One-foot Wheelwalking...

Unicycles and Equipment
1

I started the wheelwalk about a week ago and I’ve almost got it down. I do it about 20 kicks avg, and I haven’t worked on going into it from ride or idle very much so that’s something I really need to get going on - but…

I want to begin the 1fww nevertheless as soon as possible. The point of all of this is really to get to the glide anyway, am I right? Eh? I live in a hilly place - atop a hill with my university at the bottom. I’d like to get from my front door to my first class without pedaling but a bit…that sounds like a dream

Or do I mean coast…no matter.

Anyway, couldn’t find 1 foot wheelwalking advice in this forum - the search tool eliminates the word “one” from the search…that probably has something to do with it.

So even a link to an old thread would be enough, but if you have anything else to say to a newbie trickster I’d really love to hear it.

2

i cant do it, but from what ive read i think you are supposed to do one kick noramlly, then kinda drag that foot back up to the top of the wheel. so in other words, never stop touching the wheel with your choice of foot. i guess youstay in control that way. but again, i cant do it.

3

Here’s how I learned:

  1. Stop the uni with your back foot.
  2. Put your front foot on the tire.
  3. Wedge your back foot securely on the frame while you are making the first push with your other foot.
  4. When your foot gets pretty far out on the tire, lightly drag it back (too light and the uni will shoot in front of you, but if you stomp down you’ll fall forward).
  5. Start another push.
  6. Repeat 4/5 and go as far as you want.
  7. Take your foot off the frame and put it straight down to feel for the pedal and grab it.
  8. Put your other foot on.
  9. Ride off into the sunset. :slight_smile:
4

this is a must. even if it’s 1am, you have to ride the extra 18-20 hours until the sun sets. this is the only way to really learn 1ft ww

5

I learnt 1fww before normal wheelwalking. but im a little weird :stuck_out_tongue:

6

Julia’s advice is sterling, and it seems like you’re a quick learner. You’ll be there in no time.

Gliding is exhilarating. As you get better, you’ll notice there are moments when you’re not touching the wheel at all and you coast a little bit.

7

Are those the moments just before the “Ahhhhhrrrgg!” and splat? :astonished:

I am just jealous. I should learn to wheel walk.

8

Hehe, indeed some pavement splatting occurs. The one huge benefit about gliding tricks is that your feet are above from the pedals so bailing is safer. Though I’ve had some nasty falls getting tangled up in wheel walking…

9

.

Wow; I gave this a couple tries, and I can’t even get a single kick in while holding on to a pole. I wasn’t expecting much, but it felt like trying to juggle six balls, and I can’t juggle.

But…

If I keep my dormant foot’s toe on the tire, I can keep from falling over. You know, sort of.

But none of you mentioned this; is it bad form? Do any of you 1fwwers utilize this, or use it as a crutch while learning at least? Or should it really be done without my dormant foot connecting with the tire?

Thanks for the help!

10

I try to keep my dormant foot fixed firmly on the frame and out of the way. I wouldn’t say it’s bad form to use it but you can definitely learn without. In fact, I think I see some freestyle riders use that foot when doing reverse one foot wheel walking. Check out what I’m talking about at 1:37 in this video:
http://www.vimeo.com/14582574

After watching that vid, developing your dormant foot as a brake system looks like a beneficial thing to do. Keep it up!

11

You have to use your foot as a break in that trick, because you can’t keep your other foot in contact with the tire all the time. In normal one foot ww you should always be touching the tire with your pushing foot, and if the other foot is rubbing it just gets in the way. You should be able to get at least one push if you can already wheelwalk, because the first push is the same in normal and one footed. Maybe try a little more and if you still can’t get it learn something else and come back :).

12

Thanks, Julia. I wonder what you’ll be doing when you’re my age…

The wheelwalk came so naturally that I was thinking the 1f would be a skill that I could just sort of “tack on” to it. I see how the 1fww could benefit someone wanting to learn the ww, but I don’t really see the benefits of having ww first. Pushing is easy, really easy - I think the difficulty people have with the ww comes from switching feet/getting the foot back up there, but anyone can push a tire. But only that small element of pushing the tire is what they have in common - I think the 1fww’s foot drag is a much more formidable skill than anything I’ve dealt with so far.

And speaking of things I can’t do, I was thinknig today about installing a wheel on the back of my seat to more quickly learn the seatdrag. Have any of you tried that? Do you think it would be beneficial, or does the seat oscillate from side to side too much…

(even if it did, I could still use one of those any-direction wheels on the bottom of chairs…)

Maybe before I move on I should learn to hop :smiley:

I’ll keep you posted on my 1f progress.

13

Stranger in a Strange Land

m,m
~__~
l_l

I went olut and practiced for about an hour - I just wasn’t leaning forward enough because I was probably scared. But I do see why wheelwalking would be helpful now that it makes some sense, and I got a record six kicks in before falling very painfully.

14

Oh glorious painful bails! That’s what makes us better at unicycling :slight_smile:

Good job!

