I never thought I would even try and ride a unicycle. Thought only young people and circus clowns were skilled enough to ride them. So here I am 66 years old and attempting to ride a unicycle thanks to DaUniGuy who I met at the park decided he would teach me after I asked several questions and now I am hooked on learning to ride it. He has a lot of patiences with me which helps a lot. My friends think I have gone crazy at my age,but I decided to add it to my bucket list which is getting longer.I am sore daily but have been sleeping better This stuff wears you out. Can’t wait till I can ride without hanging on to something for dear life. I’ll be glad when my body catches up with my brain. Wish me luck unihoppy
Good luck, unihoppy! I hope to hear more from you as your riding comes along. And attaboy, DaUniGuy for bringing another one over to our side. Keep at it, stay patient, enjoy the process. In a few weeks, things that seem impossible (and are!) right now will be easy and you’ll be on to something else.
can use tips on riding.
Thanks for your reply LargeEddie. I hope I didn’t chew off more than I can handle at my age of 66 and starting to ride a unicycle. This week my right hip is so sore.I only have a totally of 3 hrs. and 20 mins. time on it. I can mount it and ride along a fence for about 17 meters by my house about 8 times with 2 misses, but its not easy. Still can’t feel my balance yet.I trying to visualize it in my mind all the time.Going on unicyclist.com and reading threads does help,so if you have a good tip for a beginner I am ready. I am so glad that dauniguy is instructing me once a week I hope he doesn’t give up on me. unihoppy
We learn to balance by losing our balance and then re-gaining it. Perhaps holding onto the fence is keeping you from losing your balance in any significant way. For the short stretches you ride forward, unassisted, maybe you are just relying on the momentum of you and the unicycle to stay upright.
I am not suggesting that you ditch the fence…I used a fence extensively in the first month of learning to ride the unicycle. Specifically, I did a lot of isometric exercises on the unicycle while holding onto the fence, twisting, moving the pedals around, etc. It may be a good idea for you to ease into every practice session with a set of exercises designed to increase your range-of-motion; that way, when you start flailing madly to maintain balance (as beginners tend to do), you won’t injure yourself.
The trick for you, unihoppy, seems to be: how to keep using a crutch (like a fence) but do so in a way that helps you learn your balance. A fence may cause you to unnaturally stay in a straight line when riding. My own success learning to idle at the fence was limited, because the fence inhibited me from twisting to the right and left.
There is a thread on the forum entitled “My rolling unicycle trainer”. Check it out.
The guy in the picture looks absolutely ridiculous, but who ‘doesn’t’ look ridiculous when they are learning the unicycle (I’m still learning and still looking ridiculous)? If the device works as it should, the rider should be able to steer to the left and right.
I have spoken with and hung out with DaUniGuy. He is pretty clever. Make sure to pick his brain about solutions to your issues.
I started when I was 45 yrs. old, not 66. Even then, I knew that smacking the pavement was not a desirable learning style at my age. The same applies to you.
I hung out with another unicyclist, a very high-level rider, who taught many people to ride. Part of his teaching style is to offer his shoulder to the person learning. For some reason, this does not seem like the most popular learning style; perhaps people feel some kind of stigma in getting that kind of help. Also, the technique of helping is not that easy, and it requires some strength. If you can find a strong, coordinated younger person to lend you a shoulder, that could really help.
Final advice: please ditch the “20 hours” philosophy, which has been popular among some new riders. You are going to have to be safer than a young person, and this is going to stretch out the learning process. However, you possess something all the young riders are lacking: the wisdom of age.
Best wishes!
hard to wait
Thanks for the great tips. I guess I am so anxious to get riding. I watch different videos and they make it so easy looking and it hard for me to grasp this at the time. I am thinking unicycle everyday. I am starting a tip book for me. Thanks again for your response and happy unicycling unihoppy
Don’t worry about learning, they say it takes about 10 to 14 hours to learn to ride. It will come.
Make sure you have good knee and elbow pads, wrist guards, and a helmet. You don’t want an injury to stop you from learning.
Good luck!
good advice
Thanks unicyclistlou for the safety tips. At my age of 66 I need all the padding I can get. Keep on pedaling unihoppy
Two more comments for you, unihoppy. One is to look for the positive every time out. If you just ride along the fence, you’re learning to feel your front-to-back balance and use the pedals to correct it, and that’s the single most important skill. You’ll still be practicing unicycle riding, and not many other 66 year olds are doing that. And if you try to ride away from the fence 20 times with no hope of doing more than one wheel turn most times, you’ll at least be learning how to dismount safely and hopefully to land on your feet most of the time, maybe starting to feel where your side-to-side balance is and thinking about how to correct it, even if you can’t do it yet. There will be days when you try something 20 times and fail every time, but still your body learns something that gets you closer to doing it the next time out.
