Today I decided to take my 20" street unicycle on some North Shore trails. I didn’t turn out as well as I had hoped, but I had a new experience.
I found some nice ladders, but only finished two of them cause my wheel isn’t very big and my feet kept slipping off the pedals. I didn’t manage to ride the whole trail and I unfortunately made a large number of dismounts. I kept falling off about every 5 feet, is this normal when someone is starting out with MUni’ing?
Oh yeah, it was one of the easiest trails on the North Shore, not the hard core ones.
Your experience echo’s mine. I was falling left right and centre. (Oh wait, I still do) Maybe get more aggressive pedals so your feet stay on and play with your tire pressure a bit to help going over the roots, logs etc.
I’d suggest trying to get a proper MUni, I started riding muni the same way you
did, on a 20" street uni. Check out unicycle.com, you might want to look into
the “Yuni” cycles.
I did my first 15 years on a 20 inch, and it’s not the ideal machine for off roading. Even a 24 is loads better - some might say 24 is the ideal size as a 26 is a bit unwieldy.
That said, you should be able to ride undulating and uneven ground on a 20. It won’t be too good for trip hazards (like tree roots) or soft going like mud. If you can bounce and hop, then you may be able to ride more stuff than I could.
Then there’s the speed and distance thing. On flattish ground, there’s no real difference in effort to pedal a 24 or 26, compared to a 20. However, a 24 goes 20% further at a given rpm, so it opens up new horizons in terms of distance and speed.
UPDing every 5 feet or so is depressing. My advice (and others may disagree) is to find a section of trail where you can cover meaningful distances without UPDing too often. Don’t keep grinding away at stuff which is way beyond your ability (or the potential of your uni) as the difficult stuff will still be there when you come back next year as a better rider on a better machine. Gradual improvement is more fun than consistent exhausting failure.
It seems I’m not the only one who has had trouble on trails. I am still deciding whether or not I should purchase the new MUni from Norco when it comes out, or order one online from Unicycle.com. I have the money, but I don’t know if I should spend it. $500 canadian dollars for a MUni seems like a lot, and that’s the cheapest “good quality” one. One thing is for sure though, I need a tougher uni. Twisted my crank off a 3-foot drop.
Oh yeah, when I was riding down the trail there was a really hard core biker (he had a sweet bike) who came by me and proclaimed, “I thought there was only one of you crazy f*ckers up here” Is that a posotive comment? Hehe, I didn’t have the heart to tell him there were a lot more of us.
I would choose some easier trails to go on, but that was the easiest one, it had some really nice ladders on it though, so it wasn’t a total loss.
I think I’ll buy that MUni sometime soon, until then, I’ll practice some more wheel walking. I’m up to 15 steps. YAY!
Oh yeah, forgot to say, why don’t you consider buying your MUni from Darren
Bedford? Pay in Cdn, get a custom made muni for a good price… you should
keep him in mind when you’re planning the next yike… Darren is a reliable
guy who carries tons of good uni’s and uni parts.
Erin
“rammstein” <rammstein.beswb@timelimit.unicyclist.com> wrote in message news:rammstein.beswb@timelimit.unicyclist.com…
>
> It seems I’m not the only one who has had trouble on trails. I am still
> deciding whether or not I should purchase the new MUni from Norco when
> it comes out, or order one online from Unicycle.com. I have the money,
> but I don’t know if I should spend it. $500 canadian dollars for a MUni
> seems like a lot, and that’s the cheapest “good quality” one. One thing
> is for sure though, I need a tougher uni. Twisted my crank off a 3-foot
> drop.
>
> Oh yeah, when I was riding down the trail there was a really hard core
> biker (he had a sweet bike) who came by me and proclaimed, “I thought
> there was only one of you crazy f*ckers up here” Is that a posotive
> comment? Hehe, I didn’t have the heart to tell him there were a lot more
> of us.
>
> I would choose some easier trails to go on, but that was the easiest
> one, it had some really nice ladders on it though, so it wasn’t a total
> loss.
>
> I think I’ll buy that MUni sometime soon, until then, I’ll practice some
> more wheel walking. I’m up to 15 steps. YAY!
>
>
> –
> rammstein - Riding On Da North Shore
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> rammstein’s Profile: http://www.unicyclist.com/profile/1508
> View this thread: http://www.unicyclist.com/thread/20553
>
Hi Rammstein,
cool that you are riding the north shore on your one wheel and I assume you
know that Vancouver has a uni club now right? We have had four rides this
month already. Well none of them has been on the North Shore unless going
across on the seabus and riding lower North Van counts…he, he…
anyways if you want to ride with some company around town give me a shout
and I’ll connect you with our organizer. I’m at rifrafer@telus.net
Erin
“rammstein” <rammstein.beswb@timelimit.unicyclist.com> wrote in message news:rammstein.beswb@timelimit.unicyclist.com…
>
> It seems I’m not the only one who has had trouble on trails. I am still
> deciding whether or not I should purchase the new MUni from Norco when
> it comes out, or order one online from Unicycle.com. I have the money,
> but I don’t know if I should spend it. $500 canadian dollars for a MUni
> seems like a lot, and that’s the cheapest “good quality” one. One thing
> is for sure though, I need a tougher uni. Twisted my crank off a 3-foot
> drop.
>
> Oh yeah, when I was riding down the trail there was a really hard core
> biker (he had a sweet bike) who came by me and proclaimed, “I thought
> there was only one of you crazy f*ckers up here” Is that a posotive
> comment? Hehe, I didn’t have the heart to tell him there were a lot more
> of us.
>
> I would choose some easier trails to go on, but that was the easiest
> one, it had some really nice ladders on it though, so it wasn’t a total
> loss.
>
> I think I’ll buy that MUni sometime soon, until then, I’ll practice some
> more wheel walking. I’m up to 15 steps. YAY!
>
>
> –
> rammstein - Riding On Da North Shore
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> rammstein’s Profile: http://www.unicyclist.com/profile/1508
> View this thread: http://www.unicyclist.com/thread/20553
>
Sweet. I didn’t know Vancouver had a unicycle club. I tried looking on the internet for one, but I couldn’t find anything. I would really like to go on rides with you guys, but it would have to be on a weekend because I have to coach rugby every school day, I got a fair amount of homework. I live at the very top of North Van, two blocks below the beginning of the Old Grouse Highway, so there could be some problems for me being able to get down to that area, after all unicycles aren’t allowed on the bus system unless they have the damn bike racks. Damn bastards kicked me out in downtown!
Thanks. They appear to be too expensive though. I’ll just get the Yuni from unicycle.com or the Norco one, don’t think I’ll be getting the Norco one though…
