I had a similar experience with my neighbor. He’s 19. He learned how to ride around the block, he can ride short distances on grass, and he knows a jump mount. I am not really sure what he’s up to right now, because he lives 1/4 mile away in another subdivision. It seems he has “plateaued”.
There are different reasons for plateauing. I’m speculating. Maybe some riders consider learning to unicycle a novelty skill, and they are only interested in proving they can ride a short distance. I think the first 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, etc. feet/meters are exciting for every rider. But the novelty can wear off if the rider is not attempting other, hard to learn techniques. Also, I think beginners may think, “Yeah, sure, I can ride, but it’s such a struggle.” Beginners may tolerate struggling because riding is exciting, but once some of the novelty of riding wears off, the struggle will remain, and the rider will feel “bad” at unicycling. Beginners, I think, are in danger of quitting when they haven’t yet reached the point where basic riding is easy. And conversely, if a rider progresses until basic riding is easy, yet they don’t cultivate new skills, then unicycling gets boring.
It’s heart wrenching to think about all the forum members who’ve popped up, asked for advice, gotten tons of advice…then disappeared from the forum. Maybe we need to put more friendly pressure on these new members…pressure to stay in touch, share their progress and their struggles. I think a lot of them get vibed out after a few bad falls. Others, I believe, are not willing or able to put in the necessary time to learn.
I’m new to the unicycle world having learned through lockdown. I think some of the problem with people sticking with it is to do with the practicality of it. When I ride a bike to the shops no one bats an eyelid, but if i try to take the uni you know you will get comments, you know there is the risk of falling off and looking silly, free mounting is always risky. It’s quite a stressful experience, even though it’s great fun
i’m 46 and have never seen anyone riding a unicycle around just for the hell of it. So you always feel like you are drawing attention to yourself, both good and bad.
zelot, riding for the “hell of it” is a pretty good reason to unicycle!
I have read many posts by relative newbies grappling with the “practicality” of unicycling. There are riders on this forum who use the unicycle to commute, which is cool. But trying to rationalize riding by saying you’re going to ride to work or pick up groceries on the unicycle…I don’t know. I am not judging. I thought that way as a beginner. One of my early uni-fantasies was to ride up the the donut shop, hop the curb, dismount, and get a donut and coffee. After 6 years of riding, it never happened. Partly because I don’t just casually ride the unicycle. I suit up and go for longer rides on trails and in parks near my house.
I’m proud to report that I did not give up. I started trying to learn on 24 October last year. Work was a little slow then so I went out almost every afternoon for between 30 minutes and an hour. By 28 November, I’d put in about 17 hours and was able to ride decently. I now own a 36" I occasionally ride around the neighborhood and am looking to buy a muni. I also got a 20" I don’t use very much.
My biggest issue is the time riding takes. The getting dressed part is about the same as cycling, but I don’t wear wrist braces when I cycle. Also, I usually combine my riding with some kind of errand—either to the office to get mail, the store to pick something up, or some time with my wife—and the uni just doesn’t lend itself to those. Maybe it would if I were better, but, at least for now, I’m not. I tracked my time through 20 January of this year and logged about 36 hours of work. After that, I stopped keeping track. And then, when work picked up, it got harder to spend the time. But I can free mount and, when I was working on it, I could ride off curbs and over speed bumps. I can still free mount (after a few attempts) but I don’t know about curbs and speed bumps without spending the time practicing again.
@adamcanderson great to hear you’ve been sticking with it!! I think the biggest thing for you right now is to keep learning. For instance, if you can ride and then come to a complete stop for a second before moving again, start learning to bunnyhop. If you don’t feel like you are at that level, start with something a bit simpler.
Not only will advancing onto new skills give you just that (new skills), but you’ll also gain a lot of confidence just handling the unicycle and riding itself will become easier, more comfortable, and probably a bit more fun
Also, if you have the chance, try to meet up with a unicyclist for a bit of riding. The more the merrier!
Keep with it!
Unicycling is such a niche sport that it’s hard to find other riders to bond and ride with in most places. Unicycling is viewed by others as an odd ball novelty and not taken seriously as a sport. Having ridiculous comments from non riders constantly thrown at you can give you a sense of embarrassment especially when you are fumbling around trying to learn. Having a teacher or mentor is what most need to progress. And having others to ride with challenging your progress would help tremendously. Trying to get that from forum posts is one of the only outlets for support for many riders. Disappointment, a sense of failure, embarrassment or even physical injury can send that unicycle to the back of the garage never to be rode again.
Hello everyone,
I got a Nimbus 27.5" Oracle for my birthday a month ago. This is my very first unicycle.
So far i can ride about 1.5km non-stop and can freemount sometimes. Right now i can freemount 1 out of 5 tries. I seem to be stuck with this ratio.
How long will it become close to 100%. I find this is the most frustrating part so far.
I’m trying to learn how to hop in one spot and idling now. But I’m using one hand against the wall for now. These actions feel so alien to me…there is no way i can go out in the open yet.
Looking forward to get any tips from you guys👍
Thanks, CaryG
My experience is that some things are much easier than others. Riding while standing, hopping, riding saddle in front, hopping saddle in front, rolling mounts, etc… are all pretty easy to learn. Idling and backwards riding are tough to learn and I’m sure some of the tricks like coasting, gliding, uniwhips are extremely tough.
