Yeah, I’ll definitely continue with the supported static mount, trying to perfect the motion so it’s smooth, before attempting an unsupported mount or finding some place with a curb.
No, it’s the first time I’ve seen this one. I’ve watched his tutorial on free mounting 36". I’m sort of doing what he says there, though in my case it seems like my leg counteracts the pressure applied onto the seat and handle, not vice versa.
Damn, I wish I had learning conditions like that. Long, flat, wide open space with ropes and harnesses. Instead, I have either relatively flat surface which is tiled (not very smooth), narrow and sprinkled with gravel, or I have relatively wide, smooth tarmac pavement which is in most places sloped in some direction, with cracks and bumps being placed in strategic (read nasty and unexpected) places. Yesterday I tried to ride around the neighborhood for a while and experienced some rather uncomfortable UPDs over the bumps and cracks. I have a feeling that when I learn how to ride over them, I will soon need to buy a MUni or something, because my trainer Uni is gonna get destroyed pretty soon in such conditions.
Btw, this is also a significant reason for me to prefer learning the static mount and not the rollback. I have a feeling that the static (and later rolling) mount will be much easier to do on a slight slope.
Your trainer uni may be stronger than you think. So long as you avoid hops and drops. If the bumpiness of the pavement is a problem, maybe you could try lowering your tire pressure a bit. I remember how as a beginner the smallest bumps would send me flying off the uni. Sorry about your riding conditions. If you can learn to adapt to the bumpiness on your current setup, you will become a better rider. Buying a squishy tired muni just to ride over little bumps…may actually inhibit you from learning the skills necessary to handle bigger bumps in the future. Skills such as pulling on the grab handle or momentarily getting you weight behind the uni. It’s natural to be intimidated by mounting. The worst falls I’ve had were a result of failed mounts. Keep practicing, and keep us posted!
Well, I’m not sure about the strength of my trainer uni. It’s an Indy 24" Trainer (I am not sure about reputation of this brand) with max. load of 90 kg (198 lbs.). Me + the uni currently weigh in at roughly 190 lbs., so I am afraid that large bumps could wear down the uni pretty quickly. I wouldn’t be too worried about that if the unicycle market would be in some normal condition, but it currently seems that most stores in the EU have most of their unis sold out. So, in case of major breakage, I would be hard pressed to get some proper replacement. I have my eyes at Nimbus 24" MUni, but they are to be had only in the US (or some other non-European countries - but I don’t even want to investigate it there) from where I’ve received the reply that they don’t ship to Czechia and that their dealers in Europe will receive next shipment of unis in July. Or something like that; frankly speaking, I did not understand the reply too well. Regardless, I don’t want to face the situation where I have nothing to ride on.
In any case, I don’t want to get a MUni just because of wanting to ride over bumps, but because I have a couple of nice city forests in the vicinity that have many paths that could be unicycled on. These paths have sections containing roots, rocks, etc. on unpaved and sometimes muddy surface, so MUni will be the eventual necessity. Since I want to use the uni both to ride it around the city and on the forest paths, 24" MUni is the most obvious choice.
Btw, free mounting is hard, but after today, it seems much easier. My training session looked like this:
First 30 minutes I have spent with fully supported mounting, until I was pretty confident with the movement.
After that I have decided to mix things up a little and do sort of semi-supported mounting. For the next 20 minutes or so, I started unsupported, but had the support next to me to lean on it in case of emergency.
Eventually, I started to be quite annoyed at the fact that I had to start so close to the support (it was psychologically uncomfortable) and moved into the open space to practice proper free mounts. In the remaining 22 minutes, I managed to do 2 free mounts (after which I managed to do the full length of the pavement - 50 meters) and 2 free mounts where I was forced to dismount after 15 meters or so, because of improperly placed foot on the pedal.
Most of my fear factor is gone by now and I think that after few more hours, static free mounting will be a breeze and I’ll be finally able to make some short trips around the neighborhood.
The only thing that bothers now me are my knees, as they started to hurt a bit, presumably from all the UPDs. It has started already last week, but after today it’s more significant. It seems to be located on the upper part of the patella and possibly in the lower quadriceps tendon. It does not bother me much, except it is little harder for me to sit down and I cannot get into squat-like positions without pain. I hope it will follow the same path as the tibia pain, which had gone away completely. I am considering making the next week a deload week, with no unicycling whatsoever.