Need you guys' help (videos included) and tips on rolling hops and also wrist pains

General
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So I’ve been practicing and practicing and it’s been okay, but I need help from the community.

By the way, how’s everyone :p? Been busy practicing and work. I can now commute much better and idle during lights on my 36", people are still dumb founded over the size. It’s been about 8 months since I started unicycling and it’s still fun.

I’m STILL trying to learn how to do a rolling hop, but I feel like I’m missing something. Here’s a video, it’s pretty bad, I just woke up and usually I warm up about 15 minutes before and I can hop a bit higher, I’ll add another video later when I’ve warmed up. I’ll add more videos as this goes along.

I do know a bit about folding and tucking your body to get more height and pushing down on the wheel and so forth. I can sometimes do it, but just sometimes, I just usually don’t have the momentum to get my body to fold. I just watch videos of people doing much higher hops without folding their body and with a lot more ease it seems

Been practicing 2 hours a day and been at it for months in case you guys are thinking it’s because I haven’t tried it before asking. I’ve learned quite a few other tricks, but I still have lots to go with hopping.

My PSI is 27, I’m 140lb, that’s an equinox with cyko lite tires. Is there anything I’m missing? Is it my tire type? Is it the pressure of the tires? Is the seat up too high (it’s a long neck so I’d have to cut into the frame to lower it down more)? Someone give me some advice so I can try out and help me improve :wink:

Wrist Problems:

Another issue with unicycling is that for a few months now, I’ve been getting wrist problems. It ends up hurting faster when I try to do bigger hops with my 26 oracle, it is a few lbs heavier than the equinox. Not as bad with 36 oracle because I just bunny hop to idle for lights.

I read up on TFCC injuries, I’m scheduling a doctor’s appointment soon, but is anyone familiar with that and is it common with unicycling? I just end up getting it from doing tons of lifts from trying to learn to do those bigger hops.

I just recently got some added wrist support (I don’t usually have wrist guards when I do the 20", I just have shin guards) and it’s a bit better but I think I have to get a different type.

Nowadays I ride and when my wrist starts aching, I head for home. After two or three days, I take one up to three days off to not mess up my wrist. It hurts like crazy when I push down on my fist to the side when I lean on stuff.

It actually started hurting on my left hand, which I originally used to hold the seat and since have started using my right hand, but now my right hand is hurting as well and therefore limits my time on the unicycle, which really bums me out since I want to practice but my body won’t let me. It hurts especially near the ulna/ulnar bone area right at the wrist area.

I trying to ease up on how much I pull on the seat handle, but many times I sort of feel like I can’t help pulling it a bit hard when I try to do the bigger hops.

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Lol, I remember watching a video on how to rolling hop wher the guy didn’t even bother to show himself doing one. :roll_eyes: All the videos I could find were just plain terrible.

I had issues with wrist pain when I first learned to hop. It went away later, I’m not sure if my wrist got stronger or I just learned how to hold the handle properly. I’m guessing it was the latter. Try and pull up as little as possible on the handle when you hop to put less strain on your wrist. Remember that the bounce from you legs is where the hop comes from, not the pull from your wrist. All your wrist has to do is hold the unicycle in place when you go up. This is easy to visualize, just imagine the unicycle is a pogo stick with your legs for springs.

As for actually doing the rolling hop I can describe how I learned and maybe it will help you. I learned it out of necessity as at the time I was living in town and I mainly rode on sidewalks that had curbs. I started by learning to ride up curbs by hitting them and bouncing up. That didn’t work the best especially on higher ones but it was great because once I got fairly proficient at that I could put a little hop into it. As I learned to side hop higher I got so I put enough hop into it that I didn’t have to bounce anymore. The key part to learning this way is lining up your cranks right. You can start at the curb with your cranks where you want them to be and then roll the unicycle backward to a starting spot and that way your cranks won’t be in the dead position when you hit the curb. This method is even better if you have a unicycle with a fat tire as they are great for riding up a curb without hopping (Lower pressure Duro Leopard tires in my experience can go up a six inch curb with no hop at all). Once you can ride up the curbs most of the time you can start trying to put some hop into it. Practice makes perfect. Eventually you won’t even need to set your cranks as you can start the hop earlier and just jump farther. If you can side hop high enough to get a curb now it probably won’t take long to learn the rolling hop.

I hope your wrist gets better soon, a doctors visit shouldn’t hurt.

1 Like
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Lol, I remember watching a video on how to rolling hop where the guy didn’t even bother to show himself doing one. :roll_eyes: All the videos I could find were just plain terrible.

