I broke my rib last month, got a chest protector so I wouldn’t do it again, but this recovery time has me thinking - maybe I should protect myself from next type of injury too.
What do you guys wear for muni, or other for any of the other more aggressive unicycling disciplines?
For muni, I’m rocking:
full face mtb helmet - specialized gambit
wrist guards - ennui
elbow pads - POC vpd system
knees - Pearl Izumi elevate
high top mtb shoes - five ten freerider pros
Chest/spine - alpinestars a1 pro
On my g36, same stuff, minus the chest protector and with a regular helmet instead of the full face. Wrist guards only for flatland/street
I think it very much depends on how you intend to ride. On my ultimate wheel and EUC, I always wear wrist guards. For my muni trip, which was just wide gravel paths with climbs and soft sand and some roots, I actually wore nothing, not even a helmet. I thought about it 100 metres away from the car and was too lazy to turn around. I think the chance of a faceplant on a big wheel (26" and up) is very very small.
You could do shin guards if ur afraid of pedal bite. Mostly I find those annoying, because they keep turning around my legs and are very warm.
I wear low adidas shoes which don’t cover my ankles and which have flat souls, because I don’t want to get stuck on the pedals when I need to bail. The pins keep my shoes in place.
I’m lucky to have a park with 30+ miles of single track mtb trails within a 10 minute drive, but less lucky that they’re nearly all blues and blacks. Rolling down those rocks is the most fun I’ve ever had in my life, but I eat it hard maybe 2-3 times per ride
Most of the time I’m also wearing a camelback backpack with integrated back protector.
If I’m in a bikepark, or otherwise think it’s high risk, I have a back/chest/shoulder/ellbow upper body protector I add and a fullface helmet.
In my opinion, you can add as many pads as you like, but more important is staying within your limits. There are so many injuries that pads cannot protect you from like torn ligaments and even many fractures don’t really care how padded you are. Yes you cannot fully avoid falling and sometimes an injury is just bad luck, but bad luck strikes more often if you go over the limit in places you shouldn’t.
Interesting to me that you didn’t mention wrist guards. Most of the spills I have had either almost broke my wrists (and head), but they were backwards falls. Falls of any sort on gravel or trail I’m always glad I had gloves on. Neglected that once and got skinned up pretty bad.
Yeah, sometimes it seems to me like there are two different types of people in this world, those whose wrists are stronger than the rest of their body and those where the wrist is the weakest link.
If that is true, I’m part of the first type. Some of it may also be technique when falling, but I find it notable that there are those that swear on wrist guards and those who don’t see a need.
I think, being a programmer, I am very dependent on my wrists and hands. So I figure I have an obligation to protect them. Also I am lousy at rolling out of a fall and my first reaction would be to land on my hands, so wearing wrist guards is a good safety precaution. But I’ve never broken anything in my 50 years on this planet, maybe it is about time to get a new experience…
I think wrist guards are mainly useful for road (to slide on the asphalt) or after a wrist injury while you build strength back.
For Muni I would only wear it in my not dominant hand and for doing some tricks I can’t wear them.
Also, by blocking your wrist you could injure your elbow or shoulder in a fall that your wrist would have been able to absorbe.
In general I think the best thing you can do is to know your limits and to train and warm up for the type of falls you expect to have.
Simple warm up I usually do before riding, sometimes I also do it backwards for flatland.
Shortly after starting to ride risky unicycling I broke my wrist in a soft fall, that would set me up in the second group, but since that incident I focused more on strengthening my wrists and warming up properly and after a bunch of gnarly falls I’ve hadn’t have another injury, which would kinda set me up in the first group.
If you were to be a freelance musician (not singer or composer) who lives at the limit from pay check to pay check it would be reasonable, but as a programmer you could take a sick leave while your injury is at the worst and then start typing again with a split keyboard adjusted so that you don’t have to bend your wrist or simply learn to type with one hand (I took a history exam typing only with left hand, at that time I could write around 70wpm like that, for hard to access key combinations you can create shortcuts). Also, depending on your exact job, you may expend a lot of time thinking or on meetings and you could use a LLM to reduce the amount of code you have to write.
