Awesome and congrats!
Smiling is definitely one of the most useful techniques for unicycling.
Longer cranks might also make your life a bit easier.
Thumbs up to first unsupported rides! It’s hard–but essential–to make that first move. And grinning is good. I often forget and I have to keep reminding myself that I got the uni to have some fun.
Yesterday I managed my longest ride yet.
I always practice at the top of my driveway & don’t venture very far down as it is about an eight percent grade (at least that’s what my Garmin 705 says). So yesterday, while practicing my free mounts, I decided to try and make it all the way to the bottom of the driveway. I made it to the bottom on the third attempt. Since I was at the bottom, I figured I’d see how far I could go on the road - it does a little circle turn around about a quarter mile from my driveway. To my surprise I rode all the way to the end, did the turn around an made it a quarter of the way back. Did a upd going up the hill in the road. So I did a free mount – first try – and rode the rest of the way back to the bottom of my driveway. Couldn’t make it back up the driveway though. Guess it’s the next challange!
Thanks to all the guys that replied to my “how do I get over the bump to my garage” as I can now do it no problem every time.
Joe
Today I went on a bit of a mad hopping session and I managed my very first sidehop! Rode up (parallel) to a curb, stopped, leant over and hopped up, then rode off. I couldn’t repeat it afterwards though… 
Not bad for a 24 incher. I’m thinking about getting something smaller now to start learning some flat / street / trials stuff on. Still loving the muni though!
Follow-up post…
I just went out for another hour to work on my sidehops. Some were pretty big actually, I think I need to find some pallets to practise on now.
I’ve also been doing some 90 degree rolling hops, some SIF (seat in front) and even suicide mounts (here’s a video - not me!)
Finally, as I was so pleased with myself for my progress this weekend I had a few more shots at riding backwards… And failed miserably!! 
Today I…
Came out of the closet.
After 2 months of hiding behind gates, garage doors and skulking in remote parking lots, I went out on the streets of my neighborhood and proclaimed, “I am a unicyclist!”.
Down the driveway, in the soft afternoon light of a late winter day, into my street, I went. The first static freemount was a weak attempt that failed but I changed feet, pictured success in my mind’s eye, leapt on to the pedals, teetered for a moment, shifted my weight and moved forward.
Settling down onto the seat, I pedaled past my neighbors’ windows–doctors, stock brokers, lawyers, businessmen, republicans all. With my head held high, I moved through the gauntlet and made my turn at the end of the block. This was all new territory and I didn’t care. Mothers and children stopped on the sidewalk and pointed. Men in their yards ceased their activity and watched with stone faces as I went by. A middle-aged woman offered a word of encouragement. It was wonderful!
On I pedaled–adjusting my speed, shifting my weight, worrying when the upd would embarass me. The wind was brisk and cooling–I needed it.
Up ahead, my turnaround point. Would I make the turn? Should I take the easy way and make the u-turn to the left. Hell no! I was in this all the way. Turn to the right. Don’t look down. Look where you want to go. It’s happening but there is a loss in the rhythm. I might lose it. No, I’ve 180’ed and I’m heading back.
Wow, made it past the turn. But my legs are aching. Sit on the seat. Let the legs rest, No, don’t slow down that much. Speed up. No, too much. Damn the tailwind, it’s messing with me. OK, OK I’ve got it now. Just keep it going–you can do it.
A right turn, and another. Traffic ahead. Oh God, don’t upd in front of these yahoos! Oh good made it. Only another couple of blocks. I can do this.
Yes, home is in sight. Another turn–just a bit to go.
The neighbor across the street from my house is out front playing catch with his kids. He doesn’t see me. Is that good or not. I don’t know, don’t care. The kids, as they often do, point out the obvious. “Hey, Dad. Look at that!” The neighbor turns, goes wide eyed and says, “Oh, hey.”
All I can manage is a wave. I’m home. I make a nice dismount–like I meant it. I sit on the curb for a few moments to catch my breath, then haul myself up and casually go in the house.
I put my uni in its stand and let my hand lovingly linger across the seat just before I walk into the kitchen.
“Hey,” I call to my wife. “I just rode the neighborhood and made a mile–no stops.”
“That’s nice,” she said. “Get cleaned up for dinner and take the trash out. It’s full.”
Uh, um, OK.
Gotta go.
Great to hear that, Ibedon! Congrats 
Good luck with the trash… :\
Ibedon, great narrative.
