well… i just got my torker unistar. how free should the wheel be rotating?
also, any tips on getting me started
Get out and ride
Way back when I learned 1980ish we had a car-port. I would start with one hand on the car and one on the fence and would work my way down to the end of the car-port and turn around. I would have to mount and ride on my own, with the support of the car and fence. Once I got good at that I would start at the front of the car and ride to the back and see how far down the drive-way I could go. In no time I was out on the street and going for long distance. If you had two cars in a drive-way or a driveway and a fence that would work as well.
I meant a car and fence. Sorry
If it has main cap bearing houses don’t overtighten them. It ruins the bearings. Just tighten the bearing holders with your fingers and then tighten some more. If it has nyloc nuts you can’t use fingers so you’ll have to guess the right tightness. Lollipoops cannot be overtightened. You should control the amount of rolling on ground by inflating or letting air out of the tire. It might be easier to learn if the pressure is pretty low.
Woah! Any bolt can be overtightened. What’s true is that lolipop or other types of bearing bolts don’t add friction to the wheel. But tighten too much and you can break a bolt or strip the threads. This was a common problem on the older Miyatas, the ones with 10mm heads on the bearing bolts.
For the main cap style bearings, which is probably what you’re using, just tighten until they’re snug, with a bit of friction on the wheel. Make sure there is either nyloc nuts, or some form of lockwasher on there. Otherwise it’s possible to lose the nuts.
cool, thanks a lot, i have nyloc nuts. and i believe it is that 2nd system you described.
well, i can now ride it at most 20 feet. but i haven’t learned all the leg movements like adding break preasure or that type of stuff.
any advise would be greatly appreciated
sounds like u’re coming along nicely!
adding brake pressure happens almost automatically the first time u find yourself going down a slight incline and suddenly feeling the need to slow yourself down just a bit
if u get to the bottom of the hill without a UPD, u did it right
at this stage of your progression as a rider, focus on keeping your weight on the seat, your back straight and make sure u r not looking straight down at the ground in front of the wheel
work at making your pedalling action as smooth as u can and start feeling your way around turns
start thinking about trying the odd couple of freemounts
and try n dismount as gracefully as u can
always with the unicycle in front of u
most of all, make sure u r having as much fun as u possibly can because u’ve just learnt how to ride a unicycle!!!
yeah i have trouble to keep my back strait because i am trying not to fall. will this eventually come naturally
also should i be trying to hold on to the handle with at least one hand
if by handle you mean the front of the seat, you only need to hold it if you’re hopping, dropping, or rolling over bumpy things
well now i am riding pretty smooth and riding at least 100 feet on a good one. but, my thieghs hurt when i pedal that much… should i raise the seat or is it normal when someone first starts to unicycle?
It is normal when you first start to unicycle.
That said, I had terrible knee pain when I first started as well (most noticable the next day as I tried to walk down the stairs). For this, raising the seat helped immensely.
yeah, i raised my seat post and now it feels pretty good.
raising the seat makes it easier to put more weight on the seat, taking your weight and major stress off your thighs
what are some more skills i should work on?
check this out
depending on what u want to do with your unicycling (ie. trials, muni, freestyle, street) u will eventually start realising which skills u really need and want
the list i reff’d u to is a nice general idea of how to proceed from wobbler to rider
eventually getting u to a stage from where u can decided which skills u’ll need and want
the ‘search’ function (as i mentioned to u on the ‘freemounts’ thread) will also come in very handy to find out more about how to do some of the stuff mentioned on that page
the jury is still out as to the order in which u need to learn what
riding, freemounting and idling strikes me as a good beginning
(now sit back and watch the discussion start )