Greetings forum! I’ve been lurking for a little while and figured I’d finally start a thread to introduce myself, ask questions, and probably ramble a bit.
I’m a 39 year old geologist (read: outdoorsy and loves beer) with two little kids and an awesome, (thankfully understanding) wife. My family duties take up a good chunk of my time, so the majority of my weekday riding has been after dark.
I just started riding at the beginning of January 2016. One day I was looking at unicycles on C-list, then I found videos of people riding muni and I felt something I wanted to do. Two weeks later I was staring at my new 24” Club from UDC. I honestly have no idea what led me to unicycles. I had an old, 16” unicycle from Sears when I was a kid which I was able to ride a little bit before it broke. I never replaced it and never gave another thought to riding in the intervening 25+ years. Given my stated interests, the 24” Club is probably not the best choice, but it provided an affordable starter that can hopefully take a little abuse while I hone my skills. I am quite happy with it, and I figure if I can ride something on my Club, it’ll be that much easier when I get a true muni.
In short, the journey so far has been surprising and AWESOME! I love the exercise, I love the focus that riding requires, and I love how relatively easy it is to incorporate into my already busy life. Riding nearby trails on a b*ke is boring, not so on a unicycle.
My skill progression is geared towards muni. By the end of January I was able to ride forward and steer. By the end of February I had learned the “tire grab” free mount, was working on climbing hills, and was riding easy trails XC along the river. At the end of March I was able to climb while holding the front of the seat, and I figured out how to stall and bunny hop. So far in April I now have a reliable “hands-free” static mount, and I regularly do a 2-mile loop on weeknights and 5-6 miles of trails on weekends.
While the progression of major skills is immensely satisfying, I find what keeps me coming back is the small moments of improvement I notice on just about every ride. For example, last night I surprised myself by leaning and pedaling smoothly around a corner that I have normally made by an abrupt “torso-turn”. The turn was finished before I even realized what had happened and it made me break into a wide grin. These moments are the best. Anyone else experience these?
One other question: what next? I plan to keep working on climbing and hanging onto the saddle, and I need to smooth out my static mount so that it is more useful on narrow trails, but what off road skill should I learn next?
Thanks everyone! And happy riding!
Jason