15

wait so you can ww but not hop?

16

Just a heads up(not sure if im the only one that thinks this way, but…) I personally feel like gliding is more work than just pedaling around, not because it is difficult, but beacause it takes so much muscle work. But like I said, I dont know if its just me.

17

Update

Ok, I think it’s been about 3 days since my last post and the 1fww is coming along really well. I’m doing about 5 kicks avg with decent control, and having no problem transitioning into it (hey, that’s my name) from either 1f idle, which I picked up over that first week I was learning to wheelwalk, or from the wheelwalk itself. Starting today, I got that ‘click’ that comes when I learn new skills. It feels like the motions are actually starting to ‘make sense’, and after this point learning the skill becomes inevitable (because I’m too close to stop). It’s T+17 days since I’ve begun learning tricks (I’m going to keep track) and I think it’s time to step it up some. The 1fww will come within the next week, so I need a new skill to work on. I have skipped learning to hop, ride backwards, (I can do it for about four rotations, useful for unicycle football when I get knocked back hard, but it’s definitely not a skill I have (I couldn’t cover a receiver while riding backward the whole time)), ride with one foot, or idle with my bad foot…or do a complete 180 (cut the tire on the ground), but i CAN ride solidly because I live near a university so I can uni everywhere, so my turns are smooth, etc. I don’t want to waste time learning those tricks, with the possible exception of riding backwards, because I feel they are elemental enough that a really good rider could do them with virtually no practice at all. Most of you probably think I’m really silly, or idealistic and overly ambitious, but this is the way I am…I don’t take a dip into new skills - I do everything but drown.

So I would like a recommendation of what skill to learn next. I’m thinking seat drag or suWW, the drag of course entails riding out, but so do half of the tricks that exist, so I’m perfectly happy getting to work on that. I think I’m going to save the ‘hopping’ tricks for a little later; I prefer the ‘balance’ ones - I think they are categorically different with some exceptions. So are suWW and seat drag similar in difficulty? I would also really, really, really, really like to learn to ‘spin’ as I think it is called, which is a move that basically is a looser, pedalling pirouette, but that appears beyond my reach at this point, am I wrong that it is much more difficult? Basically, please mention one of the above tricks or a recommendation of your own and a brief explanation of how to do it, or any tips if you would be so kind, I would appreciate it.

Lance

18

Learn hopping, it shouldn’t take more than a couple days for you and it really helps with other tricks cause you can hop out if it’s too sketchy to ride out.

19

i woukd say you could learn to hop in under an hour and be comfortable within a few days of little practice. then learn SIF, as riding SIF is a balance trick, as you like em. then you can try seat dragging in front once you can ride SIF VERY well. emphasis on VERY. but i really think you should learn turning and going bwds, as they will tremendously increase your ability to transition from different tricks and mounts. so a big list, but with nothing you cant handle within a week or two. i can barely wheelwalk(max 30ft) yet i can do everything you cant do basically, with the exception of the pirouette

20

Yeah, I think maybe this is the place to go too. It seems really practical, a lot of people in the Unicycle Football League will hop out for this very reason. It’s a little bit frustrating because I ride with my seat very high…so I can barely bend my legs enough to jump even if I weren’t on a unicycle. That’s one reason I’ve put off working on it - I could easily double or triple (and with some effort, quadruple) what I imagine my maximum hopping height would be if I hopped with SIF, so it didn’t really seem a priority, as I’ve never ridden SIF before - until earlier today.

I tried to transition from riding to SIF, but simply couldn’t manage - my seat is so HIGH I couldn’t pull the back out in front of me…

So, I held onto a pole and started SIF against my body and had no problem making about 7 or 8 revolutions - called it a success and decided to save it for another day (I have to use most of my spare time on the 1fww, you know!)

Two notes on the 1fww, maximum 9 kicks, but they were controlled in a way that I did not reach yesterday at all. For instance, I had several situations when I was leaning too far to one side and I was able to ‘kick-correct’ or in layman’s terms, ‘turn’.

Also briefly practiced standing up for the SUWW without a support, which was surprisingly easy, though even with support, I cannot possibly imagine propelling myself from that position!

I’m pretty ambitious, but I know when I’ve met my match, and I think I’ve progressed as far as possible (excluding the ww and 1fww improvements to come) without going back to the basics.

So Reed, I will work on the SIF, if that’s the road to the Seat Drag, which is so awesomely impressive. Incidentally, this may involve hopping as a prerequisite, since I literally will probably have to hop in order to get the seat in front of me.

I want to make one more note on the wheelwalks. I saw a tutorial, (watched as many videos as I could find), and ONE and only one tutorial made a suggestion delivered peremptorily - it sounded more like a requirement! And that suggestion was…to adjust your seat to the maximum height you are comfortable with.

So there it is - a plausible explanation for why I have found this skill to be so easy to acquire while others often have not.

Also, it is really nice to have found this forum to be able to log my progress and get suggestions from helpful people such as yourselves, so thank you.