I think the point of the exercise Terry does is not to demonstrate that you need a strong one legged jump - it’s to teach you that you need to keep the foot that starts on the pedal in one place.
I’ve tried having beginners do that exercise when they were learning to mount, but haven’t really seen much succes from it. Doesn’t mean it can’t be helpful for some people, but the (limited) amounts I’ve tested it, it didn’t produce results. (I think it may be confusing a lot of people more than helping to be honest)
Mounting with one foot on a curb (or brick, piece of wood, cinderblock, etc.), with the unicycle parallel to the curb, so not using it to stop the wheel rolling back, has been more succesful. To make it a “static” mount and not a rollback mount from there, I have the beginner try to step over the unicycle, with the uni staying in place - I think getting the body over the unicycle is the key element one needs to learn. After the stepping over feels easy, gradually try to lower the amount of force put in and start putting the second foot on - until you can ride away. Then, remove the curb from the equation (or reduce it’s size).
I use “static” mount as a term for the unicycle staying roughly in place, and the cranks starting roughly horizontal, and I think the vast majority of people use it that way. For the purpose of learning one, I think it’s good to be fairly liberal with that term - if your uni moves a bit backwards, or you like starting with the pedal a bit lower than horizontal, that is absolutely fine (and normal).
Another exercise is to do something similar to the standard curb mount, but instead of a curb using a 1-2cm thick rope, or something like a tree twig to put the back of the tire against it. That will allow some “excessive” force put onto the pedal, but not as much as you would use on a rollback mount. Again, try to focus on getting your body over the unicycle - and “overstepping” at first to then dial it back may help. Also, reduce the size of the object behind the tire to increase the difficulty- until you arrive at no object.
Seems like this thread was bogged down in the semantics of people’s convergent evolution for mounting the cycle. Hopefully you can find something that works best for you and practice it. Admittedly when I first started riding on a 36"/ a larger wheel mounting it was a nightmare because I kept wanting to do what I knew worked for me.
For a 20" to a 29", I had no issues stepping up with the pedals at 6 and 12 with all my weight on the 6 o clock pedal foot. This kind of worked for the 36 but the 3 and 9 or 4 and 10 was more consistent after actually caving into trying it. It was mostly a momentum thing, it’s way easier to get the wheel going when you already have gravity working for you.
I think half the problem can boil down to committing to the mount. Like most things in unicycling, all the practice and years riding don’t mean much if some kind of leap of confidence rooted faith isn’t ever taken. The hardest part of mounting a larger wheel is being further off the ground than you’ve been to this point and fighting through the initial layers of panic when your muscle memory is suddenly dancing with something new. In my opinion of course, this is all anecdotal to my experience.
I haven’t heard of a hatchet with a 30" tire so I likely am misinformed already about the logistics of this. I’m also trying to put myself back into the shoes of someone who upgraded from a 26" to a 29" who already felt on top of the world on the 26. And now that I think back to that fateful day, the momentum of the larger wheel was admittedly terrifying. So, if I apply the knowledge of how I shifted mindsets from the 29 (which now feels like a 20) to the 36 I can understand the huge pain the butt that dealing with how much more the cycle seems to move with a larger wheel. I also think that, as much as it isn’t something I want to say, it really just down to adjusting to it. Muscle memory was always kind of a nebulous concept to me until I switched between unicycles and was unable to ride one after spending too much time on another. This slowly dissipated and things went back to normal, but it is kind of an important thing to know just in case you try to mount this new unicycle and think you’re doing something wrong. Part of mounting a larger wheel is the proper form, that’s definitely true, but I think part of it is also practice and confidence and getting used to it over time. Which I am sure people said here a bunch of times. Forget the language people have for the names of whatever they do, use a wall at first if you need to to build that confidence, and try out different things that work. Also, starting downhill on a much larger wheel at first can be a bit scary if you aren’t used to resisting the momentum.
I made this weekend my learn to freemount or die trying weekend. I successfully freemounted my 36er three times yesterday and 18 times today. The first time took me 30 attempts and that was after practicing with a rope as a balance aid and even suspended from a safety harness.