Riding and hopping saddle in front hardly took me any time at all to learn. I had tried briefly and failed to ride SIF on my 27.5 muni, but when I got a trials uni I found I could ride SIF on my first try and hopping was similarly easy.
Idling on the other hand took months and lots of dedicated practice. Riding backwards has taken me months so far and I still don’t quite get it.
As far as the freemounts go, I’ve been practicing unicycling now for almost a year, 5-6 days a week for about an hour a day and at this point I can freemount successfully on the first try about 90% of the time. I haven’t actually practiced freemounting however in several months. I just freemount when I have to and I’ve gradually gotten better at it.
Thanks for your help! So hopping is easier than idling… that’s good to know. I’ll try and learn hopping first then.
As far as freemounting goes, I’ve been getting better…mind you i have only been on a uni for 4 weeks. So I’m at a 20% success rate so far. 1 out of 5 times but i can still remember just over 2 weeks ago it was 1 out of 25 times.
And I’m like you where i just freemount and go riding.
Any good tips on hopping? Right now I’m doing hops with one hand on the wall. The hops are only about 1/4"-1/2" high. And when i hop i kind of do a little bounce in between(not leaving the ground though) then do a bigger hop with some air. I’m doing sets of 120 hops broken up in 20-30 hops at a time.
You’re going to want to start hopping higher, as the key to hopping is keeping your balance by making corrections as you hop. You’re basically riding a pogo stick with a 3" air spring and if you’re only hopping 1/2" high then you’re not going to be able correct your lean enough to keep your balance.
Also, hopping is one of those things that is super easy to learn the basics of but something that you could devote years to learning how to do really well.
I’d try and stick to small hops in place for the beginning, so try and eliminate the bounce inbetween. Getting more air is completely unimportant at first in my opinion, you just want to learn how to move your uni under you to balance yourself. For that you shouldn’t need big hops, bigger hops will come naturally once you are more comfortable in my experience.
If you can do 20-30 hops at the time, you are easily ready to try them without the wall. Either start hopping with your hand on the wall and then remove the hand so that you are hopping without support, or try to get into it from riding (you have to learn how to come to a stop before you can start hopping).
20-30 hops sounds more like endurance training to me, even if you fall of a lot, I think doing 3-10 (how ever many you can get) without support will teach you a lot more than 20 hops with your hand on the wall.
Ok thanks! I will start to try and get away from the wall and just see how many hops i can get. And I’ll quit talking those mini hops in between the real hops.
I’ll work on just building my numbers and not worry about the height of the hops yet. Hopefully the height will come as i get more used to hopping.
I must say that this sport is very addictive… Loving every training session despite how frustrating things can get👍
I’d agree that getting big hops isn’t that important for a beginner, but hops that are only 1/4 to 1/2 inch high don’t really give you any chance to correct your balance. 1/2" is approximately 12.7mm for those of you that aren’t familiar with imperial measure.
I’ll work on getting higher…like a full inch. Just tried a bunch of hops without any mini hops in between. Just doing like 10 in a row against the wall but the height got better.
This is so new for me…so I’m just getting used to keeping the pedal arms horizontal to the ground. Hard work!!!
Thanks for your help.
Hi, it sounds like are doing really great @CaryG with your 27.5, you are up and riding it pretty well within a month, with 25% freemounting, thats really great.
However, when you want to learn hopping, this skill will be a lot easier to do on a trials uni. And you’ll get more hopping height with that too. So i’d get one of those too.
For me, its easiest that I hop left foot back and left hand on the handle. You will probably find you have a better side too. It’s nice to be able to do it both sided equally well, but you’ll probably find one way more natural than others.
Wow! I never thought about getting another unicycle…much less a trials one.
I guess with a smaller wheel, it will be easier to learn these skills first. Then use these skills on the bigger wheels.
Maybe i will get a smaller trials unicycle in the spring👍
Thanks for that advice.
There is some really good stuff on here! I wish I would have seen this when I was learning to ride. I have a friend learning now and I just sent him a link to here so maybe that will give him a boost.
I’m a different learner.
I would suggest that you freemount for every ride you go for. No freemount, no ride.
I’ll bet you’ll be at 100% in less than a month.
For hopping, ride to a stop, hop once or twice (without the little mid hoppy thing), and ride away.
Repeat while increasing the number of hops.
I’m not a fan of the pogo stick hops. It’s a whole other sport.
I suggest to hop to a stillstand and try to stay in that position. As you start to fall, hop to the next position and try and hold again.
You may have to hop with lots of small hops in the beginning but try to slow the jumping down and start making precise hops once you get the feel for it.
As far as the wall… sure it’s OK to lean on to get started but the proper body mechanics will never be learned without getting away from it.
I used a 5’ railing on each side for idling practice. I would use the railings just to launch or to catch my fall but never held on while actually idling.
It took me one winter with about two minutes practice pretty much every day. (one minute per side as everything should be learned ambidextrously)
You can’t ride without mounting so why not learn to freemount?
I also like to let skills come to me slowly so repetitive practice isn’t something I practice.
Learn to mount, then ride, then dismounts, then stopping, then hopping, then idling, etc…
I find the building of basic skills makes learning new ones much easier.
