Hi there,
I have been juggling solid for a year now and finally I am being
tempted to learn to unicycle. Keep seeing those unicyclers zipping
around at juggling festivals and they just seem to be having too much
fun.
There is a uni at a local bike store - I’ll get price and brand
shortly - wonder if I should snap it up and start trying to learn…
hummm.
So how long does it take till you can unicycle a kilometre or so to
the park where you usually go to juggle…? I know this will vary
but sort of generally I’m trying to get a feel for how much torture I
have to go through before I can actually start enjoying the sport.
(And I am used to torture… I endure mental torture regularily when I
juggle, balls, clubs or rings! LOL)
And speaking of torture, I actually have a knee injury from mountain
biking… I know the uni will be a lot different but it is a bike…
has anyone got a knee injury from unicycling I wonder?
Well thanks in advance… sorry for just sort of ‘thinking out loud’
but hopefully you’ll have the patience to educate me a bit.
> has anyone got a knee injury from unicycling I wonder?
>
Well, sort of. My knee injury was an impact with the asphalt. The unicycle
was smart. It was several feet away where it was safe when the injury
occurred. I call it a non-unicycle injury.
Wear protective gear. Especially when learning to ride.
In article <164553c0.0205241322.527cc9e9@posting.google.com>,
rif raf <beandawg@direct.ca> wrote:
)
)There is a uni at a local bike store - I’ll get price and brand
)shortly - wonder if I should snap it up and start trying to learn…
)hummm.
Almost every bike-store uni is a savage (whether that’s the brand name
or not). You’d do much better to start with <http://unicycle.com/>.
)So how long does it take till you can unicycle a kilometre or so to
)the park where you usually go to juggle…? I know this will vary
)but sort of generally I’m trying to get a feel for how much torture I
)have to go through before I can actually start enjoying the sport.
)(And I am used to torture… I endure mental torture regularily when I
)juggle, balls, clubs or rings! LOL)
It took me about a month, perhaps 15 hours of practice, before I could
reliably ride around a playground. Being able to ride from place to
place (dealing with pedestrians, cars, intersections, etc.) was perhaps
another month or so.
)And speaking of torture, I actually have a knee injury from mountain
)biking… I know the uni will be a lot different but it is a bike…
)has anyone got a knee injury from unicycling I wonder?
I’m sure it’s possible. Your cadence varies a lot more than it does on
a bike because there’s no gearing. Your feet aren’t locked to the pedals,
which is better in some ways, but your knee has the strain of keeping them
on. Unicycling is a higher-impact sport than bicycling, especially when
you’re starting out; if you have joint problems, you’ll definitely want
to stretch and warm up before you go lurching off on your uni. But
overall, it doesn’t seem too hard on the knees.
-Tom
“rif raf” wrote in…
> has anyone got a knee injury from unicycling I wonder?
I fell off my 6’ Giraffe going over bumpy grass at the Brighton Juggling
Festival last week and didn’t have the presence of mind to bend the (left)
leg was going to land on. My knee tried to bend the wrong way as my straight
left leg took all of the fall. That’s not recommended.
I was OK for the rest of that Sunday (though unicycling was out so I worked
on 5 balls - 99 throws aaargh!), limping on Monday, stiff on Tuesday but
much better by this weekend.
My knee would probably be fine by now if I hadn’t unicycled 10 miles into
town and back on my Nimbus 28" to buy Halford’s entire stock of furry dice
two days ago.
> And speaking of torture, I actually have a knee injury from mountain
> biking… I know the uni will be a lot different but it is a bike…
> has anyone got a knee injury from unicycling I wonder?
My knee is recovering from me trying to go down a slope I should have
walked down while on my first off-road venture… I ended up looking like
a star of some crazy zombie movie, my left leg was quite horrible…