I am happy to report that I just accomplished my first level ten skill today.
It feels great to have achieved something that difficult. I rode backwards seat in back in a figure eight and transitioned back to regular riding. Anyone else get their first level ten (or nine, or eight, or two, etc.) skill recently?
Wow, that one’s actually quite a bit more difficult than it sounds. Congratulations.
Andrew
congratulations!
Does anyone know why a unispin is a level ten skill? It’s soo easy… Actually, I can almost never land it. But still…
Well the skill levels were written quite a few years ago and I’m assuming unispins were FAR less common back in those days (whenever those days were).
Andrew
On the skills list a unispin is 4.6 points, whereas a figure eight seat in back backwards is 4.5. I think the unispin is done more often than at one time partly because it goes well with trials which has only become popular recently. The unispin would probably be better on level nine.
I’d put unispin below wheel walking…cause wheel walking is about 4000 times harder than a unispin.
Anyway, a new skill I just learned is 360 unispin (and I’ve only been riding 6 months )
Actually I think wheel walking is far easier than the unispin, at least when one has a 24" wheel.
Yeh, wheelwalking is waay easier than a unispin. Probably just because it’s not scary…
Nah youre both wrong…and idiots.
Thank you for that insightful word of advice, ObiWan.
Really off topic, but Why? have a Yoda avatar and Siggy when you are TheObieOne(ObiWan)…?
This means the figure 8 is way undervalued. Figure 8’s take forever to ride, and this should be considered in the scoring. A unispin takes only a few seconds.
Question for JSM: Did you do it to IUF standards, or to the much easier USA standard? For USA levels you’re allowed to touch the seat to your body. For the IUF levels, you must follow the skill descriptions in the Standard Skill Lists, which means seat out skills do not touch the body. That includes the hand holding the seat.
I didn’t get this first time off… some others may not either. So just to tell you all, I think this means the hand can’t touch the body either.
Right. Sounds stupid, I know. Excepting where it’s connected, your hand can’t touch your butt, your leg, etc. Wording it specifically enough to satisfy all the nerds on this newsgroup would take up too much space. 
Yes the unispin is easy but I find Gliding the same dificulty but more fun. I feel that everyone likes the unispin so much because it looks cool, its not that fun. I advise that you learn to glide now that is the fun stuff, especially if you get a small tarp and parrasel now that sounds like a whole lotta fun (Bojigada)
gliding is fun! Especially going downhill, and you keep speeding up, faster and faster and faster and then your foot falls off the frame and gets smacked by the pedals and you have to bail out so you hit the cement at like 15-20 mph.
wheeeee!
I’m afraid I had the seat against my body most of the time. I agree that circles and figure 8’s are way undervalued on the skills list, especially on things like hand wheel walk and seat drag. My biggest challenge with seat in back backwards figure eight was that by the time I get through it my legs are so tired I can hardly make the transition back to regular riding.
In my experience (not much per freestyling), with seat out skills, the difference between holding the seat against your body and having it away, is significant. For instance, seat out backward riding is fairly straightforward with the seat welded against my breadbasket, but the same trick with the seat held in hand, six inches out, feels nearly as sketchy as drop seat riding. But then again, I’m new to almost all these tricks so they all feel sketchy at this point.
JL
looking at the skill levels lists again i realized that i can do some higher level skill stuff like 180 hops and stuff but can’t idle well or ride backwards for more than about 3 rotations. yesterday i figured out how to pedal grab onto a bench that’s about 2 feet off the ground. but many of the level 4 skills elude me. oh well maybe this winter when i can’t ride outside as much i’ll get some non-muni skills.
Yeah, seat out stuff backwards is a bit harder when one holds the seat well away from one’s body. I can do it fairly well, just I can’t do the figure eight’s unless I at least have my hand against my body. The farther out you hold the seat, the better it looks though.