Ride over 10x10cm obstacle

General
1

Here is my attempt at an article on jumping over a 10x10cm obstacle. I am at a
disadvantage here because I cannot do this skill, so I pieced things together
from past postings. As usual I welcome all suggestions.

Beirne

Ride over 10x10cm obstacle

Method #1

  1. Ride toward the obstacle.

  2. When you are close, and the pedals are horizontal, stand on the pedals and
    jump over the obstacle.

Method #2

  1. Ride up alongside the obstacle.

  2. Jump up and down a few times, then make a big sideways jump to go over
    the obstacle.

Method #3

  1. Ride up to the curb at a good speed.

  2. When you hit the obstacle give the pedals an extra push to go up and over.

Method #4

  1. Approach at slow speed

  2. Stop against the obatacle, standing on the pedals with a gap between the
    unicycle’s seat amd your seat.

  3. Grabbing the seat handles, ride/pull yourself up and over the obstacle.

Notes and Hints:

My (Terry) current method is to jump before I get to the obstacle. I used to be
only able to do this when my pedals were level and the right one was forward. I
can do the left now as well, but still tend to miss it reasonably often. The
hardest part about this is judging when you should take off, but you learn to
make slight adjustments in your approach angle so that your pedals are where you
want them.

One way to practice this sort of jumping is just to ride along and hop over a
line on the ground (or even do it with no line). When your pedals get level,
the back one stops you and you pop up. I only hold the seat at the front.
Eventually you can do this with every half revolution of the wheel. A more
advanced practice is to ride along a paved sidewalk and try to jump over every
line (or every second line to begin with). This forces you to make decisions
about when to jump
(i.e. with what foot forward).

A 20" wheel goes 5 feet per revolution, so you may end up having to take off 2
feet or so from the obstacle (though in practice this wont happen as you’ll
learn to anticipate this and change the approach angle).

I prefer this method as you never stop and it’s probably smoother and nicer
looking than the ride into the gutter and then heave up method.

Terry Jones terry@santafe.edu Craig Milo Rogers rogers@ISI.EDU Beirne Konarski
bkonarsk@mcs.kent.edu

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