I’ve been looking around alot about how to sit properly, I’ve found some good tutorials but even when I follow them I still get fatigued really quickly. I’ve been riding bikes for a long time, my typical road ride is 60+ miles so I can’t imagine my legs are out of shape. I put a lot of pressure on my legs for stability and can only relax when riding fast, but even in a “relaxed” state I still use what seems like to much upper leg muscle for stability. Does this just develop over time or am I making a simple error? I try to sit upright and straight, but after a few minutes my legs get a bit tired, I am trying to ride my unicycle a few miles, but so far no avail, any ideas?
(I have a 24" Sun Unicycle, I’m not looking to get a coker or anything I just want to ride what I have around town)
If you are quite new to riding then I think it will just become easier as you get more and more used to it. That is what happened with me anyway. I found as I became more comfortable just unicycling around, I was able to relax a lot more.
I’ve been on my unicycle for only a few weeks and have just really learned to ride more than a dozen yards (probably total hours, about 4-6). I’m just getting turns down and I can free mount fine, the long distance ride is my new goal I figure it’ll develop over time but I wasn’t quite sure if I was making some sort of newbie error
I bought a 24" to learn how to ride and my learning curve includes the phenomena you describe with leg fatigue. In my limited inexperience I have come to understand the principle of ‘sinking’ your weight onto the seat - and when I do this the legs seem more free to do the job of locomotion.
However, the balancing-act depends how my body shifts weight forwards or backwards. Lean forwards and the legs can pedal to keep up and increase speed. Lean back and the balance shifts rearwards and everything slows up - and puts pressure on my legs to maintain balance and locomotion.
There is one thing that improved this situation for me - A seat handle!! Once I began holding the seat a new Universe opened and I was able to go where all enlightened learners have clearly gone before me
For me (a learner) holding the front of the seat kind of connected the top half of my body with the bottom half. The effect was to synchronise me - the whole body - with the unicycle. So I could focus on pedalling and maintain the balance that accompanied this simply by holding the seat.
Pulling up or pressing down on the seat seems to give fine adjustment to the backwards or forwards pendulum. In this way responsibility for balance can be focussed on the body rather than compensating through the legs and getting tired.
If you have a seat handle and feel you are using this effectively then I have no fu*king idea what the problem is. Best of luck
When I was first learning how to ride I would also get tired very quickly. It seemed like I had my weight on the seat, but it turns out that I didn’t. While I was riding, there would be short periods, maybe lasting a second, where riding a unicycle didn’t feel like a strenuous exercise. It didn’t take long for me to figure out that I needed to be putting a lot more weight on the seat. Riding more than 100 yards followed shortly after.
[QUOTE=tumbles;1170380 I’ve found some good tutorials but even when I follow them I still get fatigued really quickly. I’ve been riding bikes for a long time, my typical road ride is 60+ miles so I can’t imagine my legs are out of shape. Does this just develop over time or am I making a simple error? I try to sit upright and straight, but after a few minutes my legs get a bit tired, I am trying to ride my unicycle a few miles, [/QUOTE]
good workout, huh? More muscles are waking up to your new hobby.
I couldn’t ride more than a mile without lying down on the sidewalk. No short cuts, as Hitler found out.
The excessive fatigue is a phase you are going through. Just like puberty, you will get over it–but hopefully much more quickly.
Relax as much as possible. Try to pedal smoothly and with as little pressure as possible. Lift your rising leg up so it is applying almost no pressure on the pedal. Ride regularly. In a short time you will be cruising along with very little effort.
I was where you are about three months ago. I can remember the problem, but for the life of me I do not understand how I got so tired with short distances. I think we all use vastly more leg tension than necessary when getting started.
It is not so much that one is out of shape as that one needs to learn how to ride efficiently. When first learning to ride the tendency is to counter pedal, applying force to both pedals at the same time. As you progress and build riding skills you will learn to ride with less wasted effort.
Problem solved. Stop standing, and just sit. Hold onto something and let your legs dangle pretty much, maybe youll fall or let the uni slip out from you, but at least youll feel what its like to have full weight on the seat and your legs just limp.
80% weight on the seat, 10% on one pedal, 10% on the other.
In time youll relax a bit more and it will come naturally (I hope) but its better to apply a bit more discipline to yourself and nip this quickly.
When I first learnt to ride, I would be exhausted and stiff for three days afterwards (this was on a mountainbiking background previously). I felt as exhausted riding 500m up the road as I did riding around in circles for 378km a few years later.
Unfortunately, unicycling becomes much less of a workout once you have a few more km’s under you. You spent very little effort trying to balance and it’s actually a very low resistance machine compared to a bike (until you start getting 36" GUni’s).
as you get better you’ll also have to use your legs less to correct balance so you save energy for forward movement. this was the case for me with my coker. i did a 38 mile ride three days after i bought my coker and i had to correct my balance more so than on any of my other unis just cause i wasn’t completely used to it yet and it fatigued me more than if i was used to that particular uni.
I figure it’ll develop over time but I wasn’t quite sure if I was making some sort of newbie error