neophyte that I am, I’ve been watching some of the videos floating around youtube, the tutorial vids in the forum, and the videos of you guys playing OTG.
as far as speaking about my style, there is little I can do but speculate considering the fact that I can’t even ride in a straight line yet, but there are things I want to do on a unicycle that I haven’t seen yet, ranging from potentially simple to complex.
seat post grinds. unicycle on its side, one foot on the seat, one food on a pedal. sounds extremely difficult, but extremely cool.
in the same vein, unicycle upside down, grind a rail with the top of the seat. bouncing the wheel, grabbing it with a hand, riding it down the rail, and bringing the seat back up before you hit the ground sounds extremely difficult, but totally awesome.
in another similar vein, a small hop up to a tall rail, catching the top of the seat on the rail while the uni hangs below, sit on the seat like a champion, ride it down, and maybe pull a sweet unispin on the way down. this sounds like a bit of a party trick, but it also sounds fun.
you know that trick where you hop, then spin your frame forward or backward, making it do a 360 around your wheel, then land it? what about stopping it at 180, stall on the ground balancing on the seat, then do a cool transition back to riding?
not sure if this has been done, if it is a simple crappy trick or what not, but transition the uni to its side, one foot on the seat, the other on a pedal, and balance on the pedal that is touching the ground, maybe doing some cool spins or something. sounds kinda lame, but kinda fun.
get a good bounce, on your way up, push the seat back so that it hits the ground behind you at the height of your jump, then slam the pedal to the ground so that it pulls the seat right back up into your butt. the logistics of this are perhaps beyond me, but you never know until you try, eh?
anyhow, have any of these been done? are my ideas even mildly original?
I’ve seen Harper hop in the air, disassemble his unicycle (with only his teeth), re-weld his seat post, repack his bearings, and land in a headstand, pedaling with his hands.
Down a 12-stair set.
With his eyes closed.
In the rain.
You shouldn’t bother unicycling. You’ll never be as good as Harper.
screw that noise! I’m not sure how many hours of practice it usually takes to get to the level where you can hop up onto a pole, ride it, and do some cool flip off of it, but my goal is to reach that skill level over the course of this upcoming summer.
I may be biting off more than I can chew, but I’m sure going to try.
I would imagine that seatpost’s aren’t designed for that particular kind of abuse, but who knows!
I could imagine it working on a really low rail, like a half footer
you’d land the 180 with the uni completely upside down, while you balance on the pedals, and would look like a cool cat while doing it. I would imagine that you would split any plastic or fibre seat trying that trick. a metal seat should be fine, though catching that in your crotch doesn’t sound pleasant.
stradle a uni, let it fall to the left side. left foot goes on the seat, right foot goes on the right pedal, then balance the whole thing on the left pedal. not sure if cranks can deal with that kind of stress though.
after seeing some of your videos, I am going to take your word for it, much to my dismay. when I get good enough to try things like this, I may build a custom metal seat for trying things that current seats aren’t really built for. I’m thinking a small steel base with a rubber bumper on the front and back, and a hard plastic top mounted over a layer of gel to take some of the impact. who knows!
I would love to see something that goes a little like this:
You would ride as fast as you could straight at a concrete wall. About four feet away, hop as high as you could at the wall, leaning back and hitting the wall with your tire. Bounce off the wall, backflip, and land.
As for the OP’s proposed tricks, The only one I can imagine happening is the seat post grind, with the rail between the post and the crown, but unis aren’t designed for that, and you would probably go through a few uni’s just learning how to DO it.
The others seem either ridiculous, or impossible considering that seats are not designed for any of those things.
I’m not sure if this is what you meant, but I can see a sort of half-whip, meaning that you would hop, throw the seat back, and have it bounce off the rear bumper shooting it back up to you. But I would think the timing would have to be absolutely perfect, and the ground you do it on would be a factor, and if the rear bumpers would have enough bounce-back to do it.
It should be possible. Heck, a back flip on flat ground should be possible; we’re seeing guys with enough hops to do it, now it’s just getting the technique down.
I can already think of several ways of practicing and working up to this in a safe way.
I would think a 19 or a 20 would need to be used, and you could work your way up to it by simply doing repeated normal bounces off the wall, until the proper height is achieved.
From there you would work with 1 or 2 other people, and they would slide a mat under you as you jump to flip off the wall. It’s basically having spotters.
I can see it happening as well.
EDIT: But again, timing and angle would be incredibly important, because people that do normal wall run-up flips, they have 2 points of contact which stabilizes them and lets them have better control of their flip.
that is exactly what I was talking about, but of course it would make more sense on a seat built to take that kind of abuse.
as far as the rest sounding impossible, I now have a goal. once I get the hang of this thing, I am going to learn to grind a rail with the seat post.
I will hurt myself many times in the learning process, but I promise you that I will land this before the summer is out and upload a video of it. if anything, i think grinding a seat post sounds easier to pull than a darkside grind on a skateboard, which is a pretty simple trick for seasoned skaters
If you look at it, with good technique it’s really not that much speed or even that much jumping. His foot gets maybe a meter off the ground.
Now, on a unicycle it would be a lot harder to translate the forward/upward momentum into a back flip. It might be easier to do a foot plant, flip off the foot plant and land back on the uni, which would be a super-cool trick.
Ah, I’ve only ever done 2 foot-plant flips, and that was before this whole free-running craze.
What it would need to be on a unicycle if you plan on doing it with a tire plant would be a super high jump, with a plant at least perpendicular to the wall, lean too far in either direction and it could be a disaster.
How do you propose to even get into that position, let alone have enough speed to slide, keep your balance with one foot on the seat and one on the pedal, and then manage to ride away??? I hope you prove me wrong cause it would be awesome, but right now I don’t think it’s possible. Same with the wallflip on the unicycle, everyone can sit at their computer and talk about it but no one will actually do it. Again, I hope to be proved wrong though
I can see someone getting into the position, getting out of it would be another story, maybe if the foot was switched from the pedal to the crank instead, and the pedals parallel? and being able to balance on a single point of metal good luck with that, you may want to learn to BC wheel before you ever try this trick, that’s the only thing that I could think would be close to the same balancing sensation, but your legs are further apart which makes you unsteady… Also I would have to say that it would need to be an incline rail, which ups the difficulty even more.
You promised us a video though man, and I don’t think you will land it, so you better upload all the bails.
As for the wall-flip, all it takes is someone willing to put in the time to work it. It’s not something that would just happen within a few tries. But I could see some of these guys that are good high jumpers be able to do it with good training, good planning and the assistance of others.
