Hey guys whats up ! I’ve been doing well on the riding end, i moved from the tennis court to my apartment’s parking lot. It’s as big as i need it too be as this complex sprawls over something like 6 square blocks or so. Uneven terrain, although paved. It’s snowy and icy out there, so it is quite challenging for my newbie self. I can go more or less as far as i want to 50% of the time… whatever that means.
MOUNTING… I suck. I keep seeing that static mounts are easier TO DO. It’s my observation that the static mount may be easier to do, however it seems that FOR ME a rollback mount would be easier to LEARN. I’ve looked around on the forums for exercises i can use to break the habit of putting my weight on my right foot when attempting static mounts. What i found was UniGeezer’s Cinder-Block-Jump exercise. I learned from that, that i can hop a mere inch or two using one leg. I’m tubby. This is at least a bit of the reason that static mounts are difficult for me. On the other hand, the rollback mount is what i’ve been using from step one, all i need to do is take my damn hand off my car, the wall, whatever. I’m only 4 hours into my learning… Am i worrying about this too much too soon ?
I’ll keep practicing them both in the meantime. And in the meantime of the meantime… my knees hurt like hell, and i think i’ll put my 5" cranks back on. I’ve been on 6ers which i think is why i’ve done so well so soon. I hesitate to do this though, because it will give me less control for mounting.
Any suggestions/tips ? I know yeah practice, read the forums etc. Besides that i mean… :-/
4 hours that count… i’d had a 24 for 2 years and tried on and off… got absolutely NOWHERE. 0 revs. And i couldn’t even do much with assistance. But i had a feel for being on top of the uni. So i did have a wee bit of a head-start… Nothing i can quantify though so i decided to just ignore it… So maybe it’s more like 6 hours worth, but… meh. What do you think about putting my 5" cranks on instead of the 6" ? Will that significantly hurt my progress, or help in some way i can’t think of ?
That was actually one of the two most helpful threads i found… That’s where i found unigeezer’s 36er video where he demonstrates the cinder-block hop, and i learned i could not hop on one leg for crap.
If you are 4 hours into it, I would recommend riding a lot to get more comfortable with it and then going back to mounting later-perhaps when you are 20+ hours into it. With more skill on the unicycle the mounting will be a bit more doable (but still hard!)
But a technique I used was the that is expressed in this video. It teaches you step by step how get familiar with a freemount. Hopefully, it’ll help you, too!
sounds about right… I think i’ll switch my cranks to the shorter ones to help my knees out and smooth out my ride… get used to that and get back to mounting later. Thanks for the advice !
I agree. As one who has recently learned unicycling, I found that mounting came much easier after I had learned just how to ride better.
My advice would be just to go out and ride. But don’t neglect to practice mounting though. I just wouldn’t spend a whole lot of time practicing mounting if I had not had many hours of experience riding.
I’d seen that video before, but I just noticed that his cranks stay horizontal. He’s not pushing off with his ground foot. The video says to apply pressure to the pedal your foot is on (as if you might apply pressure to the pedal your foot isn’t on)
How do you do that? My problem is when I get on, the pedals are in the deadn position, and I have a hard time rolling from there.
my advice would be something like this: learn backroll mount first. I did, and i thought that was what i did a long time into my unicycling, but then i had to show mounts to a beginner, and i found out i had learned the static mount. So the static mount comes by itself. See if you can static/backroll mount while holding onto something, and start riding away the moment you put y our second foot on the pedal.
Here’s the most important: Have fun!
The whole secret with the Static mount and yes it is much easier than the rolling mount is to push the unicycle at a 60 degree angle into the ground. This acts as a counterforce to the weight that you put on the rear pedal. To push the unicycle into the ground at that aformentioned angle all you have to do is just keep as much weight as possible on the saddle. They is is just as easy as going up a step.
Trying to learn while facing downhill makes it even easier and trying to learn off of a curb or with a two by four behind the wheel makes it even easier yet!
How about this: Put something you really love (that is also somewhat fragile, do you have an iphone?) on the floor. Then you put your right foot on it (really lightly!) and pretend like it’s your uni pedal. Then step over with your left foot, not putting any weight on your precious item.
Also, relax and keep working on it. Also, slightly downhill really is much easier. Also, you will lose weight if you keep at it, good work!
Ok so i did my first free mount today. Practice-wise, i’ve been practicing to do static mounts. I’ve been doing little practice hops, where i just do the first half of the mount. I can now keep the wheel still during the first half, but whenever i go to move my second leg forward the wheel begins to roll.
Rather than be discouraged, i figured i’d capitalize on the progress i’ve made. I just said screw static mount, i’ll just f*ing mount. It worked. Part of what helped me pull this off was something i was doing over at the tennis court. I don’t remember why, but i would put myself in the dead zone, and let go. And go. I got pretty decent at it, too. Well, all i had to do today was to be able to hop up on the uni and get my 2nd foot on the pedal, in the dead zone… and go. I’ll have to get some video of it, but i don’t think this is a rollback mount. I’m really just pulling the wheel under me, doing a small standstill, and going. Yay. Whatever.
