I’m new to trials and was wondering if there is anything that can help me with it? I also need someplace to hop on. The only things I have to jump on are 2 steps and 2 blocks of wood. I don’t think i’m gonna be making any obstacle because i’m only 11. And what hand do you hold the seat with and do you get blisters from holding the seat?
hold the seat with what ever you feel comfotable with and as far as obstacles go just ride around untill you find some good ones. And you don’t get blisters if you wear a glove
Where can I get some good glove’s
Any light, thin gloves will work but try not to grip the handle too tightly. Relax. Relax. Relax.
Tommy
Firstly, being 11 shouldn’t stop you from building obstacles. Power tools aren’t a neccessity, they just save you lots of time and effort. I built my first sandwich board without powertools and it’s fine.
Maybe it would be worth looking through the trials section of www.unicycle.2ya.com . Peter and I have put quite a few tips and tutorials into that section.
Andrew
even with gloves if you spend more than a couple hours riding you will feel blisters beginning to form. any LBS will sell mtb gloves, which work great for uniing. personally, i have stopped wearing gloves, and my hands do blister some, but not much.
keep practing on the wood and steps you have until you feel confident with your hopping. try holding the seat on the side, out in front of you also. this will help you to hop higher in the future.
when hopping, practice stillstanding between hops. rather than just constantly bouncing up and down, try pausing for a second between each hop. this will give you more control.
that ww.unicycle.2ya.com is a great help. I’ll look into making obstacles, but where do i get supplies?
You can buy wood at a Home Depot, Lowes, or other place like that. If you go around to some worksites or stores, you can probably get some pallets or scrap wood for free. They dont have to look all that pretty, as long as they dont break. Trip and I made some of the trashiest looking trials obstacles, and they are very sturdy.
john
Yeah, construction sites in the bins.
I’m not sure if I just have a bad glove, but I get blisters through it. It’s just an old sailing glove lying around the house that I picked up. It’s not full fingered, but I got them through the material anyway. I ended up doubling over an inner tube on 3 of the fingers to stop my hands from getting blisters. I’m starting to think I must grip the handle too hard.
Read old posts on hopping. Must be fifty of them, most all with good info.
Go to a market or feedstore or paint joint and nab some palates–usually free, but ask to make sure. Because you’ll eventually start busting the 1 X 3 ribs on these, cover one palate with a thin layer of plywood–runs about five bucks, and screw it in place. That’s your top palate when hoping.
Takes a few days to learn how to hop in place and get some little stillstand. Then start hoping onto the palate(s). One is the first week; two is beginning level; three is intermediate; four (basically 20 inches) is advanced. Anything over five palates and you’re nearing ace status.
Once you can consistantly nail 20 inches, you’re good for a ton of street stuff, since all benches et al are 20 inches or a little less.
JL
cant delete this message sorry
I was helping my dad with the garden when I went to get something I saw enough wooden planks to build plenty of obstacle and a pallet. And I found some old cycling gloves. I’ll be building some obstacles soon.
I found this site with some stuff that looks like some trials stuff at http://www.pallet-mall.com/ just in case you want some
What are gapping bars for?
Gapping bars are for practicing gaps between bars. You should be able to consistently static gap over 1 meter before you start to even think about gapping bars. If you want to see a video of some gapping bars in action, click on the link to my gallery in my sig line, and then click on “trials video clips” (might be a bit different name, I forgot). Once there, click on any video with “gapping bars” in it. There are two videos of no-sucess (1 bail and one equip failure), and 1 or two of some successful gaps.
Don’t build your entire trials course oujt of palletes. That’s no good. At first, as you build up your hop and stuff, palletes are fine, but once you can do about 2’ consistently, it’s time to start putting some precise stuff in. Most trials courses are boring to me, as they’re all just a series of big moves with huge surfaces to rest on in between. Good trials courses should only give you one or two chances to rest in the course of a long trials line. Most of the lines I build don’t have any large surfaces to take a break on at all. Just a little thing to think about.
Also, when designing a course, try to make everything modular. YOu have to build stuff a bit more robustly, but it makes making interesting trials lines much easier.
can u guys show me some pics of trials obstacle so i hace an idea og what to make
Check out this:
http://www.freewebs.com/andrewcarter/building.htm
I got it from Andrew Carter and Peter van B’s site:
http://www.unicycle.2ya.com
I might be buying some pallets for $2.50 each. About how many should I get or buy
Re: Trials help
On Sun, 22 Aug 2004 17:58:27 -0500, “gerblefranklin” wrote:
>You should be able to
>consistently static gap over 1 meter before you start to even think
>about gapping bars.
Why? Gapping between bars is more about precision than about distance.
Klaas Bil - Newsgroup Addict
“The more you think, the less you have to do. - Leo Vandewoestijne”
Good to hear, I share the same approach to trials riding. 
I think it’s more fun this way. I chose to go onto more technical stuff when I could consistently hop about 30cm high rather than 2’.
Andrew
also, while constructing a long trials line with combined moves can be good practice, it is perhaps more important to build small lines that can be changed around easily. the idea of a trials park is to improve your skills so that when you find a real line you can apply these skills directly. but nevertheless, building a long line that takes a lot of time to perfect can be much more fun than shorter, more technical lines.
pallets can be a lot of fun if you play around with them. rather than just stacking them on top of eachother, try arranging them in weird ways so that, for example, they will shift position as you hop on them.
–trip