Riding position/Posture

Riding Advice
1

I beleive that I have developed a bad riding habit.

Going up hill and starting I tend to twist my upper body and extend my right arm forward and left arm trail and points to the rear of unicycle. Its possible that I am also leaning forwards.

When I idle the same is true for arm position and slight twist in upper body.

When up to speed or riding down hill both arms are relaxed and to the side and my back is straight.

My Right leg is dominant and provides the majority of thrust. Also when idling it remains in the 6 o’clock position.

Any suggestions to overcoming this habit.

2

Practice doing the opposite with your body.

I think leaning forward is actually required for good uphill posture.

One thing that might help break your bad posture is to practice riding holding onto the handle with either hand and eventually both hands.

3

Nothing wrong with leaning forwards, most people ride far too upright.

Use the handle, it helps.

4

I also tend to ride with a slight twist in the upper body. My left shoulder tends to lead. My comfort position is right hand on the saddle handle and left arm out front for balance. That causes the left shoulder to lead the way. Even when I’m not holding the saddle handle and just riding along the left shoulder tends to lead the way.

My hips are still square on the saddle so I don’t consider the shoulder issue to be too critical. If the hips aren’t square on the saddle then you’re going to have problems.

I do practice riding (Coker, muni, freestyle) with my arms at my side and my shoulders square. I also occasionally try riding with my left hand on the saddle handle and my right arm out for balance but it feels weird to ride that way for too long.

I can ride the Coker with both hands on my saddle handle extension and my shoulders square and not using either arm for trim balance. But that’s not the way I normally ride.

The left shoulder leading isn’t ideal but it hasn’t caused me too much problem for the type and level of riding I do.

5

Relax. Don’t struggle against it.

I lead with my right shoulder. when I’m riding with my T7 handle my hand is just at the right place to rest on the handle. Its much more relaxing.

6

I to experience the Twist

I have the same problem. And it translates into more work. Oddly enough on my 24 I lead with my left shoulder right hand back. On my 29 It is just the opposite. So, I was thinking about a 26 or so and I would be perfect:) . I have tried checking my foot position, holding the handle with the opposite hand, I have even moved my seat ever so slightly one direction or the other. Nothing works for long. I also notice that when I get tired it gets worse. I also get a great deal of outward pressure on my foot with the back shoulder. To the point that if I try to adjust my foot it almost shoots right off the side of the pedal.

Here is what seems to work the longest. Sit normal but roll my leading shoulder back.

I have seen the threads that just say relax, I am trying, some people say that I am uptight. My frustration is growing especially when I try and climb. I am already moving slower, working harder to balance, the twist is just one more thing to combat.

-Gary

7

Your feet shouldn’t be pushing outwards like that.

Concentrate on keeping your knees going in an up and down motion with no side to side motion. When viewed straight on, your knees should just go up and down in line with a line from your hip to your pedal. There should be no side to side circular action going on.

Do you have the same pedaling problem when on a bicycle? Some people ride bow-legged on the bike or have a strange pedaling motion that causes the heel to move side to side. That’s bad pedaling motion. Bad for the knees. Watch experienced bicyclists and you’ll see that their knees only move up and down.

I found that learning to ride one footed (with either foot) helped to get me to ride lighter on the pedals. If you have a freestyle uni or a muni do some one foot riding practice. It’s a skill that can improve your pedaling.

8

Going to video

I am going to have my wife video me on the unicycle.
By riding in a parking lot, perhaps I can analysis what I’m actually doing.

Perhaps I can spot on the video my true posture, lean, arm positions, etc.

Also using this same technique to analysis bunny hop, idleing.

Whats important is doing the video from several angles and a couple of mins of video at each angle.

9

I used to ride with a slight twist in my upper body with the right arm leading or pointing forwards, it seems to have stopped now and I can relax a lot more in the saddle to the point where both arms can just hang down beside me as I ride.

I don’t see it as being a problem you should worry about, the more you ride the more you’ll get used to relaxing when riding.

When doing tricks/jumps/trials or riding trails your weight and riding position will constantly shift to keep the balance.