I dont know if I’m just freaking out, and I dont know how common this problem is, but I’m having a problem with freemounting. I’ve only started unicycling about a week ago, so it’s probably common to have a problem with it, but it’s really weird because I was progressing very fast, and now it’s been a few days where I’ve been trying to freemount, and am not able to do it.
I can ride for as long as I want, and dont need any support at all, I just need to be able to get on the unicycle without help! I’ve done it once or twice, but it felt more like luck than anything else.
If anybody here has some advice for me on what to do, it would be greatly appreciated. If all I need to do is keep practicing, then go ahead and yell at me, and I’ll keep practicing!
I know how that feels! I can freemount 60% of the time and one thing that really helped me was putting a board (or a curb) right behind the wheel. That really helps to get the motions down. Good luck and keep practicing!
if you have a smallisher wheel put your first foot almost all the way down and step down so that your uni comes under you, then stick ure other foot on the other pedal an go.
With a 24"+ you can put your pedal halfway (in the horizontal position) and without putting weight on it, push off of the ground w/ your other foot with your weight on the saddle. Then you can put Foot #2 on pedal#2 and ride off into the sunset:)
Hey, I had the same problem for awhile. I learned to freemount on a 24" LX and the way that uni_jim described worked best for me and after about a month I get up about 80% of the time. Just keep up the practicing. Remember to lean forward if using this technique, your legs will follow with uni will follow.
I am just getting freemounting down. I am probably 50/50 now. These are the things that helped me.
First, find some video of someone doing it. That helped a ton. I used the one off the skills page at www.unicyclist.org…
I started pretty slow too. I found for me, that using a little bit of frustration as extra ooomph to get me up helped the first few times. Seems I was trying to be too timid. I started to jump further, and fight close ones harder, and then it started to come around a bit more.
Also, something that really helped my son get it. I mount with my left foot on the pedal, and my right foot down. When I would jump, my wheel would turn left, and I would fall left. I found I had to move my right foot in just a bit, and actually think about jumping about 20 degrees to the right. I would pick out a tree or something off to the right of where I wanted to go and jump towards it. It really helped me come up and be more centered.
Finally, just believe that you will mount. At some point, I just decided to do it, and I started doing it way more often…
Hopefully, some of this helped… I love the freedom of mounting without help…
Thanks for all of the help so far! I’m sure it will all be very helpful. It’s really cold outside right now, so I only get about 10 minutes of practice in before I start feeling like an ice cube, but I think that I’ve discovered something. I am able to get up onto the unicycle, and am able to balance myself pretty well too, I just have a problem getting that initial push on the pedals so I can get going. My feet either slip off, or they just dont want to move. It’s really weird. Is this where I need to learn to lean forward or something?
This really sucks because I cant experiment at all. I think I would have probably have my problem solved already if I had the time to actually unicycle…
I started out the way other posters have described, but now the pedal my foot starts out on is way at the top, nearly exactly on top, and I move forwards as I mount so there’s nearly no wheel motion while I get on.
AFTER 4 years of practice I still have bouts of freemounting failures.
I suspect that in my case it is psychological: there are places and moments I feel I will miss … and I miss!
(the real problem is I hurt myself twice quite badly while freemounting … so I still have anguish that pops up).
So I need to relax and go with proper thrust and “I don’t care” state of mind. I developped lots of small tricks for different unis that help me freemount.
They are a combination of foot position, weight transfers, seat height (and sometimes tire grabs on big wheels, I used to do running mounts but now no more since I broke a toe doing that ).
I envy those who do that effortlessly!
I totally feel your pain since I’m in the exact same position as you right now. I find that I mount much better when I’m fresh, but later I get maybe 5% of my mounts, on a good day.
I also feel like I can’t get going. I tried rocking my feet back and forth to get some motion, then go forward. It helps sometimes. But sometimes I get stuck in a backwards motion and it all goes bad from there. I think we both just need more practice.
I thank all of you again for the help that you have all given me with my problem. I am able to mount it almost half of the time now, and I believe that talking about it with all of you has helped the most (and practice, of course!) It’s finally warming up around here, and I’m really excited to finally unicycle whenever I want.
Let me just add, that I am a beginner, 6 weeks now, and I have found that the motion is almost like hopping up on the saddle, or more like riding the saddle to vertical. Pedals at 3 and 9.
I watch my “bounce” foot onto the pedal, let go of the saddle immeadiately, and go for it.
I’m about 33% success rate, but getting better all the time!
BTW, are you the Uni Jim I just saw the video in Denver news?
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