After riding 23 miles recently, I am realizing the potential usefulness of roll mounting a Coker. When I get tired, and my legs feel like noodles, a regular mount is exhausting. I use way too much energy, and miss way too many mounts. This is really made harder due to my lack of height.
I can do a rolling mount on a 20 inch no problem, and haven’t really tried on my Muni since it has 170’s.
I already looked at Andrew Carters site, and it didn’t have this mount for a Coker, only for smaller wheels.
I realize it will take practice, but I am not really sure about # of steps, seat placement, pedal position etc…
John Drummond of www.unicycle.com showed me once. I think I put the pedals at 12 and 6, pushed, and stepped onto the rear pedal around 7-8 on the up-swing, and rode up onto the seat.
That said, I only did it once or twice, and that was a while ago. (And I don’t remember exactly how or when the front foot got placed.)
(Maybe you could get John to diagram it though. He’s very helpful.)
I have watched a couple of people do it including John, all before I had a Coker. I didn’t pay too close atention. Guess I should have. That reminds me though that the introductory video from unicycle.com may have him and Roger Davies mounting. I’ll have to look for it.
Before I got my Coker, I had a 45" wheel for 20 years. Rolling mount all the way. It may not be a strict rolling mount, as the wheel doesn’t roll while you’re jumping on.
Walk forward, rolling the uni in front of you.
As your dominant pedal comes up in the rear, jump up with some forward momentum, stepping onto the pedal when it’s at the horizontal point or a little before (not after).
Your goal is to end up on top of the wheel with just enough momentum to take you past the top (without this you can’t go anywhere).
As you come up over the top, start pedaling. When done right, you start with the forward momentum of your walking. The wheel more or less stops while you jump up, but your body continues the forward momentum the whole time.
Stephanie (7 yrs old) did a long Uni ride on the b*ke path along the beach. She really loves the attention she gets when she rides. It proved a great motivator. Her free mounts are improving, as is her general technique.
The ocean was great, too.
Want to MUni early Sunday? (I’m unavailable all next week.)
Since I learned idling last autumn I never mount a uni without idling a stroke or two before moving forward. This I found good practise in almost all circumstances EXCEPT on the coker. That thing is soo heavy. Especially in the end of a long ride with many mounts. Problem is I can no longer mount and ride without first doing the idling thing. Impossible. Really annoying!
I hope the mount John describes will help me get the wheel going right away without any preliminaries.
This is the first skill I have to train in order to get rid of. Wonder if there will be any more?
The graceful dismount skill can take some work to unlearn. You’ll find that you have to push yourself more by doing more difficult skills and more aggressive riding to avoid doing a graceful dismount.
I usually use the same style of mount that John Foss describes. I like to call it a forward momentum mount rather than a rolling mount because it is not a true rolling mount. But a forward momentum mount is not a regular name for a mount so if you call it a forward momentum mount no one knows what you’re talking about. A catch 22. So I end up calling it a rolling mount.
I just went out and tryed this mount it only took a few mins than i got it. i just jumped when my domint pedal was strate down and landed on it when i was leval back towards me. love this mount espachaly for the coker
another Coker mount that I find even easier is grabbing the front wheel & pulling yourself up on it. It sounded bizzare when Roger told me about it but I nailed it 2nd time. I alternate between this and the rolling mount (using the latter more when the tyre’s muddy!)
the couple of times i tried the mount under discussion, i found it easier to get the mounting pedal in the position i wanted it to be when i launched into the mount and then took three strides back
i’m sure with practise it becomes possible to know when u’ll have the jump, the foot and the pedal all perfectly synchronised without having to measure it out, but at first i’d like to suggest this as a good way of preventing this
I like the rolling jump mount. Roll the wheel to the 3 o’clock 9 o’clock pedal positions and jump mount while walking. Land both pedals at the same time. This mount actually requires very little energy, can be done easily while going uphill, and looks cool. I can’t remember the last time I missed one.
I’d love to see some video of that mount. I imagine jumping onto a Coker for you is similiar to me jump mounting a 24 inch. Tall people have a little advantage mounting the Coker.
Is that because we put the seatpost up higher? All anyone would have to be able to do is jump up about the radius of the wheel to do this mount. That’s where the pedal is.
With respect, that’s like saying if you can jump up on a rock holding a unicycle, you should be able to jump up on the rock while riding the unicycle. My observations of a bunch of riders say that there are significant advantages to being taller when mounting larger wheels.
You have sense enough not to respect me. You’ve met me before and know I’m a bozo.
That said, all that is required to jump mount a unicycle with a properly set seat is that the rider must be able to jump high enough to get his feet on the pedals or, roughly the radius of the wheel. In the limit of an extremely short rider (let’s say a 6" leprechaun) that would be 3 times the height of the rider to get onto that Coker. Quite a feat indeed. Quite an exaggeration, too.
