I’ve decided that muni isn’t really that scary. Of course there are many things in muni that can be, but compared to mountain biking, muni’s not that scary. I’ve been mountain biking for about 2 and a half years now and I’ve done a fair bit of steepish stuff. I went down a track called ‘No. 9’ on Mt. Cootha yesterday on the muni (see my album for photos and videos) and although I fell off a lot, I wasn’t really scared. When I fell, I either slid smoothly down on my backside or fell off the front, landed running, and stayed on my feet. I think the biggest difference for me is the fact that on a unicycle you’re still sitting upright when going down steep stuff whereas on a bike you’re leaning down the mountain (and can’t just run out of falls).
I can see myself doing harder stuff on a muni than a bike some day.
everynow and then, when you wreck on a uni, the uni seems to stay under you making it hard to jump off and land on your feet. that’s what happened to me yesterday ( see my post on the injury forum thread). i too usually fall off and land on my feet - not this time.
Thanks, it’s not actually a recumbent unicycle though. It’s a seated, hand-driven unicycle so you rest your feet on the pegs near the bottom and pedal with your hands out in front! If you’re interested, search for “seated hand-driven unicycle” for the thread about it. I’ll be making it pretty soon (or having it made by a friend who will also own it).
I definitely do harder stuff on a uni than a bike. Admittedly on a bike I rarely try… its purpose is to go from A to B very quickly along decent roads or paths. However there have been times when I’ve wanted to do something I could do without thinking on a uni; usually a small drop or jump, or a tight space which I could hop round on the uni but not on the bike.
In article <onefiftyfour.iylmc@timelimit.unicyclist.com>,
onefiftyfour <onefiftyfour.iylmc@timelimit.unicyclist.com> wrote:
)
)everynow and then, when you wreck on a uni, the uni seems to stay
)under you making it hard to jump off and land on your feet. that’s what
)happened to me yesterday ( see my post on the injury forum thread). i
)too usually fall off and land on my feet - not this time.
)
)does any one else know what i mean?
That happens when you and the uni disagree about which side you should
dismount on. I think it also means that you’re trying to bail out
when you really still were balanced. If you’re on the front edge of
your balance envelope and try to bail off the back, or vice versa, you
get to try out no-footed coasting for a short while. This is
especially fun if you were going downhill off-road and the reason you
were trying to bail out is that you thought you were out of control.
-Tom
I’d like to hear Sofa’s opinion about muni and mountain biking difficulties (as he does a lot of montain biking [if I remember correctly]). Wow, I just used two lots of brackets :).