In conclusion,I think that the difficulties you would experience would be pretty similar to most other office workers.
the dude in the vid (is that you?) has no belly. I have a lot of weight to catch
ok fine there are always options and other solutions, but I’d rather not be in that situation. I do use AI in my work as well. It saves a lot of time.
Though at home, I also like playing computer games, like Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora it is now. I can do that for hours on end. With mouse and keyboard.
I’ve got no choice about the wrist guards - I permanently damaged my tfcc in an unfortunate/really fun Heelys accident a few years back. Two much pressure on my wrist and the bones dislocate.
They’re also why I broke my rib, though. I fell on my wrist guard!
I guess I don’t need ‘em on both wrists, though. @kriKET do you wear gloves on the trails, and if so, you got any recommendations?
Most MTB gloves are pretty similar. My favorites because of price, resistance and availability are Giro DND. For heavy winter I use Endura Strike gloves.
I use race face ambush knee+shin pads.
Evoc stage 18 backpack, I think it may protect the back a little bit. For DH racing I have a dedicated back protector, but I haven’t brought it to UNICON22 since it is very bulky.
When it is not hot I occasionally use AliExpress elbow pads style of G-Form.
For the head, bell super air R and occasionally photocromatic glasses from AliExpress (I have good ones, but I prefer the cheap ones for some reason).
For the hip+pelvis I use Fox Titan Race, useful for riding very steep and lose terrain, though I’ve hit some rocks just where the pads ends a few times, wish they would cover more area.
I am considering buying a chest+shoulder protector, though maybe for next UNICON.
Yes
Guess that counts as being permanently recovering from an injury.
I’m a unicyclist, I like challenges, if I can’t use a hand I will take it as a new challenge and learn to do whatever I want like that. Of course always better two have everything healthy.
In your case, for riding flat terrain with simple forwards and backwards falls and not very strong wrists (assumption), wrists wards may be worth it, for technical terrain I think it is better to have your full range of motion to grab trees or absorb falls in uneven terrain.
Alpine Stars armoured shorts, thighs, coccyx, and padded.
Armoured gloves, palms, knuckles, fingers and wrists.
Knee and shin armour
Elbow and forearm armour.
I dont wear all of it, really I gear up based on the diffuculty of the terrain.
This lot has kept me injury free with one exception, a forward ejection from a flick flock une, the uni follwed through and came down like a axe in my achillies tendon, the KH Star Fighter button punched a huge whole and a nasty scar, one of thefew places I dont have protection.
@Wheelou so true, I landed safley on my feet running, the flickflock une in free wheel, used to edject me off the front if I got things wrong coasting. Unfortunately the free wheel keeps running true, and travels on behind you. The M40 bars n brake lever made serious contact a number of times, just like an axe falling with momentum. hurt like crazy and I have a KH Star Fighter brake button shaped scar.
Never had a problem dismounting or bailing on the free wheel, it was the follow through of the une traveling up from behind faster than I could run.
The forward ejection always coasting downhill, the une would travel upright and true for a distance, then come down like a chopper on my ankles
Interesting story.
I‘m curious, which way did you mount the Starfighter? One end is pointier than the other… I mounted mine with the rounder side facing to the front, and also in a way that the two „fingers“ end at the same height as the brake lever. I think that‘s the safest way. Would still hurt like crazy if it hit the right spot, I‘m sure.
May I ask at what age you learned to ride a feewheel?
@Wheelou Haha I have the button, ponity part to the front, so it made a mess.
Free Wheel I started at 55, took me around 3 years to be able to coast, longest coast I pulled off was around 36m, but I could do 10m consistently and controlled.
Bottom line @ 59 my legs are just not strong enough to safley ride free wheel.
Shame, I loved the flickflock only rode free wheel for 3 years, I like the fluidity. Pulling off coasting has to be the biggest unicycle high.
The sale of my flickflock une paid for my e-legs, so at least I can still ride a fixed wheel une.