I don’t know how common it is, but I did have issues with wrist pain when I first learned to hop. It went away later, I’m not sure if my wrist got stronger or I just learned how to hold the handle properly. I’m guessing it was the latter. Try and pull up as little as possible on the handle when you hop to put less strain on your wrist. Remember that the bounce from you legs is where the hop comes from, not the pull from your wrist. All your wrist has to do is hold the unicycle in place when you go up. This is easy to visualize, just imagine the unicycle is a pogo stick with your legs for springs.

Don’t cut your frame the seat height looks just fine. I had a response written up and then I realized that I hadn’t watched your video. It looks like you’ve almost got it down to me unless you are trying to get like two feet high or something. I think you will probably do better if you try to actually hop up curbs instead of just getting air time. That way you can develop better control as you will have something to gauge your height and length by. If you want, you can set your cranks to be in the right position when you get to the curb by setting your unicycle in the position you want it to be next to the curb and just rolling backward. It also can be easier to hop up a curb then just get some air because you don’t have to go back down as far before landing.

Another thing that might help is a different pair of shoes or pedals. It looks to me like your feet could be sliding off the pedals too easily. Some pedal/shoe combos just don’t work well together. A different pair of shoes or pedals that grips better could help a lot.

One last thing, it’s great to practice side hopping up stairways to develop your technique and control when hopping.

I hope your wrist gets better soon, a doctors visit shouldn’t hurt. Good luck!

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The Monty Eagles Claw tyre should give you more bounce. You could also try lowering your tyre pressure so that you get more compression resulting in more spring. Pause on the compression and you have to time your jump to coincide with the tyre springing back from the compression. Timing is crucial so that you are rising with the upward bounce of the tyre instead of trying to pull the unicycle up out of synch and hurting your wrist.

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Hey Shmolagin, glad to see you’re still here and doing great it seems.

Yeah I saw your reply then I went to grab something from the kitchen and came back and it was gone and I thought I must have hit old age earlier than I anticipated :stuck_out_tongue:

Yeah but that’s the thing! I can’t seem to get much bounce :frowning:

It’s quite aggravating to see some unicycle videos where they do a little hop and they’re way high up, like 2-3x my jump height without folding their body. It just feels like something is wrong, like a key factor is missing.

I got your tip, been trying to do that. I just get back into the habit of holding it rather hard. Just feels like my feet might fall off, but I’ll try it again today. I don’t know why, I just feel the need many times to hold and pull up. When you fold your body and do those really big jumps, don’t you have to pull on the handle?

Yes, I’m trying to do stuff like this:

Tim Desmet Unicycle beginning jump and 0:30

I mean, I am DESPERATELY aiming for that. I’m very persistent and obsessive when I find something I’m intrigued with and I’ve set my goal on that. But even some other videos where people just do a regular rolling hop (where they don’t really fold their body much) and end up on benches and stuff, I just don’t have any idea how they just seem to get that amazing bounce with so natural ease with very minimal effort when I’m exerting quite a bit of energy and force and getting a fraction of that.

Very frustrating, but instead of getting angry I just get persistent. Unfortunately, because of that stubborn persistence, my wrists have suffered :frowning:

Yeah I’ve been starting to do that. I get chicken feet when I ride right up to a curb at a 90 degree and try to hop up. But am practicing that. I tried to not do it for awhile and just ride around jumping up and forward to extend my jump and increase my height, is this not the basics to go at it?

I want to increase forward length and height so that I can jump up a curb even if my unicycle is a bit far away so I don’t always have to worry about having the pedals at the right position when its only a few inches, which I find many times that it isn’t without having to use the method to measure it that you mention.

It was probably just me being groggy in the morning. I literally couldn’t sleep because I was thinking about this. So I woke up at 6 in the morning and set things up and got a quick footage before I put it out. BUT! I will go around and see if I can try some new shoes. The pedals are the default ones that come with the oracles and the trails equinox. I had the impression from the last time I was here that I should switch to twisted pc pedals, which I think have even less grip?

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Don’t forget that Tim Desmit is a world class rider. I think the only thing to get that kind of hop is to practice a lot to build your leg muscles. The highest rolling hop I’ve ever landed is only about a foot and a half and that didn’t come easily at all. Also the nimbus cyko lite tire probably isn’t great, I’m pretty sure most of the better riders use a monty, creepy crawler or try all tire.

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Thanks for the reply. I got some more footage of when I’m more warmed up, gained a bit of height, but yeah I’m still disappointed. I have a small picture of it attached, I think it’s about a foot and half, not sure.

Oh yeah I know what they’re doing requires probably years of practice and quite a lot of skills.

