Show us how straight you are

You will have to make another vid. It is dark, so I can’t see your wheel trail :stuck_out_tongue:

Excellent idea, but there are none close to me unless you count the subway. For a number of very obvious reasons, that wouldn’t work! There is a quiet stretch of open railroad about 6 km away, but even that is too far to visit on any sort of regular basis.

Canoeheadted’s suggestion is also good, but not really feasible for an urban dweller like me. My access to tools is very limited around here, and I don’t have space to store a big sheet of plywood with a rail running down the middle, and even if I did manage to convert it into a coffee table or guest bed when not in use, dragging it out to the park for every practice session would be a real bummer.

Clearly, the only solution is to find a piece of the local urban landscape that could serve as a skinny. If I were good enough to ride on handrails, this would not even be an issue, but for now I need something much lower. It probably exists, I will just have to keep my eye open. A new skateboard park is being built nearby, maybe it will have something.

Same here, I’ve got wet grass…not great for snow angels but I will try to remember when the time comes. :wink:

Guess I’ll play, but I won’t win any contests. I rode around the backyard a few times and this was the straightest section of my tracks. Those of you who can ride skinnies on a unicycle are far better riders than I.

One major difference between riding a skinny and riding in snow is that the skinny does not pose a substantial drag to the pedaling making it simpler to pedal lightly (meaning it goes straighter).

I am not sure if I can get a straight line in the snow but I will try to remember next time I have my fattie out in snow :stuck_out_tongue:

Bad excuses… A wide tire will resist twisting a lot more than a skinny one, especially in snow, where you use almost all the available contact patch regardless of tire pressure since the ground is soft. It may cancel out, but I’m actually guessing it’s probably even the other way around.

I think it comes down to how much grip your tire has on the surface your tire contacts. I have a completly worn out very wide blizzard tire with zero grip for a trials uni. It is so easy to turn in a very tight circle. I have a very grippy new Creepy Crawley tire. I believe both tires are 2.5 inches wide. I put it on the exact same uni. The uni now won’t turn on a dime like it did on with the bald blizzard tire. I think both run straight though. A skinny tire on a small wheel - you have to take more care to ride straight. Too much downward crank pressure and I think the wheel will easily turn, even if you didn’t intend it to do that.

It’s both a question of “coefficient of grip” (although to properly describe tires that’s a way too simple model) and size of contact patch.

Yes, you can’t leave out tire compounds, at least on hard ground. On soft ground (like snow), the “digging in” of the tire and it’s knobs into the ground is more important however.

On hard ground, the size of your contact patch depends a lot on tire pressure, and not necessarily as much on tire width. On soft ground, it get’s more complex. Skinnier tires sink in deeper (which is why they under some conditions they may have more grip), wide tires have a wider contact patch (which is why in other conditions they may have more grip), it all depends on the conditions. It’s a complex science.

Long story short, I still think saying wide tires make it harder is just an excuse.

That all sounds reasonable. For what it’s worth, there’s no snow around me so I can’t try the snow theory out (at least, not right now).

As I am always riding fat, I should have worded my reply differently :stuck_out_tongue:

Riding on a narrow log/plank does not resist as much as soft snow. You are right that this difference in resistance should only marginally impact the trajectory (most of the waving especially when starting depend on the technique/experience).

The most treacherous in this exercise of tracking in straight line in snow is when you have a slight uphill and you need to pull and crank hard :smiley:

My failed attempt to pass some fatbikers by cutting off the corner.
Shows how straight I am under load with 6" of snow.

So jealous of your snow pictures really need to go somewhere that snows and uni just so I can say I can.

I don’t have a recent picture because there isn’t much dew in the mornings here yet but here’s a pic from last year when I first learnt to ride on grass.

I’ve always remembered this question, because it never snowed enough until now. So now I can finally show how not straight I ride. The hardest thing about riding in the snow is mounting and getting enough momentum to keep going. The darker track is from me riding the KH26. I put the seat as low as possible and rode having both hands in the air to ride as lightly as I could through the snow.

Good Job!

Looks pretty smooth to me.

I think I ride the straightest when I’m not thinking about it. When I try to ride straight, I don’t. :frowning:

Riding a skinny is not the same thing; it’s kind of easier to ride straight when gong slow, especially when you have the added penalty of falling off the skinny…

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I rode a curve before the takeoff, but you can draw a very straight line between where I left the ground and where I landed.

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You would have to zoom in pretty far for my tracks to look that straight.
I tend to drift left when I hop. Not sure if this is because I hop with my right hand and right foot forward or if it’s just me being sloppy.
I tried switching to left foot forward with right hand, and it was easier to stay on a straight line. It felt like crap though, so I didn’t stick with it.

I tend to rolling hop on a diagonal if there’s no kicker.

I tend to do the same a bit (I have the exact same stance). I think it’s because on a rolling hop, you can “block” the wheel better when you twist it sideways before taking off. It was more exaggerated in the past, so I think it’s probably something that just disappears as the technique gets more refined.

In this case, I just took the kicker with speed, pretty much just riding fast enough so that I leave the ground. There is a little root that I usually try to clear, for that I would have to take off more actively, but in the snow I had to take the slightly shorter landing.