I have been learning how to unicycle for about 1 week. I am currently up to about 120ft consistantly. I had no problems up until yesterday. On Wednesday I was a little anxious wanting to ride my Uni and hopped on wearing jeans. I rode for about 30 minutes. I felt a little chafing and due to increase in rain, I put it up. So yesterday I felt this chafed sort of feeling and thought that maybe I was a little raw on my inner thighes. I went home and was changing into my bike shorts to ride and saw that I had some pretty good bruising on my inner thighes. Today they are a little more bruised feeling(probably due to my awareness)
The question is, is this normal, or was wearing the jeans the problem? I had ridden quite a bit prior to this and didn’t notice any bruises. I have the Torker 24" Unistar could the seat be contributing? I am going to take today off if I can keep myself from jumping on it. If I decided to ride, I won’t be trying it jeans again.
I would chalk that up as part of learning. Bike shorts may have prevented some of the chafing, but I don’t think cycling shorts would have helped prevent any bruising.
When you are learning it is common to be very tense and you may be squeezing the seat more than is necessary. Once you get more comfortable on the unicycle you will relax more and bruises should go away and you should have less problems with chafing.
Do you have the black Torker Unstar? The black Torker comes with a good adult sized saddle. If you have the silver Torker the saddle is way to small for an adult (it’s sized for 7 year olds) and that could be the cause of your bruising.
Yea, I have the new Black Unistar with the 48 spokes and from what I have read the Miata(?) seat. I may be a little tense in the lower half, and I will focus on relaxing when I ride again. I have seemed to get my upper body to relax alot, but apparently haven’t given as much attention to my lower body. I have found what I think is a fairly comfortable position on the seat so I don’t crush the boys, which I have done many times already. I am a little concerned about learning how to free mount, since I don’t think I will have as much control over my position on the seat. I know that there must be a way, otherwise noone would freemount with the exception of a few masochists.
The black Unistar has a saddle that is a copy of a Miyata saddle. It’s a good saddle design.
Snug cycling shorts will help keep things tucked away so freemounts are easier. It’s something that you just learn to adjust for. It’s also possible to mount sitting near the front of the saddle and then scoot your way back as you sit down. This allows the front of the saddle to push the dangly bits up and forward so you don’t sit on them. There are other ways to adjust yourself to as you sit down. Once you get more comfortable mouting it is possible to mount without sitting immediately on the seat and that gives you some time to adjust as you sit down. But snug cycling shorts are the best way to avoid mostly avoid the problem.
> I am a little concerned about learning how to free
> mount, since I don’t think I will have as much control over my
> positionon the seat.
When I first started freemounting, I would wobble off with my boys
yelling, “Hey you! Get off of me!!”. Sometimes I would stop and
freemount again, other times I would stand up while riding and quickly
re adjust. With time you’ll learn how to ‘preload your twins’ in the
saddle prior to mounting. Also (now that I can hop), I’ll mount and if
I’m not comfortable I’ll stand up, hop a couple of times and sit back
down in the saddle which works well.
Thanks. Needless to say the Kiwis are a sensitive subject. I have gotten caught up many many times just rolling up onto the seat holding on to the wall. I am looking forward to not being reliant on a wall to get on the unicycle. Maybe I am getting a little ahead of myself since I can’t get more than 20 feet out of my driveway, but I couldn’t make it to my garage door 5 days ago.
