Yes i know its been done before but i decided to do it again.
DAY 1, Friday, 22nd June, 2007.
Out the back out my house i have a wooden rail that separates my bricked patio area from the grass. The rail is about 4m long. I first learnt mounting then went back and forth getting the fell of the unicycle. After about 1 hour i decided it was time to try it without holding on to the rail so i mounted, got balanced and pushed of the rail and started to pedal. I got about 3m before i fell forward. It was raining outside so i did it on the bricked area under the patio. When it eventually stopped raining which was about 5.30pm i went onto the grass and again held onto the rail, mounted, got comfortable and pushed of. This time i got about 5-7m before again falling forward. Then i had to go inside to have dinner.
Thats all for today but tomorrow im hoping to go onto the grass ( if its not raining ) and try go the whole length of my backyard which is about 15m.
WHAT I FOUND OUT TODAY
I found out that unicycling isn’t as easy as i tought it would be.
You have to sit to the front of the seat or you wont ride very well.
It hurts your back and legs.
Well i hope you enjoyed reading what i did today. Make sure you bookmark this page so you can look at it everyday to see what i did that day.
This morning i spent 3 hours on my unicycle. I first did some warm ups by riding up and down the rail holding on with one hand. Then after about 10mins i decided to try ride with no support. I set up a chair about 3-4m away from the rail and my aim was to ride to it. The first 10 times i fell but after about 10-20mins i was riding to it almost every time. Under my patio is a table setting which seats about 10-11 people so its fairly big. I set up the chairs around it so i had to ride about 1m to get to the next chair all around the table. Eventually i was good enough to miss 2 or 3 chairs before i fell. I kept doing that, missing 2 or 3 chairs each time and got better every time. After about 1 hour i could ride around the table setting only touching about 3 chairs in one whole circuit of the table. I repeated that for another hour and by the end of it i can almost ride around the whole table once without having to touch a chair once. Then only thing that i need to work on is turning and leaning forward. I can turn but if i have to keep turning it gets to hard and i fall off. I need to work on my leaning because sometimes i lean to far forward or backwards and i fall so i have to learn how much i have to lean forward.
I think it will take some time but i think in another 2-3 days i will be riding 50ft no worries. I think i made very good progress this morning and cant wait to get back out there after lunch. The after lunch part will be posted in about 6 hours and will be called Day Two Part 2/2. Well i hope you enjoyed reading my post. Remember to keep reading everyday for the latest news.
After i had lunch i went out the back for about 1hour doing the same stuff. Then i went out onto the lawn and tried that for my first time and can i tell you lawn and bricks are totally different. Man you have to pedal double as hard on lawn but i got use to it.
About 1 hour later i went out the front and tried to ride on my driveway but didn’t do to well. I got at the most about 4m but that was it. So i went on my front lawn. Near my lawn is the poles that hold up the veranda roof so i held onto one of them for balance to mount and off i went. The first hour i was only getting like 4m but eventually i got up to about 7m consistently. Another 30mins later i was going almost to the curb of my house on some tries. The furtherest i got was about 10m. The felling of riding the unicycle when your actually riding is just amazing. It fells really great when your actually riding it. I cant wait until i can ride it really good and can ride 2km without falling off. That would be so much fun.
Well hope you enjoyed reading what i did today. Make sure you look again tomorrow to see what i did that day.
The chair thing’s a great idea. Is your uni a 20"er? It looks a little like a 24" but I see you’re 13 so the seat height might screw up perception.
Don’t learn by cycling on lawns. It tires you out unnecessarily and gives you a false impression of how much force to exert on the pedals to move around.
ok thnx yes its a 24 but i put the seat down to the lowest level. Its fine for me. Well i learnt on brick and concrete and was actually more scared to cycle on the grass then brick. Weird i no but i just fell safer on the brick.
Sweet! Unicycling is awesome, and I’m glad more people are doing it.
I love to read these journals to see good ways to learn. When I learned I just held onto a pole to mount and rode away. I was very lucky. I learned the hardest way, and it only took 8 hours for me to learn how to ride.
Turning, and other things like that are a diffrent story. Those take a while longer to perfect.
Well i only did 1 hour today because i was very tired as i went to a concert on Sunday and rode my unicycle for 9 hours on Saturday so my legs were stuffed. Well i stopped riding on the grass because that guy told me not to so i went on my driveway and setup a bin at either end. I only used one bin to mount and used the other as a indication of how far i was riding. About half way through my riding my mum came out and watched me which helped a lot actually because she told me if i was doing something wrong like leaning to far forward or going to slow. It really helps to have a bystander with you. Well i didn’t make a hell of a lot of progress today but im hoping tomorrow i will make a lot. My aim is to be able to ride by Friday so i got 4 days of practicing to do. One thing i noticed that didn’t really help i thought that people were telling me to look forward or focus on something when your riding, don’t look at the ground but when i looked forward i loose balance and fall off but when i look down i can see what im doing and ride good. I think looking at something makes me do worse not better.
Well i hope you enjoyed reading what i did today. Cya!
From Brendon.v
Hey dude,
When looking forward make sure you are sitting upright - if your back is crouched over and you are trying to look straight ahead you will definitely lose balance.
This may feel a bit odd, trying to keep a straight back while looking foreward at a target, but trust me, once you try it a bit you will be able to ride forever and it will feel normal:)
Peace out.
That will all change when you get better… you will be able to freely adjust your posture to certain situations and your back is probably just really stiff at the moment because your trying to maintain balance (happened to me too) you will be more relaxed when your confident with your balance.
Ive changed my plans and now going to do short videos everyday or two of my progress. I can now ride my unicycle for ever really. I can ride it until my legs start hurting which is about 500m which in feet is about 1500ft.
So im now a unicyclist, i can ride until i die and can almost free mount. I’m still practicing free mounting but should be able to do it in another day or so.
Well today is about my 8th day i guess and im pretty good now. Today i learnt to free mount and at first i was kind of doing the same as how i use to get on when i had a support but then i found that that didn’t work so i decided to jump onto both pedals then ride. After about 20 attempts i was doing it really well and now i don’t have to have support yay.
Tomorrow i have the day off school because its report day yes! so im going to start to learn idling and work on my free mounting more so i get it perfected. Going a bit back now, i just thought i would say this, yesterday i went for a 1km ride on my unicycle and half way around my curcuit it rained and i got soaking wet from head to toe. Although i got soaked it was still really fun.
I’m also going to learn hopping tomorrow as well. I can already hop about 5 times in a row but i want to work on it more so when i get my trials uni in a month or so im ready for trials. My dad said he can get me as many pallets as i want which is good for me lol. Today i saw a stack of about 50 in 3 separate piles on a building site just near the curb for people to take so i think i might go have a look and grab some soon. Although my dad has about 15 good ones at his factory i could probably use.
Well i hope you enjoyed reading what i have done. I don’t think ill write in this journal anymore but i might just post videos instead when i get time of my progress right up until im really good at trials. Stay tuned people and have fun.
