Around May 12th I hurt my right foot with a UPD. I think it was the UPD, but I’m not positive on that. I really did not feel it much at the time it happened. Two days later, I was squatted down for a couple of hours working on my atv. My right foot was pretty sore and swollen when I finished. I have not been able to walk very well since as my toes don’t bend much now. No broken bones, just soft tissue damage according to the doc. I’m guessing I aggravated the hell out of a minor injury into a worse one.
Lots of stupid little injuries keeping me off the uni. I’m sure most of you have gone through it many times also. Anyhow, that’s why I haven’t posted any progress reports for the past few weeks. I hope to be back at it in a couple of weeks or sooner. I am getting pretty much caught up with all the ‘quote of the day from non riders’ and ‘your latest ride’ posts though. Ok, end of my whine for now. Cheers
As Stupid Does, Yup, the ice went off the lake here about the beginning of May. There will be no ice fishing till December. My big toe still doesn’t bend much but the rest of the foot is coming along nicely. I think I’ll be riding in about two weeks. Ice on the foot and in the glass for now.
I consider myself an intermediate/advance rider. I can do some tricks(hops, backwards, curb drops), and I “think” I have mastered most terrain, grass, gravel, stones, slope,..etc. However, I get into some serious UPD injuries now, then. Why? I think in most “near miss” cases, my body instinctively compensates/saves me.
However, when it doesn’t I am not prepared. I may be riding to fast and sitting perfectly “pin head balanced”…you know fully seated, and I hit a bump and fall off. I can remember that feeling, when the unicycle is perfectly vertical and you start falling off…it feels like you are on a rollercoaster cresting the zenith and start going down!!! It all happens in slow motion and your are “frozen” to think/do anything except put your hands out for a crushing drop.
So, to avoid this here’s what I do.
1.) Consciously, fight the natural instinct to try to “save/stay on”.
2.) Instead, when you get in trouble aggressively kick out the unicycle.
3.) Bend/throw your hips back into a stable squat position and get ready to land on feet and stop hard.
4.) Forget about landing in a running stride to save yourself. Doesn’t work if you have speed.
During the start of every riding session, I try to purposely jump off/kick out the unicycle. It needs to become the “natural reflex” not the trying to save impulse.
It’s been six weeks since I hurt my foot and I’m still not good to go. Going stir crazy. If I had any hair I’d probably pull it out. Anyhow…
slam-dance, interesting method to avoid upd injuries. When I lose it as a upd is occurring, I don’t think I try too hard to save it from happening. I bail and run it out. If I can’t run it out because I’m going too fast, I try to roll as I fall and absorb the impact that way. Doing this is ok but is iffy while on rough terrain. I have also ‘rolled out’ on flat ground and rolled onto the palm protection portion of my wrist guards, that’s hard on the ribs.
Running out a fast upd can also really pound your leading leg down hard onto the ground. I don’t have much experience or luck with hills yet. When I upd on one, I usually just go splat.
I think your method “3. Bend/throw your hips back into a stable squat position and get ready to land on feet and stop hard.” May have merit for me and be worth trying to learn. I think that would take a lot of practice to get it right.
It would be interesting to hear what other riders try to purposely do when a upd occurs. Certainly a lot of times there is no choice other than, letting gravity decide.
At least for me, there is not much I can do on purpose when a upd occurs. The only thing to “practice” would be martial arts/parkour style rolls, so that they are in your repertoire of reflexes, if you haven’t done them before, or haven’t tried them in a while. The thing I do on purpose is either avoiding bails, or staying alert.
It’s so highly situation specific that your time is much better invested in doing some stretching/mobility work on your body, rather than practice falling much (I’ve heard of people doing that on grass, and find it mostly silly). 3 minutes of activating ankles, shoulders and wrists with some circular motions/extension-flexions before riding will probably do much more to prevent injury in my opinion.
As a kid I did a couple of years of judo. A lot of the early training was about falling, not just the judo rolls but also to the sides and the back.
Some of it has stuck with me throughout my life and I’m convinced it has prevented many broken bones and other pleasantries. So I’m a bit in disagreement with finnspin here.
Aw. And I thought 12 days were bad You have my support.
Let’s hope the ice machine will keep churning.
A beginner is more likely to have the uni kicked out from under them by an obstacle. Gravity will make them go down pretty quickly and they may not land on their feet. Getting a hand on the saddle is a first step toward avoiding this kind of fall.
