I’m looking to improve my stillstand technique and came across a
thread
which mentioned posts by Andrew Carter on the physics behind it,
unfortunately
I can’t find the relevant thread and wondered if anyone could give me
a direct link to it?
I’m slightly confused as to the actual definition of a stillstand as
well!
I know that there should be no movement of the wheel but some posts
seem
to imply that waving arms is okay. My stillstand technique at the
moment
is basically a ‘frozen’ stand on horizontal pedals with no arm
movement
at all. Best time so far is a good eight seconds and I can sometimes
‘feel’
the corrections taking place almost subconsciously as more sort of
central
core body movements. Doing this it really does look like you are
frozen
and I’d like to know if there’s any tips you could give me in order to
improve. I don’t know exactly WHAT I’m doing to correct things though,
I
only know that I pass from the ‘pause’ phase (about 3 secs) into the
zone
where the corrections are taking place, I think about 2-3 corrections
take place within the last five seconds. At about this time I’m so
surprised that its happening that I lose it and the last bit turns
into a (correctable) fall.
So far the best position I’ve found is to enter the stillstand by a
backwards rotation and slight (?30 degree) twist which seems to give
both fwd/back and side/side stability better.
Cheers Klaas that was just what I was looking for.
from reading the first post I’m thinking that the reason I get
better times when using the ‘twisted’ position is that I have
a tyre contact patch that is at a diagonal to my upper body
position, thus maybe I use both lateral and fwd/backwd
lower back ‘core’ corrections without having to use my arms
in either plane. For the NON twisted case, if you think of the
contact patch as being a straight line (allowing for tyre
deformnation)
it is in line with the upper body and hence some rotational arm
swinging
may be needed to decouple the fwd/backwd corrections from lateral
(core
or leaning) corrections. When I’m in ‘the zone’ it certainly feels
like I’ve achieved a sort of ‘tripod of forces’ maintaining the
stability. I tend
to think if it as two points coming from the tyre (as a diagonal line
underneath me) and a third ‘virtual’ which I control from core
movement
which seems to hover a few inches in front of my guts.
Either this makes sense to someone, or its just another way the mind
tries
to make sense of something really spooky!
Even with the above I can’t see anyone doing ‘minutes’ worth of this
sort of thing without arm waving. Up until a few weeks ago I had never
heard of stillstanding, I had decied that I’d call what I was doing
‘freehanging’ because it just feels like that, frozen,
non-movement(ish),
balancing.
I know it might be the most boring uni videos in existence but I’d
be interested in seeing some of these ‘three to five minute’ stands
to see whether they use arm movements.
I wave my arms like crazy,also swing my hips side to side,bending the tire left to right.Anything to stay up.Iv’e been doing a lot of still stands latly,but iv’e never timed myself.
I do non-twisted,Ive never heard of twisting.Ill have to try it.
Iv’e also tried ssing seat out.although its easier and more practical to just stand,my second best ss was seat out.anybody else ss seat out,or is it to impractical?
I stand up and think most poeple do. its easier that way.
I wave my arms like crazy,also swing my hips side to side,bending the tire left to right.Anything to stay up.Iv’e been doing a lot of still stands latly,but iv’e never timed myself.
I do non-twisted,Ive never heard of twisting.Ill have to try it.
Iv’e also tried ssing seat out.although its easier and more practical to just stand,my second best ss was seat out.anybody else ss seat out,or is it to impractical?
Any trials rider who’s progressed to technical seat out lines will do seat out ss’s. Often, right before big moves, lots of riders will do a 1-5sec stillstand before they do the move. I’ve never timed my self seat out ss’ing, but I know I’ve done at least 5 seconds, probably ten. My record seat in is only around 30.
Pete, that technique of yours with the angled wheel is really interesting. Do you have the equipment to get a video up onto unicyclist.com of you stillstanding?
yes we have a digicam at the club on tuesday so I’ll see what I can
get for you. I’ve just had a go outside and I definitely twist my
lower body as I go into the stand, sometimes nearly 90 degrees.
I’d say I was 50% on the seat and the left pedal is pretty much
all the way down. Only got a few seconds so they were just
elongated pauses as I didn’t feel any corrections taking place.
Will have a practice over the weekend if I can tear myself away
from the new giraffe :))
I haven’t progressed to seat out riding yet, I like to have my
seat set fairly high and it feels pretty awkward to get it out
from underneath. Makes getting on the giraffe quite tricky too,
at the moment I’m using the nearest post to stabilise as I get
my left foot on, then right foot, rotate until pedals are level
and then push the seat in from the front!
check out this thread for the most detailed write-up of a raffie free mount
right now i just really want to suggest to u that u get used to getting your bum in the seat BEFORE u get your second foot on the pedal
it makes things easier when u’re pole-mounting and it’s quite often the difference between succeeding and failing at the freemount
i follow the basic freemount even when i pole-mount
my ‘weak’ foot goes on the tyre and wedges against the back of the frame
(this keeps the wheel from rolling)
my ‘strong’ foot goes onto it’s pedal and the opposite hand lets go of the seatpost at the same time (crucial!!) [when u pole-mount, this hand will be holding the pole so ignore this bit till u start freemounting - the sooner the better ‘-) ]
i stand a lil’ higher on that ‘strong’ foot (my weight on that pedal then keeps the wheel from rolling) so i can get to shove the seat in
and then only does my ‘weak’ foot find it’s pedal
thats a great thread, particularly the ‘boosting’ part and
tilting the thing slightly (to the right in my case). I’ve
had the giraffe about a 2 weeks now but only ridden it
about 4 hours total so far (wet weather here in Wales!)
A couple of times I’ve got as far as getting my leg over
the seat but I keep crunching my ‘soft’ bits before the second
foot hits the pedal.
Do giraffe riders have their seats set a little lower than usual
to avoid this? With the seat lowered an inch (and from a pole mount)
I can’t do any aggressive start/stops/idles because the seat pops
out. I probably need to put a lot more weight onto the seat
to stop this.
Biggest problem I’ve found so far is the ‘slipping sprocket’
problem. This usually happens after I’ve being riding backwards
or just after going into an idle. The forwards jerk of stopping
just before the idle must be unscrewing the thing just a little
bit each time. I was going to try threadlock but I’d like a
more ‘permanent’ solution, I’m thinking possibly putting
a couple of small pegs through the cog into the hub.
Anyone got any ideas? All my worst UPD’s so far have been down
to this problem!