Another great day of MUni nearby my home in OC, here is where I rode today: http://www.biketrails.com/whiting.html
Had difficulty at the beginning due to many rocks and pebbles. And riding a Coker; once I get off the uni it’s HARD to mount going uphill. I have to walk few meters or find ‘flatter’ ground surface to mount again. Mostly, I do rollback mounts on MUni but this is near impossible at 15 or more degrees slope uphill. Does anyone have suggestions?
Lastly, coming down the STEEP hills I realized this is where brakes can ACTUALLY be useful. It kills my legs trying to brake while riding nearly 45degrees angle downhill! I need to get brakes on my Coker.
What I do if I can’t mount facing directly up a hill is turn the wheel perpendicular to the hill, mount, and either hop or twist back so I’m facing up the hill.
If you’re determined to mount facing up the hill, the only advice I can think of is to learnt to static mount. The thing about doing roll-back mounts up hills is that if it’s steep enough, by the time you get your body up onto the unicycle, the unicycle has already rolled back past your centre of gravity and you get nowhere. The reason I prefer static moutns up hills is that you can keep your momentum in a forwards direction the whole time and prevent the wheel slipping back behind you.
Static mounting up hills is a little different to on the flat though…the way I see it, you have to allow the rear pedal to reach horizontal early on. What I mean by this is that when you’re static mounting on the flat, usually you won’t do a perfectly static mount, but will start with the rear pedal a little down from horizontal and then let it swing up to horizontal as you get your body up there. When you’re mounting up a hill the slope prevents the wheel from rolling forwards like this, and you might find yourself with your centre of gravity in front of the unicycle (the same problem as with the roll-back mount up hills but for a different reason). The other problem is that if you don’t mount with the cranks horizontal from the start, you may find yourself trying to mount to a front pedal that’s up too high and won’t be able ot get as much power out of the pedal stroke which can be important.
So to sum that all up (and this is just one person’s thoughts on the matter)…
Static mounts are best up hills
You can also mount perpendicular to the hill
For static mounts, keep your momentum going forwards and mount with the cranks horizontal.
Don’t do rollback mounts. They screw up mounting in tight singletrack as well as uphill mounts.
Jump higher to static mount a coker uphill. If you can do rolling mounts these are supposed to be easier too, but unless you’ve got short cranks, a static mount will work on pretty much anything you can ride up.
If you can do a rolling mount I find that as a last resort the good old ‘run like a crazy person up the hill and jump on’ technique can work. It can also lead to jumping into a spinning out of control unicycle, but never mind that.
As with any skill, after some practice the “out of control unicycle” becomes a tame beast, awaiting your mount.
In my opinion, every muni rider should acquaint themselves with the rolling mount. It is the quickest way to get back in the saddle on terrain of any pitch. For me, it also helps avoid a lot of “just getting started UPDs” that I seem to experience in the first few revolutions after a static mount… I’m much closer to riding speed when I hop in the saddle so I’ve got momentum on my side.
Of course, the rolling mount is best practiced on smooth, flat ground before taking the skill offroad. As for the Coker, I couldn’t figure out any other way to get on the beast, except a rolling mount