Once the connection between the unicycle and rider is established (not a weight-in-the-seat connection, but rather a rigid connection), UPDing happens more slowly and horizontally, making it more likely the rider will land on their feet.
One reason a beginner might have a bad UPD/fall: They are obsessed with riding their best distance, then they dismount near the point of exhaustion.
From my reading on the forums, it seems like too many novice riders don’t learn soon enough how to do a planned-dismount off the back of the unicycle. That technique helps the rider learn how to shift their weight behind the wheel.
Garp, I too did judo as a teenager. I fully agree, break falls and rolls do stay with you and have certainly helped save my hide many times. The ice machine is going full tilt. I don’t want to ride anymore, I just want to drink! Lol
finnspin is bang on with his point about preride stretches being very beneficial in preventing injuries
You are describing what many of us call “Unintentional Coasting”. When you take one (or both) foot off the pedal, only to find out the uni is too balanced to go where you thought it would. Instead it stays upright forever (like an eighth of a second), as your body starts to fall in the wrong direction!
To avoid that, try not to take a foot off too early. But as a learner, this takes time to learn because you also don’t want to “ride the uni into the ground”.
Therefore, it’s important to know how to fall. The judo rolls are one of several reflexes it’s good to develop, so your body is ready to do them the instant you realize that’s what’s needed. That reflex has helped me many times over the years.
Really, it depends on the speed. In my early riding, it was mostly on 24" unicycles. Maximum pedaling speed for me was not beyond my maximum running speed, so usually I could run out of things. But if you’re going fast on a bigger wheel, this may not be the case. So pad up!
Most of my forward dismounts on my 26" Road uni have been run-outs, with some exceptions. Those generally weren’t very pretty. Now that I ride a geared 36", I am a little more chicken of speed, and mostly keep it below the sprint speeds I used to be able to do on the 24"…
Excellent advice. Not sure what is meant by kicking out, but do practice the various ways you can fall off the unicycle, by doing them on purpose. Do them enough times that your body has figured out the optimal way to react to each. Much of my early unicycling was done on 6’ giraffes, and it was important to know how to deal with a fall to the side, for example. If you know how to angle your legs toward the ground in the direction you are falling, you can usually land fairly gracefully!
Practice going off the front, off the back, and falling to the sides. Train your body to be ready for all of these, and when they happen in actual riding you’ll be ready, and avoid a lot of injuries.
Hi all, although I’m still keen, I’m yet unable to ride my uni after hurting my foot 11 weeks ago. It turns out I badly damaged the joint between my upper foot and the big toe. Due to the trauma, gout set into the joint. I was walking on the side of my foot for ten weeks before they figured out the gout thing was there. I’m now on medication and improving rapidly. I can now walk ‘flat footed’ although gingerly and I can put some weight on my toe. I constantly think about riding and cannot wait to get going on the uni again. I have been lurking and watching the forums. Garp, you’re doing awesome, keep at er. Anyhow, not to rush the healing process and have a further setback, I do hope to be back in the saddle in a couple of weeks.
Cheers, keep ridin.
lowerstackmac, thanks for sharing your journey of learning to ride. It has been fun following along. It is not fun not being able to unicycle. I broke my fibula last November and was out for over three months.
Matt, I am almost three months too, it’s tough to wait it out as you well know. I am sooo close that I have been tempted to jump on my uni. I still have a bit more to go. I think maybe this week will be it, keeping my eyes crossed.
Well finally after being off the uni for three full months, I gave it a go today. I just used my 19” Athmos and it went well. I took it easy and did supported mounts as my foot is still a bit swollen. Only peddled around the yard for half an hour getting used to it again and practicing dismounting to the rear. I did try freemounting and succeeded after my third attempt. No extra pain resulted today, so all in all I’m thinkin it was a good start. I have no plan other than to mess around in the yard for a few days and see how things develop. Additionally, I don’t think I had gout in my injured foot. I believe it was just a case of old goat.
Congratulations, old goat! Now that you start riding again, beyond any loss of muscle tone in the “riding” muscles, you may find that your riding has improved. Why? Though you haven’t been actually doing it, you may have been riding in your head, and thinking about all that stuff in this thread. That can actually work! Though usually it’s more a case of taking a few days off, sometimes you just don’t have a choice.
So I’m curious to know if you think you got any better, even though you weren’t riding at all?
You have my support.