You are already a good hopper. Be careful not to rely on hopping as a remedy for imbalance or as a way to avoid UPDs. That might inhibit you from learning all kinds of other stuff. For example, don’t get in a habit of hopping as a way to save a sketchy free mount. Too much hopping, particularly when it’s not necessary, is going to wreck your style and your flow. Learn to roll what can be rolled…or fall off trying.
IMHO, don’t wait to be a good seat-in rider before attempting seat-out techniques. I tried the following experiment with a few people who’d never touched a unicycle, and they were all modestly successful. Raise the seat to navel-height. Grab the front of the saddle firmly with one hand, the back corner of the saddle with the other hand. Place the first foot on the first pedal at the 6:00 position. Push your abdomen against the seat while holding it in both hands. This posture/hold will help keep the unicycle from pivoting during a mount. Lean your upper body forward so to get as much upper body weight forward, so your center of gravity is close as possible to being over the hub. Slowly bring your second foot up to the second (12:00) pedal. Try to stay balanced, but don’t turn the pedals on purpose. Push and pull on the seat with your hands to stay balanced during the mount. Don’t throw up either hand for balance. Once you get the second foot on the second pedal more consistently, but without rushing, you may inadvertently start turning the cranks. You can get a single revolution pretty easily using this method. The feedback you get through your hands will teach you a lot about how the unicycle works. You will not have any bad falls using this method, because it doesn’t involve you getting caught on the seat after your feet have bailed out (you’re not sitting on the saddle at all). And you will be more likely to end your short rides and step off in an appropriate pedal position, by removing the foot on the top-most pedal first.
You’re getting pretty good already. The exhausting legs will eventually get used to riding. Just make sure you sit on the saddle, which you won’t do with hopping of course.
With a bit of practice you can parttake in the NKE (Dutch Championships of which Klaas is one of the organisers). Did that too last year. For me the aim was not to end last, which I didn’t. Next year, hopefully, I will try the 24" run. This year I bought the Quax 24 specifically for NKE, but then coz of the corona it was cancelled.
Also non-noobies will be jealous. Took me 3 weeks intensive training before I could ride.
Yes, hopping is great for hopping, not for balance corrections (unless you are setting up for a gap jump or something) but it does help with mounting at the moment
I went out today and played with some off-seat hops as well, but I like the idea of your suggestion, will definitely give that a try!
First a quick question: How do you quote multiple posts at once so you can reply to them? I’m replying to every single post now
Legs are not sore anymore so that helps. Had some nice (short) practice today and even tried a suicide mount since someone on facebook suggested it
Of course I’ve put it on video (total training time on a uni is 4.5 hours at this moment):
I was actually supposed to participate in the Mini Downhill Cups this year (on the bike) but the same thing happened, due to Corona all competition was cancelled…
Simply highlight the text you want to quote and click on the "Quote icon.
You and do that several times and it just adds a separate quote to the reply box. I did it twice in this reply.
Nederlands Kampioenschap Eenwieleren (NKE), next edition planned for 8 May 2021 (Breda, NL).
European Championships of Unicycling, next edition possibly in summer 2022.
World Unicycling Championships (UNICON), next edition planned for 27 July - 7 August 2021 (Grenoble, F).
ECU and Unicon feature a very wide range of unicycling disciplines. NKE, organised by Stichting Eenwieleren Nederland, focuses on track and (semi-)road racing.
At https://stichtingeenwieleren.nl/ you can subscribe to the newsletter Eenwielernieuws, with all sorts of unicycling-related news including competitions. Recommended!
Another competition event, specialising on urban competitions including Street (which seems more your direction), is EUC, usually around February/March. I don’t know if this is planned for next year; Roos will know. I’ve never been on one. I’ve participated in other competitive unicycling events but they don’t exist anymore.
Several muni competitions are included in European and World championships. Non-competitvely, muni events are organised throughout the year, also in The Netherlands. Check the ‘muni nederland’ group on facebook for some of them.
Although relatively short lines (up to 1 min on a bike) you can do some downhill practice in various bikeparks:
Wijchen, Groningen and Spaarnwoude are all 3 part of the mini downhill cup which is an annual event and available to ride for free the rest of the year as well.
Spaarnwoude has multiple lines (jump line, flow line, red banana trail (many rocks), downhill line) and Wijchen has one main line with various separate features like drops from 30cm through 180cm (and even higher).
I’ve never been to Groningen before, but I’ve seen many videos and it is similar to the other 2.
But I don’t see any reason why you wouldn’t be able to ride those tracks with a muni. perhaps some gap jumps are too big, but if you do a track walk in advance you should be able to figure out what is possible
In addition to Mark’s response: the best muni downhill opportunities are in Zuid-Limburg. There used to be an annual weekend muni festival in the area, but sadly it has been discontinued. Shorter but sometimes quite challenging downhill lines can be found on MTB courses including Zoetermeer and Bergschenhoek (both of which I’ve munied quite often). Such stretches of downhill are basically a downhill part of a longer continuous course.
Obviously, any downhill in the Netherlands is not comparable to what you can find in proper mountains.
Yes, that’s definitely true, yet you are still able to practice and have fun.
It reminds me of that film from a long time ago, Cool Runnings, where a Jamaican bobsled team trains for a competition in an environment where there is no snow or ice
those bike parks you mentioned Mark, aren’t they crowded with mountainbikers? On uni you will only go half as fast or even slower. If there is only a single track, you’d be holding everybody up and mounting on single track is a skill of itself (for me at least ^_^)
Nah, it’s not that bad. Spaarnwoude is widely known and in weekends it might be busier, but Wijchen is smaller and I usually go during weekdays. Most of the times I’m completely alone there, with the occasional dog walker which comes by…
