Well, this is not about anything in particular, I just want to tell the world that I ahve been learning some new uni skills. I am almost a level 3 rider (which means I’m a level 2 ).
I can ride with the seat out in front for a bit (200 feet or so if I’m lucky). I have also been learning to ride with the seat out behind me. I’m told this skill is useless, but it makes me feel like a better unicyclist, and I’m pretty sure it’s needed for one of the levels.
I also got my bro to take some video of me doing some neat stuff at the playground at school and around town. I have a video of me going down a slide. This slide video was almost not worth it. Any move to the side, like turning or even leaning, would make my pedal hit the edge of the slide and cause me to fall. I messed up my ankle and I bruised mt leg up a lot, but I’ve got a cool, low-quality video. People that I have showed it to seem to like the one where I fall better. “You ran at the end! That is so funny.”
Yes, I did. I’m sure you know the feeling, as fellow unicyclists. The people that I showed the video to are non-unicyclists and are slightly uneducated in uni physics. I was going freakin fast and I had to bail. Seeing as how there is such a thing as momentum, I had to start running, or else fall face first into the sand. I must say, though it was a painful experience it was fun. And special thanks to Jon for taking some sweet video of me and my uni. Yes, there are more extreme videos out there, but, alas, I am a level 2 unicyclist.
I’m trying to get mt brothers into unicycling, but they are chickens. Buckaw! I also need a riding buddy. I am the lone unicyclist…
Oh yeah, you know those videos I was rambling about? Go to www.unisteve.unicyclist.com to check them out. They are in the “Videos” section. Go figure.
The rest is silence… unless you reply, in which case don’t listen to that last sentence.
one more thing: I ahve fallen more times than I would have liked due to shoe laces, stupid things. No, I will not get velcro shoes. I just double knot the laces until I cannot anymore. The loops get really tiny, making it pretty much impossible to get caught on the pedal/crank/any other protruding object on my uni. The laces on my shoes are also unusually long, mostly because they have been stretched about 5 times. It took me about 10 minutes solid to get myself untangled from my uni once. Take my advice and double-doulble-double-doulble-double-doulble-knot your shoes. That’s usually about how many doubles I get in. But wait, after double they are called something else. Anyhoo, you get the idea.
Tuck your shoelaces into the sides of your shoes or under the laces in the front of the shoe when you ride. I never get on a unicycle with shoelaces flopping around. They have a powerful affinity for cranks and axles and spokes.
i sometimes have that problem with laces. Like harper said, tuck them into your shoe. I’m in the same place with levels, but it’s annoying, because i can do some level 7 tricks and most level 3 tricks, but i’m stuck at level 2. Do you think there could be a new system, where a mount is worth 1 point, riding 50 metres is 1 point, wheel walking is 5 points, ect? So you add up the tricks you can do? Think that’d work?
Whooo hooo! Congradulations on the measurable steps forward. As you know, the great thing about unicycling is that skill developement never stops having measurable goals.
On the lace thing: I’v been considerate of them ever since seeing a pic (on JF’s site?) of a bloody faced cyclist who’s laces wound on his Coker. It was this image I was seeing (as well as what the car behind me would do) when I caught the laces on my crank -in traffic. While I can’t advise it, I bore down as hard as I could and snapped the lace.
The video was fun- send more. Have the camera man shoot from lower and out of plain.
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