Been debating whether to ask this or not, but here goes:
I got moved into town and I believe torn muscles in chest and back are healed. lol, with age and diabetes, I don’t heal as fast as I did when younger.
It is winter here and have had outside temps of 0F (-18C) so far and have 10" of snow on top of ice on lot of roads and sidewalks. At my age, I’m not very interested in trying to learn riding in those conditions. Maybe if younger and healthier, I’d do it, but not now.
Is there anything I can do here in living room/kitchen area that would help me learning during these winter/dark months?
I’ll only be in this apartment for 1 year before moving to Homer, Alaska and this apartment was painted and new carpet installed before I moved in, so don’t want to do a lot of crazy stuff in here and tear things up
Guess it just amounts to I don’t want to put the unicycle up for next 6 months or so
Couldn’t hurt to just sit on the unicycle while holding onto something and maybe roll for and aft a few inches . I think that could help you get the feel for it while watching tv or listening to music . Cheers to you keeping at it .
The only time I ever tried to ride inside and sure enough my freezer got quite the pedal strike. It happened so fast.
I say, don’t do it inside.
Bundle up for the cold and use safety gear. Go Michelin man and you won’t feel a thing.
Go out when it’s cold on a freshly plowed or shovelled drive. You’ll have incredible grip with a low pressure tire.
Stay away from ice… for now.
Drawback for winter is that you need a light source unless you can ride during the day.
The good thing about winter riding is that come spring time your skill level will jump up one whole notch because everything will seem easy in the dirt.
Many years ago when I lived alone in a small house wth tiled concrete floors, I would sometimes practise idling indoors. It soon became boring. You need to be fairly confident because the proximity of furniture etc. can be off putting making a UPD more likely.
A better idea may be to find a local juggling or circus skills club. I went to one a few times. They hired a school sports hall for one evening a week. There was enough room to ride small circles and figures of 8, ride backwards and so on. The people were nice to be around, and I even got to go on a couple of giraffes.
Yeah, keeping apartment and furniture in good shape is very important
Right now, would just love some pavement or concrete to learn/ride on.
And that is my fear. I’ll fall and the wheel will launch into something.
Would be nice, but nothing like those around here that I’m aware of Main interests around here are boats, planes, snow machines, and 4 wheelers. Growing up in a log cabin in this area, I don’t remember seeing anybody juggling or riding an unicycle.
But thanks Mikefule for your response/help
Oh, if that would help, I’d buy one immediately. Ride like that while watching tv would be nice. Could sit it in hallway so I could reach out to either wall if necessary.
Thanks Jim
Wow, brave man That would sure help teaching how to turn and maneuver around items
This makes me wonder how well a wheel with a non internal disk hub would hold up in comparison. I don’t know if I will ever get to this level, but nice to know how well things stand up in comparison.
The rim on this uni is not drilled and seemed to hold up ok. Would it have failed if it was drilled?
So what can you already do on a uni? I learned riding in my apartment 2 years ago and when I finally could ride 4 rotations, I took it outside. Only idling I’ve been trying since inside my apartment/house. If you have neighbours living below you I wouldn’t learn to hop.
When you put all furniture to the side, you can try riding small circles. Do you have carpet or a hard floor?
Plenty of top riders do crazy stuff/huge drops with KH drilled rims and they hold OK (there must be loads of videos in you tube). I am sure quite a few rims (drilled or not drilled) break here and there when doing extreme stuff (nothing is bomb proof!).
It must be a real pain to have so much snow and ice. Where I live is ice/snow free all year round so never had that problem (plenty of mud and rain though!). When I was learning I tried to do it inside the house but I found that it was quite difficult if you are still trying to learn the basics (not enough space). As others have pointed out a big indoor hall would be your best bet if you want avoid ice outside…
Thanks for all the advice. Whatever I do, I’ll let you know.
Will be nice starting next year to be in somewhat milder weather so I can be out riding and hopefully be more comfortable riding in snow and on ice
UniMyra, that is amazing. I need get one of those tires. Of course, first thing is to learn to ride well enough to ride like that. I think the furtherest I rode, before I moved, was 40’ or so, and that was in paved parking area.
Thanks for the video and info on that tire (tyre).