The technique I’ve been working on is a rollback mount with the back pedal about 45 degrees from vertical. I point the wheel about 25 degrees from the direction I intend on traveling in and about 25 degrees from vertical and as I pedal backwards and jump up everything pops into the correct alignment. I had originally been pointing the wheel in the direction I meant to travel and always found myself pointed to the right when I mounted.
I think the rope was a huge help in learning. It was something I could grab if I needed and helped me get used to the whole procedure. I’m pretty sure it also knocked me over a couple times when I actually nailed my mount and then ended up with a damn rope entangling me.
I think that “repeat 1000 times” thing is probably entirely accurate. I’ve probably attempted to freemount 200 times in the past two days, (not counting the times I cheated and used aids), and succeeded 21 times. Even when you fail however it’s usually good, because you get comfortable at getting up on top of that big wheel and then “gracefully” coming back down to earth. After more than 100 failed attempts, most of the fear of landing on my butt with a pedal lodged in my spine was gone. And you really do get kind of graceful when you fall, landing on your toes and knowing when to just let go of the unicycle starts to become instinctive.
This is the main reason why I started with freemounts as soon as I could. Fear can be delaying your progress immensely, and I’ve noticed that stress or distraction also don’t work well with free mounting…
Being warmed up and in a relaxed state and your mind and body are setup for the best conditions to get this nailed quickly.
I don’t think I would have been successful freemounting much earlier than this. Three weeks ago I just didn’t have the low speed balancing and maneuvering skills I do now. Maybe on a smaller unicycle I could have done it, but not with a 36er. I’m not sure I could have done it now with the 138mm cranks it came with.
Did you learn to unicycle on a 36? I feel like I made a mistake learning on a 24in, and should have started on a 20in or smaller. I don’t think I would have ever had the patience to learn on a 36.
My goal was to learn the basics and then move to a 29er and start to Muni, which I did as soon as I was able to freemount, but even moving to the 29 was a big jump.
I learned to unicycle on a 24” at about age 13 and I hadn’t been on one in about 35 years, so in a way I did learn on a 36, but not really. It took me about a week to be comfortable letting go of the support I was using and strangely enough, some days I could tentatively ride it, and sometimes I just couldn’t quite do it and fell after about 5 feet.
It probably took about two weeks before I could ride it any distance on a daily basis.
That was exactly what I did. From 20" to 29". It was scary and took me a handfull of tries to even get up. After I got the 36" I find the 29" easy! Funny how that works.
I’m still amazed seeing Pratt static mount his 40 kg unicycle on youtube.
I kind of did learn on a 36er. Originally I learned on a 24” and that was all I ever had ridden, but that was in my teens and after not having ridden for 35 years I ordered a 36er not realizing the difference in difficulty between the two. I was a late bloomer and grew a lot in my late teens so I figured a 36er would be the right size now.
Anyway, I couldn’t ride it and I spent about a week relearning how.
I now have a 27.5 as well and aside from riding fast and smooth, everything else is way harder on a 36er, especially rough terrain. There is something about being 4” higher in the air with a wheel that takes significantly more effort to steer that makes it way harder to do most things. If you want to ride fast and smooth and just roll over obstacles however they are great.
What I’m interested in is if you absolutely need to do the classic 20", 24" and so on up, (should get a topic on it’s own if people has a lot to say).
If you have no interest in street/flatland, then you kinda don’t need a 20" at all. But a 26"/27,5" if muni is your thing. Or just go directly to the 32"/36" if it’s long distance riding you want.
Could be fun (for the teacher) to put someone through learning on a big wheel
In practice, if you have a body would you want to ride with, but they don’t want 5 unicycles. You can save them the money.
I did the same thing with a 50 year break. When I started on the 36er it took a little while to get used to the larger wheel and how it handles but the basic idea of how to ride a uni is the same. Once you learn, you never forget.
If what you really want to do is ride a 32/36er, I would still recommend getting a smaller uni too. Maybe not the whole collection, but shop around for a decent used 24 or 26er. It doesn’t need brakes or fat tires, just something that can bear your weight and handle the kind of riding you want to do. It really is much easier to learn just about anything on the smaller wheel. 36ers are intimidating, at least to me. Being six inches closer to the ground may not sound like much, but it really is when you’re learning.
BINGO !