I too have had this experience, and did again recently: it tends to happen when I decide to bail out in the middle of navigating some descent or drop when I am past the ‘point of no return’. Take feet off pedals in an attempt to dismount, while butt is fully committed. At that point you are completely at the mercy of physics. It is rather terrifying and I am lucky to come out unscathed. I would love to see some videos of this phenomenon; like UPD it should have its own name!
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It’s one of those situations that really slows down time, your sitting there with just your butt on the saddle, feet in the air, unicycle and you still motoring on, wondering how you got in that situation and what’s going to happen next… very surreal feeling. It happens to me every now and then, I always tell myself to not do it again.
I’ve been lucky and always get off somehow without falling.
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In unicycling vernacular, we call this “Unintentional Coasting”. Yes, time stretches out and you realize, at the totally wrong moment, that you have really good balance; the wheel doesn’t know which way it’s going to pop out, so your body doesn’t know how to brace for impact…
[quote=“Klaas_Bil, post:16, topic:275093, full:true”]
I’ve had it once on my 36 that I forgot that I should keep balancing. I just let the pedals go round “unattended” with my feet on them. That was a upd, luckily my armour saved the day
[/quote]I had a sort of similar experience to that earlier this year. It wasn’t that I stopped putting input into the pedals; I was still pedaling but there was no resistance. This was on a 36" in high gear. Suddenly I realized my hub was probably broken and I was in an Unintentional Coasting situation, on a 36", in high gear, going pretty fast. Time slowed down as I tried to figure out how to gracefully dismount. No, didn’t care about gracefully, just not extremely un-gracefully! - - - - And somehow I realized I was still going. The uni had shifted to low gear, and it seemed like I had free-pedaled for a long time, but I don’t think that’s possible with a functioning Schlumpf hub. Lucky for me, mine was still functioning and undamaged. My heel must have brushed the button and made a perfectly balanced, silent shift. I was still riding, and in control! I had to stop and “gather myself”, and check out the hub with a few test shifts to make sure it wasn’t coming apart or something. Nope, it was just me…
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A strange feeling indeed! I love that these experiences are so common. And now I know it has a name, thanks! And how come all these names start with “Un”? (including Un-icycle) I guess because unicycles are inherently un-stable, un-wieldy, and un-predictable - unicyclists are continually confronting a barrage of “Un’s”!
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Did it land in poison oak?! I hope not. Looks like it might be, but hard to be sure from the photo.
I don’t remember but it there’s a good chance. It’s all over that trail (and around many of the local trails I ride).
I’ve put some poison oak skin cleanser in my first aid kit. There’s so much poison oak on the trails near me and I fear the day that I slide out into a bush of it. I’ve stayed out of it until now, but I know it is just a matter of time.