when i hop should i have my left foot or right foot forward? I usually mount with my right foot and roll a half revolution backwards. so my right foot i in front. and also should i put my left or right hand on the handle?
Doesn’t matter at all which foot you have forward. Choose the stance you like best.
You can also choose which hand you use on the handle. Again, it doesn’t matter.
What does matter - a lot - is that you sidehop away from the hand you hold the seat with. So if you hold with the right hand then hop to the left, etc.
just wondering how come should i do that? and where should my hands be for SIF?
I’ve been told that it is much easier to hop with the strong foot forward (same foot you mount with). The difference is noticeable but it is much easier to hop with the wrong foor forward than to mount with the wrong foot.
whatever is the most comfortable. and for SIF hopping, hold the side of the seat close to the seatpost
Do I need to lern to hop with both feet. And how high and how far forward or backwords do I need the seat on seat post.
you only need to be able to hop either way for muni and stuff where there are unexpected things that you might have to hop over at the last minute. and your seat doesnt really matter, as long as you can grab it easily
I ment for trials. And any other hints or tips?
I was too, but I think I figured it out. For side hopping, you bend or tilt to the side as part of the process. Having the free arm on that side gives you more leverage to make corrections by swinging that arm around. If you were using the hand on the opposite side you would get less bang for your buck.
At least this seems like the reason for that logic. All I know is that I’ve been doing it that way for a long time…
As for what foot to put forward, for best results get comfortable doing it either way. If you get stuck with one way only it will limit what you can do.
So I do need to lern to hop with both feet forward
You don’t really need to learn to hop from either stance, but at the early stages of learning it helps your skills to work on both. If you’re like most people, pretty soon you’ll discover that one stance is better than the other for you and then you’ll spend more time in that one.
On hopping away from the hand that’s holding the saddle - when you land a hop, you need to tilt the unicycle for stability. If you hop left, you need to land the hop with the saddle tilted to the right. It’s easy to get that angle if it’s your right hand on the saddle and you’re pulling the seat over. It’s hard to do it if it’s your left hand and you’re pushing.
There are great trials riders who use either stance. There are great trials riders who hop towards their front foot and who hop towards their back foot. But hopping towards the hand you hold with is pretty much a no-go for everyone.
Choose whatever’s good for you foot and hand position-wise. Golden rule if you want to get good and be safer, plus have more power/balance/leverage is to hop to the side of your free hand. It looks better too.
Sidehopping towards the front foot is better for unicycles though, generally as it’s more stable to hop seat-out with a hand that isn’t the same side as your front foot. I.e: sidehop to left, left foot forward, and right hand grip… your seat is sandwiched securely between your left thigh and right hand. However, you can sidehop to your backfoot side (right) with the same footing but hold with your left hand (which is less stable to hop seat-out, from a technical standpoint)… as it is a bit more awkward to have the same hand and same forward foot’s thigh against the seat… whilst the other side is totally ‘un-secured’. That being said, there are plenty of good riders who hop to their backfoot this way. It’s personal preference on what your feet and and hands like to be positioned.
But in short: Unicycle trials is in my experience one of the easiest sports to pick up in the world. No exagerration. I’ve done football (soccer), biketrials, rugby, b-boying (“breakdancing” as the media calls it), flatland BMX, taekwondo, capoeira, and on and on etc… Unicycle trials is by far and away the simplest as there are comparatively so few techniques and it is essentially just regular jumping but with a bouncy pogo stick underneath. Once you suss the various hopping techniques it’s just a matter of repetitive practice and you’ll get 100cm hops in under a year. That being said, learning street or flatland tricks, hell, even skinnies… is the challenging part.
Have fun learning, because you’ll pick things up very fast and suddenly!
thanks i thank you all! i am doing alot better at trials
just a quick update i am riding with right foot forward and left hand on handle and instead of hopping left i hop right and after a little getting use to i can hop higher and farther than before.