When I hop SIF, I use my right hand to hold the seat. At this point, I gap and jump up stuff to the right. However, I’ve noticed that 99% of the riders I’ve seen who hold the seat with their right hand gap and jump to the left. Should I practice jumping to the left and do that? Is there a benefit to this?
Also, most unispin tutorials say to spin the uni with the front hand, which they claim is the strongest. But if I hold the uni with my right hand, which is my stronger arm, do I just spin the uni with my weaker arm?
You should use the hand oposite the front foot forward and gap towards your front foot. This way works best for pedal grabbing and is more stable. I know some people do it back pedal and are good at it but you shouldnt do it if you can help it. Unsipin with your hands on the opposite side as your front foot. And spin it cw if right foot forward and ccw if left foot forwards.
Don’t worry about the front pedal / back pedal business… that’s all personal preference. I know riders who can land big ups no problem either orientation.
As to the direction of your hop, hand placement starts making a difference when you’re doing big sidehops or big hops straight to rubber.
In order to stick the landing on a big sidehop you’ll need to tilt the unicycle away from the direction you’re landing (to absorb your sideways momentum). That’s much harder to do when you’re holding the same side of the seat as the direction you’re hopping; your arm will have to move across your body and it might peel your hand off the seat in the process.
Holding the side of the seat opposite the direction you’re jumping (right hand, left hop) is easiest, IMHO, but not absolutely necessary.
very nice. This is just personal preference but I think thats the best you could have. cause then you can mount straight into hopping, hop up curbs and other things easily while staying on your side of the road, and pedalgrabing is way easier, plus grinding.
i do it this way, but it doesn’t matter, the guy i used to ride with could do everything the same as I could and he held it the same as me, but jumped the opposite direction, crank grabbed opposite, spins the same direction though.
Im exactly the same however im right handed.
Any further enlightment on this subject would be benificial to me before I go and spend the next few months re-learning to jump either with my left hand holding the seat, or keeping my hand the same and jumping left.
I crank grab with the back foot, but I think apart from which foot I have forward I do everything else normal. Having the opposite foot forward is only really a problem for grinding, not crankgrabs.