Today I did my first static mount. I’ve gotta solid roll back mount that I taught myself many (like 25) years ago. I had no one to imitate and since a roll back mount was how I mounted when I was holding on to something that is how I learned to freemount. Fast forward 25 years and now I own a 29" with short cranks. Yikes! So after running a poll on best/favorite mount on a larger wheel, static mount won by a large margin. After trying my first roll back mount on the big wheel I saw what the issue was, that small crank was not going to hoist me up on that wheel. (someday it will but not now while the 29" feels so foreign to me). I’d ‘like’ to say that I did a static mount on the 29’ but I would be lying. I did the static mount on the 20" I bought at the same time as the 29". (a couple of days ago). I plan to migrate that static mount to my 24" and then to the 29".
Smellygeekboy, clean suicide mount you look like you been doing them a long time instead of just learning it.
Ibedon and JoeBike way to go on those longer rides.
Haha, I wish, but unfortunately that isn’t me! Mine are still quite shaky, I’ve had a couple of bad falls from them too. Maybe one day I’ll be that good.
Today I changed cranks for the first time. I swapped my 150’s to my 29" and my 125’s to my 20". It wasn’t too hard. Took a minute or to to figure out the crank puller. No instructions came with the Pedro crank puller. And except for putting a left crank on the right side (I noticed when the pedal would not spin on the right way) everything has gone back together smoothly.
I got the Pedro crank puller because I read it would work with the pedals on… Fail! It would work that way with bicycle length cranks but with my 150 it is about 1/2" too long. No worries it does what it needs to do
I still get nervous when I change cranks. Maybe that’s a “girl” thing? So how do you like the 150s on the 29"? Have you had a chance to try it out yet?? It’s raining here today so I assume it’s raining where you are. I know we need more rain but I’m tired of it.
I just learned to wheel walk!
I can also rolling 180 to riding backwards (but I can’t 180 while going backwards, help would be appreciated), ride 1 footed, jump mount, and side mount! I think this is pretty good since I got my first uni in June 2009, and I haven’t ridden for a while, because, well… Nevada… Winter…
Today I …
Spent my entire hour of practice with a full frontal attack on idling.
I’ve been riding for about two months and have managed some comfort with distance riding and static freemounting. All of my practice sessions from the beginning have included idling (left and right) with a support. Now I’m making a real effort to idle with little or no support.
The results today were tantalizing but frustrating and I could use some advice from those that know the secret.
I’ve read tutorials and viewed videos. Most riders do short, quick strokes with the bottom pedal going from the 5 to 7 o’clock position and back. It looks like the bottom foot provides the power and the top foot acts as a guide. When I try this, after a few rocks, my bottom leg tends to stiffen and the foot acts like a dying pendulum with the strokes getting shorter and shorter till I lose my balance and eventually fall over to the bottom foot side. Control seems iffy.
So I tried to bring the top foot back into the equation to even things out and it seems to work but the strokes tend to be longer (3 to 9 o’clock, maybe) and slower and because I am trying to put more pressure on the top pedal, I tend to lift my rear off the seat which I don’t think is good. This technique feels smoother, better–a lot like riding–but somewhat wobblier as well.
What works best for you? Any thoughts, hints or suggestions would be appreciated.
well iv been ridig unicycles for.. well probolbly a year now and i feel like im acomplishing something new everday even if its not huge like a crank spin or something. for instance i just mastered going from crank to tire a few days ago and it felt pretty good:) i just try to keep a good aditude about trying new things even if your a little scared
Today I…
Landed a few more leg wraps. I’m getting better, but am having trouble getting them consistent. 
I also landed a drop that was about 2 1/2 feet tall. 
I know, not that much, but with a freestyle rim I can’t go much higher or my legs and unicycle will break.
I rode it a little bit the other night. My legs were beat from the night before. But the 150’s did feel more ‘natural’ to me. Prolly since they are what I ran on my 24". All in all I liked them.
I did make my ‘training’ hill on the 2nd try with the 150’s. I will work my way down to spinning cranks, when the cranks are what are holding me back, if that makes sense.
After reading a ton of posts on crank length I decided to order some 165s (they shipped today). I ordered the Nimbus cranks because they are supposed to have a bit of Q-factor which I need. This will also allow me to put the 150’s back on my 24" and give me a nice selection of cranks. 165, 145’s (I call them 150s but they are really QuAx 145s) and 125’s.