And here’s a very long thread that started out as one guy’s learning journal, but many others have also used it since then to record their experiences:
Reading about other people’s experiences learning to ride was quite valuable for me. It’s huge, but going through it a few pages at a time might give some insight into how things played out for those who’ve gone through the process before you and maybe a sense of how far along you are.
Oh, one more: Fail both ways! If you keep coming off the front of the unicycle, see what you have to do to come off the back instead. If you keep coming off to the right side, make yourself lean the other way until you come off the left. If you’re overcommitting to some move, try to undercommit to it instead, and vice versa.
You got dat right LargeEddie! Us old folks gotta stick together. We need all the old farts on one wheel we can get.
Thankyou for this Unicyclist Lou. I would sure like to see some wrist guards and knee pads when you show up for our next session unihoppy. You have seen how I am padded up like Robo Cop so I practice what I preach. It takes a lot longer to heal now then when we were 14!
You do not have to worry my not so young Padawan Apprentice. The “Force” is strong within you! If all goes well next week we will start getting away from the fence. Listen to your Sensei Grasshopper and you will be one wheeling in no time!
Using the fence, I want you to just stay with the assignments I have given you to do each day. Try to achieve a Zen like state while chanting “Weight on seat! Weight on seat!”
• 3 to five minutes of stretching to start and to end each session
• 10 to 15 board assisted static mounts, find your balance point and dismount to the rear.
• 10 to 15 rolling mounts, find your balance point and dismount to the rear.
• 20 to 30 crank rocks (idles) with each foot. This will help you get used to catching your balance in the dead zone.
• Ride the fence as much as you want
• When you get tired or frustrated stop and come back later
• Just sit on it! Watching TV or better yet while going to Unicyclist.com University and searching the threads or watching youtube videos.
• I want to add the exercise in the link below to help you learn to launch off of your plant foot instead of your pedal foot. Remember when the Uni flew out behind you when we went from the large rock behind the tire to the 2x2 board? Way to much pedal pressure. This exercise will help you to learn to launch off of your base foot on the ground with just a light pressure on the pedal when doing a static mount.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDziHTXuA-w
Use the fence at this point but try to lose the “Death grip” you have now. Get to where you are just using one or two fingers and try to lift your hand when you feel your balance point when you are in “the zone’. Your record was three pedals with your hand lifted. Try to break your record. Unicycling is a series of small accomplishments. Savor each one. Take breaks, drink water stretch, listen to the birds chirp and enjoy the wonderful weather, relish in being old and healthy. But most important HAVE FUN!!
couldn’t do it
Wasn’t going to get on unicycle today but reading your thread I couldn’t help myself and I tried the free mount after I watch the video I understood more of putting to much pressure on the first foot I did it after a couple of time holding on to couch with one hand just for balance.Got to get my pads this week somewhere.If I can get my brain to change I can do this. thanks DaUniGuy. Unihoppy
welcome to the “Old Geezer On One Wheel” club!
66 is a great age to feel younger!
edit: I have so much padding on me that the “young” ones on the french forum nicknamed me “tireless robocop”
Good luck unihoppy…have fun…it’s a great journey…
thanks for your reply wobbling bear.It looks like me and you are the same age. I be interested in your story when you started,problems,and how long you have been riding,Starting at 66 I feel I am way behind. unihoppy
Well I am a slow learner: it took me 2 months just to ride … and still learning.
I had to wake up every morning and perform a lot of falls…
Now that happened when I was much younger (53 I think) …
My technical skills are still limited but overall I am not such a bad Munier.
I try to ride with people that are much much younger than me … but they wait for the old bear and I enjoy technical riding in the woods around Paris.
example: Strava Ride Activity there you can see we are going slowly … but it’s fun and I am very fit for my age (heart rate : 45).
So try and try again and go for Muni !
Thanks for the comments jojoxie. Any tips for an old guy just learning is welcomed
Haha…I’m not the best person for tips! I was/am a very slow learner. If anything my tip would be to train yourself to always fall to the front of the uni…(you will have to unlearn that later which is not easy!)…but you are much less likely to have an injury off the front. I trained to do this by practising the roll back mount but just tapping the top pedal with my non dominant foot in passing… to land on the floor in front… then stepping off with the other foot with the uni behind. I did this over and over until it became automatic.
Uni-ing is a skill that you can’t just pick up and put in your pocket (IMO)…it’s a constant challenge and one that brings huge rewards.
Biggest tip…Have Fun :):)