e. But maybe that point will only be achieved for me after 1) learning how to do this and 2) spending considerable effort in becoming efficient.

Comments?

587

Yes!
You are in TONS better shape than I am!

When you get the hang of the unicycle, you are probably going to take off like a rocket and leave me in the dust!

588

My best guess is an 8.4 mile ride with about 2700 ft gain.

When I was a teen, I lived on my ten-speed. I was known to do 10 hour rides just for fun, my longest was just over 11 hours. I suppose I should have competed, just never occured to me, and no one I knew was a racer of anything.

Also, I never ran. I hate running. With a passion. Actually, I hate jogging. If I run, I much prefer to sprint. My build is more muscular, and I prefer strength over a thinner runner’s body.

I don’t think I could run 2 miles. I can uni 3 miles. So I don’t equate running and uni. I don’t equate biking and uni. I would more equate biking and running, because the legs are constantly moving forward, whereas with uni, there’s the constant backpressure.

Last night on my ride, I passed a walker/jogger. We were on an uphill portion, and I was pushing hard. UPDed at the top from wobbly legs, and the jogger passed me while I was bent over gasping. I quickly mounted, and passed her again. Never saw her again, she probably walked more, it looked like the hills were getting to her, too. My avg speed was about 6 mph, so I think I’m on par with an average jogger. Once I get a bigger uni, there will be no catching me!