Yeah I was thinking it might be the tire type. I’m looking at my new video I just recorded of myself and I’m really try to push down and jump up. I’ll upload an edited version tomorrow if it’s worth anything.

I’m getting mixed info sometimes which makes me not sure what to think. Some people say tire has little to do with it while other says it is. Being broke sucks or else I’d just go out and buy a bunch of different tires and try it for fun lol. Not sure which of the tires you listed should I choose, I’m thinking the try all (bit expensive though).

Hop.jpg
Hop.jpg800×450 45.6 KB

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I did a few searches and this is what I got for the monty

http://www.goudurix.com/us/tyre-20-x-2-60-monty-eagle-claw.html

and the Try All

Is there any other places that’s cheaper? Seems like it’s a minimal of $60. Tire prices keep going up and I’m surprised that there’s not more places that sell those tires considering how good the reviews are on them

Trials tire reviews

I hope the 2.6" will fit the equinox, I think it should since the cyko lite is 2.5 and there seems to be a bit more room.

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Unfortunately both the tryall and the monty tires seem to be completely discontinued. So the price will probably only go up from there, I don’t know of anywhere cheaper. I guess eventually trials riders will be stuck with the cyko lite and the maxxis creepy crawler.

Have you played with your pressure? You can get more bounce by adjusting it.

Also, for better help you could take this discussion over to facebook, that’s where most trials/street riders post. The group is called “Unicycle Chat”. I’m sure someone there can beat my crappy advice. :stuck_out_tongue:

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What :astonished: why?

Shouldn’t their popularity make the companies want to make them more?

Yeah during the taking of the 60 minute video, I lowered the pressure twice. The jump in the picture was the best jump I could do and that’s after lowering the pressure once from the 27 psi I usually go with.

Na without you and unibokk’s replies I wouldn’t have ANY advice. I’m thankful but I’ll try to see if I can get into the facebook place you mentioned, I rarely ever use facebook.

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Your video has a lot of dead time and should be edited, but otherwise thanks for posting. You are ahead of me on hopping, and I’ve been riding for a whole year, so nice work!

Like you, I can’t hop as high as I want, though these days most of my rolling hops are SIF. You might want to try SIF, too, if you haven’t already. It’s not a direct solution to the problem, but it is a new approach, and, if you learn SIF now and then go back to seat-in hopping, you’ll likely see some progress. SIF hops also use both hands, so maybe that will put less stress on your wrist. To me, the forward part of the rolling hop depends on timing: you stop your forward movement on the ground suddenly, while simultaneously jumping to transfer it into the air. You might even want to lean back a tiny bit right before that happens- right now I’m trying to figure out if that’s necessary.

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Waiting to get added into the unicycle group :slight_smile:

@Song

Yeah I know I’m trying to find a good real time editing software that doesn’t require ridiculous amount of computer power.

The jump in the picture is the highest I can jump.

Yeah I know how to SIF, been practicing for awhile and I do a few in long video I mentioned (which I’ll edit this time around if I can find the software). I’m at the stage where I’m practicing going back and forth and taking turns pulling my seat out and then pushing it back in. Still wobbly there. Haven’t hopped anything significant with SIF yet either.

Thanks for the advice. My concern that I’ve been discussing with the other guys is for the sake of my unicycle setup. I was wondering if there’s anything that’s keeping me from the high hops other than just practice. I also see people with their seats lowered, but not sure if it matters much and since my unicycle is at the lowest point and it’s a long neck, can’t test it out :stuck_out_tongue:

But I’m debating with people whether its the tires.

Anyone know some good reviews on the cyko lite? I just know one review by Simon Berry, but I’d like to know more in terms of bounce. Simon does say it doesn’t bounce as well as a monty, but is it the same or worse than a CC?

I really want a bouncy tire but $60 AND it’s out of production? It’s like the time when I finally found out that the store close by carried imported instant ramen that I’ve been looking at for years and THEN find out soon after that they will no longer sell more :angry: . I got the last single bag.

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I thought one purpose of folding your body (besides gaining height) was to get the wheel out in front of you. When you land the tire, unless you are quick at pedaling out of the landing, your momentum will carry your body forward past the wheel, and you’ll immediately fall off the front because your body is too far forward. It kind of looks like that’s what is happening in your first few hops where you have some decent speed. Then in the later hops, your speed is less and you’re doing more vertical jumping than horizontal rolling and you’re not falling off. Also in your pic, there’s definite folding. Am I wrong?

I think what you want is more speed (like in the earlier hops), try to fold your body more to put the wheel out in front of you, and also practice on real obstacles. They don’t have to be real high, just high enough to know that whatever changes you make in your technique are having a positive effect.