My thinking on the 165’s is the more time/distance I put on my hill training, the more training I will get, and then I can move down to gain the benefit of shorter cranks when I’m making the hills I want to ride. I didn’t ride yesterday (I practiced static mounts indoors) so tonight I should get a better sense of how I like the 150’s since I will have fresh legs.
A new lighter, narrower wheel is in my near future as well. That duro easy ride is just a pig of a tire. Just riding flat takes clearly more effort than riding my 24’s with Hookworm. I wrote an email to UDC suggesting some alternatives to that tank tread, something besides the BA 2.3".
I see why the 36 people work to lose weight and reinforces what every already knows, losing weight on rotating mass is the best thing you can do.
To that end I switched the metal pedals to some twisted PC’s. Not sure what the thinking is on metal pedal on a touring 29". More grip in the wet maybe.
I am only up to 10-20 reps, but I wish I had a secret for you. What I found one video where the guy exagerates the twisting you use to keep the tire underneath you. So one thing that helped me was to practice twisting while i do my normal rides. With each pedal forward a twist in the direction, right then left, making the twists as far as I can and stay on the uni.
Other than that it was just ridiculous amounts of repetition. For the first couple of weeks I just went out and using a garbage can filled with water to hold on to, I just worked my way up to 4 sets of 75 idles (two sets on the right and two sets on the left.) After that I just started letting go when I felt poised… Then one day about 2 weeks ago it just clicked and I ran off about 10.
Its been posted before and its true, the side to side balance is the new skill, and like so many skills on the uni it takes patience. I’ve been slacking on my practice because I’ve been distracted with the 29".
Like any new skill, I do little things to make sure I’m relaxed. Wiggle my fingers before starting, roll my neck, couple of relaxing breaths. Now that I’m up to a few idles I am trying to remember to keep my head up which helps with balance. I try to relax and enjoy it and let my muscle memory develop.
Won’t be practicing today. My driveway is still wet and I took a bad fall trying to practice idling with wet pedals.
I have two types of advice about idling. The first is what worked for me with much practice. The second is what I think might be useful in hindsight.
I did a lot of idling holding on to a garbage can. It might have helped; I am not sure. Eventually two things came together to make idling work for me. The first is that I started riding, pausing and then riding on (with each foot.) When that came easily I would ride, pause, do 1/2 rotation backwards and then ride on, again with each foot. Eventually this started working and then I could add more back and forth movements until it looked like idling.
The second thing that started working is the hip swivel to adjust side-to-side motion. It did not take long to learn to idle back and forth holding on to something. Once I let go I would fall over sideways after a few strokes. Eventually I learned to swivel my hips to keep the wheel under me when I started drifting to the side. I do not think more idling holding on to the garbage can helped much. I think it came more easily when I started trying to pause and then do one-stroke idles as part of a ride.
My second bit of sage wisdom uses something I did not try early on but that I found very helpful later. I would suggest that you try holding onto something and idling with one foot down. Use either foot. I think this exercise will help. The other foot should be pulled up and rest on the crosspiece of the frame. Starting out it cannot be easy (it was not easy after I could already idle) but it did teach me the proper way to idle. The bottom foot should be doing all the work and the top foot just goes along for the ride. The bottom foot pushes at the end of each stroke. The top foot adds some stability. My theory is that if you did this exercise early on, then idling might come much faster. I would be very interested to learn the outcome if you decide to try it.
Good luck and keep with it.
Scott
Today… i came back from work.
i got back on the forums… and realized that after i got engaged I sort of quit unicycling…
<I mean back then in may>
so… update on the last… 9 months.
- no new uni skills.
- single again
- decided to buy a QU-AX Cross 24’’ in april/may <that noname 20’’ sounds like it’s dying, but i need to get a bit cash on me first>
- i’m hoping to do some riding on monday… and if the gods are willing maybe tomorrow…<but when i get gome from work it’s allready getting dark :/>
so… anybody with a welcome-back-after-a-violent-breakup-and-long-time-no-wheel cake?
Sorry to hear about all the stuff that’s been going on for you. Still, at least you’ve come back to the world of unicycling, which must be a good thing 
Also, I have the 24" Qu-Ax Cross too and it’s a great unicycle. Another one in the Qu-Ax Cross Club!
(Oh, and unfortunately I don’t have any cake…)