I have a problem ladies and gents. I’m a beginner when it comes to trials and heres my problem. I can get 2 palletes no problem at all, and then Ill add another to make 3 palletes and i can sometimes get that with ease but then all the sudden ill not be able to get it ever, i get the height but i always take a foot off the pedal and put it on top so i dont finish the landing, then i got back to 2 palletes and i do the same thing and i cant even get that right. AHHHH FRUSTRATING. i have no idea how to spell pallet palette palet palett pallett
edit: take the e off all the palletEs, so they are now pallets
I find that being inconsistant happens alot to me. Espically in the early days. i used to be able to get up on a uni (using two adjacent poles) and ride about 30 feet, and next time only 10 feet! It was frustrating, i know. I’m still inconsistant today in thinks like sidemounting and hopping, and others may tell you the same, but the only cure (that i know of) is to just keep riding.
Creeping self-doubt? Try using a mantra. Like ‘I can do this I can do this I can do this I can do this’. Or ‘I’m not going to crash I’m not going to crash I’m not going to crash’. Or ‘Palette Palette Palette Palette’. Whatever works for you.
When i was learning to hop, and just started doing trials, i would ride all day, and by the end of the day i had “regressed” to the point that it was quite obvious that i was better at the beggining of the day.
While this can be frustrating, it was following these days where i would reap the reward. The next day, i would find that i was better than i ever was(reaching some highest yet hop, or doing a line i couldn’t do the previous day) and realize that my regression was actually progression, and then starting the whole process over again that very same day. This way of learning how to do things always seemed the fastest for me, allthough i’m not sure pushing skills this fast was optimum, it might turn out faster in the long run to take things a little bit slower. I hope this makes sense / helps.
No i definitly understand that. In the first couple of hops or jumps ill rock and get it constantly. Then ill take a small break and its gone all together or something will happen and my talent disappears. But the next day the first couple jumps of the same height are easier, but then i lose it again so i feel like im doin nothing. It sucks the allmighty big one.
P.S. Has anyone ever seen the movie “8 days a week”? If not, you should, its an adult type of kind of sexual humor. But there is no nudity. Its really funny i suggest it highly.
I find that often confidence is about 90% of learning to do something new or well. I stood looking at my uni for an hour before I tried the jump mount. Just visualize youself completing the jump, and baskin in the glory. I tend to think “pain is temporary, glory is forever” before trying something I feel is dangerous. Another thing is to just try it like you know you can do it. This will make you more consistent. If you fail, try again, knowing that you can do it.
I had a problem when I first got into “trials” (no 95 cm hops yet, Mr. Atkins:D ) with hopping to objects higher than the hieght of my cranks. This is I think about 3 pallets on a 20". I used to jump at it and clear the hieght but jump off the uni. It was really annoying to know I could get the hieght but never actually land the hop. I found that I landed them if I started farther away from the object. The higher an obect is, the farther away you should start (IMHO). This way your body does’t jump off (I think I did it out of fear of having my foot hit the pallet and tripping) and you can get the maximum hieght by reaching the object at the apex of your hop. If you look at Ryan when he hops to picnic tables e starts a good 3 feet away from them.
Anyway, just know you can do it and go for it. Try to start a little farther away. But the main thing is confidence. If you have the confidence you can do a lot. Hope this helps.
when you have upped the height to 3 pallets your foot goes down (even thought you get the height) because you have bottled it. your brain just tells your body this thing you are trying is just too stupid! then you drop the height to 2 pallets and even though you have done the height previously your brain remembers the failed 3 pallet attempt and you bottle it again.
Its so annoying when this happens!!
its all psychological (if thats how you spell it). just keep psycing yourself up and be confident.
when i am trying harder tricks/heigher hops i do the easier trick 3 times on the trot (this gives confidence) then immediatly after compleating the 3rd time go for the harder (but similar) trick e.g. increase height of hop or a bigger gap. try not to think about the increase in height or distance. just go for it.
thanks for the input, i knew it was mostly a confidence issue, but you guys spelled it out and gave your ways to deal. I thinkt his thread was my stress relief from the problem,
We’ll i read the replies this morning and while i was reading them we started gettin some snow. Snow is not a big deal at all but i also had to work and i thought id practice some when i got home. When i got home my practice area had a foot of snow over it. I’m in the works of thinking of an indoor area to practice or else just wait til it stops snowing and clear the area. But i think I’m going to get to unicycle with someone on tuesday thatll be able to help me out. Brian Schuester (spelling Ehhh) he will be the 3rd unicyclist ive seen while i have been able to ride. It should be a good time, thanks for the charity Brian, if you read this. I’ll keep you posted if i make some type of drastic improvemnt in my hop skillz…With luck i should be the next Ryan Atkins.
Could you clear something up? Are you hopping seat in or seat out? Also, are you using a prehop, or even doing sidehops, or rolling hops? If not, you should definitely begin seat out once you get 3 palletes. I’ve noticed most seat in sidehops max out around 20", while I’ve seen <36" seat out sidehops, and I think a 36" rolling hop. Finally, if you do use a prehop, do you do a pre hop in the form of a gap, or just ramming your tire into the ground?
P.S. Do you know about the video Ryan did as a quick seminar in hopping? It includes a 95cm side hop (seat out), and a <110cm pedalgrab (I think). I learned a lot from it. It’s in .wmv format, so you should have windows media player, and do a “save target as”. Could someone could provide a link?
edit: At least you have the space to use pallets, I have to use 2’ boxes (kinda scary to fall off of:( ).
I have attempted to view the video, unfortunatly my computer is tooooo slow. Yes that sucks, i will probobly goto a friends house and try to view it and memorize it or something. Also i am jumping seat out hope, i am doign a pre hop in the form of a gap, i start about 2 feet from the pallets.
Does anyone have any suggestions when it comes to placement of pedals on your feet or seat height or how many hops before my pre hop or height of my pre hop or tire pressure for a 150lb guy. Anything you can think of. Thank yas
As for rolling hops, i suck terribly at this, i have NO idea what im doing i need to work on that bad…any suggestions for that as well?
I still like to keep the balls of my feet on the pedals for nearly everything. In jumping, your ankle flex is part of the lifting process. If you center the pedals under your feet, you cut down on this.
Seat height should be low enough that you can make the hops, or to make the seat easy to get in and out. If you’re jumping seat out, the height is less important.
of hops before your pre-hop is irrelevant. You only need the pre-hop to get you going. Extra hops just make you tired.
Tire pressure is a factor of too many things to give out specific numbers. Tire volume is the main variable. So all you really need to know is to keep your rim off the ground. If you feel it bottoming out, add some more air.
Just keep doing those sucky rolling hops. In time they will suck less and less!
Rolling hops are all about getting the right pedal position at the place you want to jump from, and then crunching your body together to push the wheel forward. To do this successfully you need lots of forward lean at the point of jumping. I recommend practicing riding at curbs (or something higher if that’s too easy). This will help with getting your pedal positioning without being too threatening.
DISCLAIMER: I can’t jump anything like Ryan Atkins, and would do much better in Trials competitions if I could jump even a little bit higher…