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Yep, been practicing that. I know how to do it somewhat but I’m not as good yet. That’s the most folding I can do at the moment.

Exactly, that’s one thing that’s been bugging me. I seem to sort of pause before the jump and end up not going forward as much and more vertical. I get scared if I go fast. I just feel like my feet is about to be thrown off, not to mention having to get my feet into the jumping position. Like a misstep that’s waiting to happen.

Yeah I need to practice and build up technique. I’m trying to do the thing where my arm and upper body is thrusting me upwards and get the motion to swing my arms forward and the wheel forward. That’s hard. The big fold forward is hard. Need to practice how to ride faster too.

I’m going to try again today for a few hours and see how that works.

One thing good about taking a video of yourself is that you get to see how you’re really doing. I do notice that I am able to go forward quite a bit. I’ll try some obstacles from further back. It’s just scary :stuck_out_tongue:

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I just bought the last Monty Eagle Claw at the site I posted (lucky :wink: ) AND a Try All Sticky Lite.

Will see how it goes.

I hope they last, I do tons of street/urban riding and those tires are hurting my wallet. Sometimes, I think my credit card should escape for its life for the sake of itself and mines.

Maybe I can do a jump comparison video of the three tires with whatever hop skill I can manage to improve between now and when they come.

EDIT (got a question I forgot)

For the inner tube do you guys buy the regular trials inner tube or the one with extra rubber? My LBS sells the regular for $6 and the extra rubber one for $12.

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If you have at least 0.5gb of memory (circa 2006), OpenShot or Kino will work, but probably not with MacWindows.

With a 20," there’s a much larger variety of tires than with a 19," and they are often cheaper, I think. The slick 20 x 2.4 that I just put on is very maneuverable, as it has no knobs to grind. It seems like it will last a long time on pavement, and, though I’m no expert, it seems good for hopping, too. Sorry if this info isn’t helpful, but I don’t know much about 19" tires. If somebody does come up with one that is slick, though, I would recommend it for you, since you seem to ride on pavement.

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I was thinking of trying to go back to Sony Vegas Pro. I had the '08 Pro several years back and it was pretty sweet. Real time editing and it was on my older computer too. I’m on an i5 quadcore 2.7 ghz 4gb ram i believe which is alright, not great. I got premiere pro, but I’ve yet to find a way to do real time editing, I don’t understand how people can edit with choppy playback and from my search I’ve yet to figure the answer, too complex :stuck_out_tongue:

You have a link or picture of the tire you’re talking about?

Are you talking about THESE ?

Unfortunately, unicycle.com and its other divisions seem to lack trial tire variety. I was a bit confused about which types of tires fit my unicycle. There was a bit of a confusion on the 19" and 20" tire. I asked someone today and they said that since my equinox has a trials dominator 2 rim, the only tires that will fit are 20" trials specific tires. Do correct me if I’m wrong.

I got really confused between bike tires and unicycle tires :stuck_out_tongue:

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Sorry, I don’t know much about commercial software.

Yeah, tire sizes are confusing. 20 x 2.5 is a tire for a 19" (trials) rim, but 20 x 2.4 or 2.2 etc is for a standard 20" rim. For all their trials and street unis, UDC has a little warning in bold: “A standard 20-inch tire will not fit this rim.” That’s the kind of rim you have. The tire I just put on is the best one I’ve had yet- an Odyssey Chase Hawk, 20 x 2.4. It won’t fit your wheel, though.

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You’re going to get better with time and practice. Your muscles just haven’t quite figured it out yet. I’m sure you have more leg power than what you’re using in the jump. It’s a matter of muscle activation, and it will improve as you jump more.

Here are a few things I think will help:

Start practicing more systematically. Build an adjustable high jump bar and start measuring your jumps so that you can see your progress.
Also, practice all kinds of hopping. The variety will help your coordination. I’ve found that side hops with a pre-hop feel especially wonky at the beginning. But they’re worth it because learning them will make you more steady in the air.
Practice your tuck by jumping up and trying to touch your pedal with your free hand.

About your wrists… You’re probably going to have to take it easy for a while. In my experience, that kind of soreness doesn’t get better unless you give it some time. Also as unibokk already said, make sure when you jump that the power comes from your legs. This has been a big problem for me in the past. It shouldn’t feel like you’re trying to pull the unicycle into the air by the handle. If you feel a big strain in your arm and back, then you’re doing it wrong.

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Aha! Thanks for all the pointers, but especially this one! SIF hopping actually gives me sore trapezius muscles…