One trick to avoiding bad falls when learning to ride is to bail EARLY. Sure you want to try hard to stay up but if you are going, go ahead and go (meaning let the unicycle go and end up on your feet). Get those feet off the pedals while you still have some balance left. Keep your head up, so you will keep your ‘center’ as you fall. That will also help you know when you are past the point of no return.
I don’ know your age, but at my age 53, I needed to do some stretching to be able to ‘run out’ my front falls instead of pitching forward and having to do a front roll to save my butt.
I tried out the “Curb Method” described in Gregg Vivolo’s book.
I got about one revolution on my 4th or 5th try, then returned
to using the hallway again.
I did get a few longish rides w/o touching the walls (one revolution,
which is good considering the walls are so close).
I also rode past the end of the hallway a few times again, and got
a good solid 1-1/2 revolution run.
The seat continues to chafe and bruise my thighs - more
bruising than chafing.
I added back the terrycloth cover and then put some red satin
over the front of the seat - it’s slippery, and if nothing else it looks sexy.
This is on top of the flannel seat cover I put on it yesterday.
It’s definitely the shape of the seat that’s the issue. The edges are too squared
off (it has a very square cross section as viewed from the front)
I made a point of sitting on it and slowly going through a full
revolution of motion (hallway/walls are good for that).
I could feel the top edge where the saddle gets wider in
the front digging in and pressing into my thighs.
I’ll have to add a chamfer to the corners of the seat in the front half.
I’ll see if I can peel back just the front of the seat cover.
An electric carving knife cuts that foam like butter.
I’ll re-shape it when I can - right now I’m frantically preparing
AWANA Grand Prix (Pinewood) cars for Saturday.
One breakthrough I forgot to mention - I found that when I concentrated on
putting more of my weight on the seat instead of the pedals, and I made a
point of looking farther ahead instead of down at the ground in front of me,
my riding got much smoother (almost controlled, even)
Hi Mark42, I’m at a simillar stage of learning as you. What I can’t get my head around is the inconsistancy of my efforts! going really well, ballanced and controlled for a while then suddenly it’s all gone and I seem back to square one! Also I need to control my starting foot (I’m regular) because giving it too much welly steers me to the right. The ‘sit on the seat mantra’ seems to help with this. I have ordered 150mm cranks for more control. Keep posting I am interested to hear how it goes.
The chafing and bruising is getting worse (accumulative injury).
Knees & muscles are a little sore from fatigue.
I did get two revolutions on freerides (past the end of the hallway)
a couple of times - and even when I fail badly on the freerides I can
still feel my body trying to correct the loss of equilibrium - often the
right correction but after the ride is already unsavable (for me).
The bad part is that I try to save the ride longer and bail a bit late
sometimes - so far never too late, but if my foot hangs on a pedal
or my pants get hooked for a fraction of a second I would possible
end up with a dive to the concrete.
Overall, I’m encouraged by my (albeit slow) progress, but the pain
from the seat rubbing and beating up my thighs may force me to
take a break from practice for a couple of days (which I don’t
want to do - I enjoy the practice for some reason - probably
because it’s such a challenge).
Hey Mark 42, what size of crank are you using. I swopped out my 127mm for 150mm today and after 10 mins getting used to them handling became much more controlable and predictable (I’m also learning on a 24").
Baby steps Mark! Little by little it will come. Just trust yourself and keep trying. It will get so much easier when you finally can relax with your weight on the seat. Until then enjoy how little you have to do for a workout
Nice uni. Looks like it’s in excellent condition and the seller really went to great lengths to protect it in transit. I’d say you got a good deal there!
(I’ve been away and only just discovered this thread… Hey, I’m a bit slow! :))
It is in really good shape.
There are some scratches on the inside surfaces of the forks…
where it would be virtually impossible to get scratches, except
that the Torker stand than comes with it has a sharp edge on the
end of the metal rod it’s made from. They could have at least
ground a chamfer or radius (deburred it).
The person I bought it from probably didn’t even realize it, and
the scratches are not obvious (I didn’t even notice them the
first week). The plastic front & rear bumpers were barely scratched
at all, which is what takes the worst beating during training crashes.
I put a rubber cap on my son’s stand, but I think I’ll make us each
a nice wooden stand, or just use a hook in the ceiling for storage.
I did modify the seat… seems Torker has a thing for sharp edges?
I peeled back the seat cover in the front and use a bread knife
to round off the edges of the seat in the front half, then stretched
the seat cover back on.
I need to replace the 5 layers of duct tape I put over the plastic
bumpers to keep them from getting all gouged and dinged up from
crashes, and then put my terry cloth seat cover back on.
I took a lot of pictures and will put up a “How To” post when I get
the pictures uploaded from the camera to the computer and crop
& resize them.
