Turning without twisting]

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1

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Until I recently bought and read Wileys book about unicycling I thought that the
only way to make a turn was by action reaction twisting. Wiley writes about the
possibillity to turn only by leaning, but I find it extreamly difficult.

Is it really possibly to do turns without twisting? Even if starting with
twisting, to mainain the turn one should need to twist, right or wrong?

/Karl Sitell

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Message-ID: <34831849.5219F586@algonet.se> Date: Mon, 01 Dec 1997 20:04:25 +0000
From: Elevpost <elevpost@algonet.se> Organization: Biskops Arnv X-Mailer:
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Until I recently bought and read Wileys book about unicycling I thought that the
only way to make a turn was by action reaction twisting. Wiley writes about the
possibillity to turn only by leaning, but I find it extreamly difficult.

Is it really possibly to do turns without twisting? Even if starting with
twisting, to mainain the turn one should need to twist, right or wrong?

/Karl Sitell

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2

RE: Turning without twisting]

Another way to turn is to thrust your hips sideways in the direction you want to
turn. This causes your tire contact point to move toward the sidewall forcing it
to turn in the direction of its lean.

3

Re: Turning without twisting]

At 20:18 97/12/01 +0000, Elevpost wrote:
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type=“54455854”;
> x-mac-creator=“4D4F5353” Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>
> Until I recently bought and read Wileys book about unicycling I thought that
> the only way to make a turn was by action reaction twisting. Wiley writes
> about the possibillity to turn only by leaning, but I find it extreamly
> difficult.
>
> Is it really possibly to do turns without twisting? Even if starting with
> twisting, to mainain the turn one should need to twist, right or wrong?

Not only is it possible, it is highly desirable. Twisting is limited to certaing
situations and is quite inelegeant. If you keep all or almost all your weight on
the saddle you will get used to it soon. My book ANYONE CAN RIDE A UNICYCLE
explains this briefly, but I think Jack Wiley’s book goes into more detail. Keep
your weigth on the saddle, looking into the circle, and maintatining a cerating
amount of speed are necesssary.

Good luck/

>
> /Karl Sitell
>
Stay on top, Jack Halpern, IUF Vice President

Kanji Dictionary Publishing Society, http://www.win.or.jp/~jhalpern

1-3-502 3-Chome Niiza, Niiza-shi, Saitama 352 JAPAN Voice: +81-048-481-3103 Fax:
+81-048-479-1323
========
Hiroshima '45 Chernobyl '86 Windows '95 =============

4

Re: Turning without twisting]

Karl Sitell wrote:

>Until I recently bought and read Wileys book about unicycling I thought that
>the only way to make a turn was by action reaction twisting. Wiley writes about
>the possibillity to turn only by leaning, but I find it extreamly difficult.

>Is it really possibly to do turns without twisting? Even if starting with
>twisting, to maintain the turn one should need to twist, right or wrong?

Yes, but it is quite difficult. The easiest way to lean to the side is twisting
the wheel right or left as needed. However, a smaller amount of sideways lean
can be produced by either raising the left arm and lowering the right arm or
visa versa (thereby no twisting).

Once a lean to one side is established, a turn in that direction can be
maintained. However, action-reaction twisting is almost always used to produce
the desired lean at the beginning of the turn, correct the amount of lean as the
turn progresses and to finally get out of the lean at the end of the turn.

Sincerely,

Ken Fuchs <kfuchs@winternet.com

5

Re: Turning without twisting]

In article <199712020619.AAA13535@tundra.winternet.com>, Ken Fuchs
<kfuchs@winternet.com> wrote:
>Karl Sitell wrote:
>
>>Until I recently bought and read Wileys book about unicycling I thought that
>>the only way to make a turn was by action reaction twisting. Wiley writes
>>about the possibillity to turn only by leaning, but I find it extreamly
>>difficult.
>
>>Is it really possibly to do turns without twisting? Even if starting with
>>twisting, to maintain the turn one should need to twist, right or wrong?

>Yes, but it is quite difficult. The easiest way to lean to the side is twisting
>the wheel right or left as needed. However, a smaller amount of sideways lean
>can be produced by either raising the left arm and lowering the right arm or
>visa versa (thereby no twisting).

To get really smooth turns, you definitely have to turn your head and look to
wherever you want to go. It becomes automatic rather soon: you turn your head,
the upper body follows, the whole unicycle leans in, and turning you go.

As far as I’ve noticed, a small amount of twisting still occurs, but it is more
or less due to my speed not being quite what I thought it would be, pedaling a
bit faster or slower than I should, which throws everything slightly off-balance
so that I need to twist a little bit… a notorious show-stopper for other fun
skills such as spinning: I manage to spin once in two or three, and all of my
failures come from the wrong wheel speed/inequal pedaling as compared to the
leaning-in (don’t know if what I’m saying makes sense…)

I’ve recently noticed that you really need your arms to avoid twisting while
turning. I’ve switched from carrying somewhat on my back to a front position
(carried person legs locked around my waist, support through both pair of arms
for confidence, even though I could let go and let her support herself). I
discovered I was suddenly unable to turn except by un-harmonious twisting (back
for some more training).

On a related note, when I try to idle while keeping both pedals horizontal, I
still need to twist to maintain lateral balance, whereas I’ve seen a guy doing
it by making use of his arms like rope-walkers do. Quite impressive indeed (I
want to learn that :slight_smile: )