Well, I don’t have it yet. But I ordered the Torker TX (5ft) Giraffe.
Now… I have the map to the closest hospital handy.
What other tips would help?
TIA!
Cool! I’m getting that same giraffe for Christmas! Yay!!! 
my advice is dont try to hop on a giraffe unless you know what youre getting into. Me and my friend went out for a ride recently, and i decided to take my giraffe since i normally dont, and i tried hopping, and the uni slipped behind me and i fell as if i had no bones. It was actually kinda funny. The same thing happened when i tried to do one footed on it. Anyway yeah im still hoping to sell my giraffe, and if anyone wants it before i put it on ebay im selling it for 125 free shipping.
Jon
What kind?
get used to dismounting with the raffie in front of u before u even try n ride it
riding it will be easy enough
just watch for the raffie trying to pull the seat out from between your legs
make sure the seat-height is correct
but make sure u’re comfortable getting off the back of the raffie and u’ll be kewl
the main reason why this is more of an issue than it is with a ‘normal’ uni, is the fact that if u dismount off the front, and the wheel, on it’s way back, stops against something u didn’t see, u can hurt your spine quite badly
and learn to freemount
it is [IMHO] the kewlest thing in the uni-world
I don’t know what type you are selling, but I paid less than that for my brand new Torker 5ft (with shipping).
This is true but the same applies to letting the wheel roll out to the front. This will hurt your nads (for the guys) and is probably less scary than hurting your spine, it can be pretty bad as well.
Best thing to do is, when in doubt, don’t let the wheel roll out. Instead, stop the bottom pedal and just go down like a tree. There are some who say you won’t land as hard, because your path to the ground is curved. The logic makes sense to me. What do you physics people have to say about that?
Before trying to freemount your giraffe, ride it around some and practice falling off in the direction of all points of the compass. Then you’ll be much better equipped to make that mount safely, and be able to ride away from it when it happens.
I’d disagree. You will fall from the same distance, and will accelerate at the same rate downwards (9.81 m/s^2), hitting the ground at the same vertical speed.
If you take two balls, and at the same time drop one while throwing the other horizontally, both will hit the ground at the same time (provided you release the horizontal ball perfectly horizontal). Each will hit the ground at the same vertical velocity.
–corbin
Right. I’ve just been learning about this stuff in physics. Actually, the horizontal ball will probably take slightly longer though, because it travels farther and is therefore subject to more air resistance.
This fails to take into account any interaction between the unicycle and the rider.
If you stop the wheel and pivot down you can apply pressure to the pedals to slow the descent. Just as you could control the speed of the wheel rolling in the “straight-down” dismount.
Using your “two balls” example:
First case:
Attach a ball atop a 2 meter stick. Then with the stick balanced allow it to tip over and observe the time it take for the ball to reach the ground (still attached to the end of the stick).
Next case:
Do not attach the ball to the same 2 meter stick but balance it on top. Now, with the stick upright and the ball atop it, quickly pull the stick out from under the ball. I believe in this case the ball will reach the ground much more quickly than in case #1.
It’s not physics that tells me this though - it’s my intuition. If my intuition get’s in a fight with physics my money’s on physics.
-mg
Yes I definitely think the unicycle’s being there is the factor that provides the difference. The shorter the giraffe, the greater the difference.
I don’t know how to translate that in to physics language. But I guess this is not uncommon. Most of the times I see people offering physics explanations for real-world unicycling phenomena, the physics people leave stuff out.
So one person is dropping straight down; essentially a direct drop from seat-level. The other person is taking a curved path, so their downward acceleration is either slowed or delayed (or both) before it starts picking up speed.
You need to look at it in terms of conservation of energy here. In both methods of dismounting, they start with the same potential energy. When the person on the giraffe just drops straight down, all that energy is downward and gets absorbed by the impact (either by the person bending their knees, breaking bones, producing heat, etc). When the rider dismounts while keeping the wheel still (like a falling tree), the force acting on the rider by the unicycle causes the unicyclist to move horizontally while falling down. So when the rider impacts the ground, the rider is still moving horizontally in addition to some energy being absorbed by the impact. However, the total energy needs to be the same, so with their being energy from the rider still moving horizontally, there is then less energy absorbed in the impact when comparing to just falling straight down.
That is very typical as there are a ton of variables and usually physics and engineering try to simplify the problem as much as possible by not considering the insignificant variables, such as air resistance in this case. But you probably meant something else by this statement.
noo all you darn physics geniuses beat me to it. i thought id be the first to correct him. i think this is what gilby was trying to say, only in equations:
(mass)(gravity)(height) = 1/2 (mass)(velocity)^2
mass cancels out, gravity is about 10 m/s…height of unicycle lets say is 2 meters…
20 = 1/2 V^2
voila: your velocity when u land is the square root of 40, or like 6.something meters/second. whether u curve down or go straight down, ur converting all your potential energy into kinetic. sry for reiterating what other ppl said but i just couldn’t let a post on physics go by without contributing something 
-grant
Giraffe dismounts
I don’t know why, but when I dismount “falling tree style” instead of dropping straight down, it is easier on my body. I’ve so far not had a bad (painful) dismount from my 5’ giraffe, even though I started riding it when I could barely ride a regular 24" unicycle. I’m sure it’s possible to get hurt, but with the type of dumb luck I have, you might not! Have fun:D
interesting discussion
i’d be curious to hear from the 8/10/12ft raffie riders
Can anyone tell me how to free mount a giraffe? I don’t have one, but my freind is going to get one for christmas, and it would be cool to freemount it once we were good. Is it like a normal mount, just many rotations backwards, or do you hop on like a suicide mount? I have no clue, just want some pointers.
hit the search function
there are some very stunning threads with step by step instructions on how to do it
ha! found it!
this is the kewlest write-up of the raffie freemount u’ll ever read
Let the leg breakin’ begin
It came today.
5 ft is damn high. I only tried to ride it once. Did a “tree” launch", made about three revolutions, came off.
It didn’t seem so hard. Of course, three revolutions is hardly riding.
See attached pic:
Re: Re: Let the leg breakin’ begin
Thanks for the warning! 