I didn’t do any practice yesterday, and probably won’t get a chance
today either, but it may be good to let my legs heal up a bit.
I’ll let y’all know how it goes with the modified seat.
I think you are doing well in your learning; I am most definitely shorter than you (probably with much shorter legs) and I learned on a 24" unicycle (against a lot of people’s advice). I tend to ride with my seat a little lower than most people recommend, as well (I think because I feel like I get more leverage when I stand on the pedals to go over bumps and such). You just have to play with various things until you find what works for you – there is no universal rule for everyone.
A couple of things I learned the hard way:
If your knees are sore, it’s probably because you aren’t sitting with your weight all the way down on the seat.
You may think you’re sitting with all of your weight on the seat, but you most likely aren’t.
Getting the courage to pedal a little faster and get up more momentum will make it easier for you to pedal with your weight on the seat.
Kind of hard to describe (and probably more useful for you once you start attempting to ride more without any support), but remember: it’s not about the unicycle. Don’t focus too much on what the unicycle is doing and don’t try to keep yourself on the unicycle. Keep the unicycle underneath you. If you start to fall forwards, pedal harder to get the wheel underneath you. If you start to fall backwards, pedal more slowly to bring the wheel back underneath you (leaning forward slightly in this case may help some, too – I think it depends on the person). If you find yourself leaning towards one side or the other, twist the unicycle with your hips to get it pointing in the direction you are falling and pedal faster to get the wheel underneath you.
Of course, it’s easy to understand what to do in your head. Making your body do it is another story. It just takes a whole lot of falling. For me, wrist guards and a helmet were a necessity when learning.
Also: Bruises heal – this we know.
Good luck.
P.S: I think ~125-ish cranks are very common for 24" unicycles. My Nimbus II came with 125 mm cranks when I bought it new. I rode with them like that for about a year (Yikes! I have been riding for over a year now?!). A few months ago I changed them out for 145 mm cranks because the longer cranks help me with off-road obstacles (I almost exclusively ride muni now).
Thanks - that’s encouraging. I’m about 5’8" with 30" length
inseam on Levis - pretty much medium/large.
We have 635 acres of mountain bike trails near us… if I could start
riding them in a year that would be well ahead of how long I thought
it takes to reach that level of skill.
I am starting to find myself turning towards the direction I’m
falling when I lean to the side - sometimes automatically.
I think that was a big part of avoiding low eyes - whe I look
farther down range and make myself put weight on the seat
I don’t think about riding as much.
Hopefully the rest I got (from my Unicycle) will let the bruises
on the insides of my thighs heal some, and with the re-shaped
seat I won’t start beating them up again tomorrow. I didn’t get
to rest really though - I have been on my feet since I got home
from work on Friday (Building pinecars and helping at the race).
It is really hard to avoid my tendency to want to stand on
the pedals.
My son is progressing really well considering he doesn’t get to
practice much. If he can get a few weekdays as well as weekends
he will get it soon. My wife is thinking of trying it once she gets over
a shoulder injury (which may need surgery).
It would be fun to have the whole family on Unicycles… my daughter
is gonna be a hard sell though.
^
got any bicycle shorts? they work wonders, and when i was learning i HAD to have them. they will make your learning and future riding much more enjoyable.
Anyone who has ridden with me knows I am far from being very good. But I can say that (in my opinion, at least), courage is the most important requirement for learning to ride muni. You absolutely have to be willing to commit and be willing to take the falls.
Also, the padded bike shorts are an excellent suggestion. I simply cannot ride without them. My husband also rides with padded bike shorts.
(Incidentally, we expect to teach our future children to unicycle when they’re very young. It probably takes more time that way, but I think it will be cool to have a unicycling family :D)
I’ve raised the seat about 3 inches since that video.
I should have had my wife get some video of both me
and my son today.
Starting kids young will really help them to be natural at
almost anything. I wish I would have learned violin, juggling,
and unicycling as a small child.
yeah, even being so young i wish i would have started when i was 3-4. i couldn’t even imagine how good i’d be now. but oh well, i’m at least glad i got to become a decent unicyclist in this lifetime, haha.
I just wish I was in Florida with you folks! Then I could practice after
work & would have time to change into bike shorts.
BTW, my wife agreed that she should got some video when we were
out there riding unicycles today. Maybe next weekend. I’d get some
video of my practice at work, but cameras aren’t allowed. Maybe I can
get someone with a camera phone to do it (camera phones are allowed
inside the gate, we’re not supposed to use them, but inside the vacant
building it won’t be an issue because there are no trade secrets in there).
They won’t let me bring juggling torches, axes of machetes to work either.
Even the rubber knife in the sheath mounted to my sidecar is now against
the rules (they re-wrote the weapons policy to ban replicas of any kind).
