Well, I had them practice at home using their porch step or any couple of stairs to get the feel for it. I think once a person get’s the leg/muscle memory of not putting hardly any weight on the first pedal, and concentrating on pushing yourself up onto the uni with the foot on the ground, then it starts to work pretty soon after.
But once you swing yourself and the uni up, you want to go just slightly past the CG, so you have the needed forward momentum to start pedaling forward. While learning, I think it’s much better to end up going too far and going over the top, than not committing, thus never even getting over the CG.
Are you falling before you get all the way up, or going over the top? I find that a person really needs to commit and get to up, just slightly past the CG so you have that bit of forward momentum to start rolling forward. Have you tried the rolling mount also?
I’ve only performed a handful of successful freemounts (all yesterday!). Maybe I’m not doing it in the easiest of ways but it’s been working out so far. I like walking a little forward so that my dominant foot on the pedal comes up as I push down on it. The two nearly balance so it stays mostly in place. Because of the position of my pedals, I have found it easier to continue pushing down with my dominant foot, causing me to roll just slightly backwards, which puts my CG in front of the wheel, and I promptly roll away.
I’m gonna try some different techniques today though.
most of the time it is over the top, I have tried the rolling mount and same problem …I think I have multiple problems:
one is psychological (I have hurt me badly while freemounting … so sometimes my brain refuses the challenge)
one is physical (I tend to suffer from orthostatic “black veil” when performing the movement too hastily)
then technical problems get in the way: I stand up to get sufficient torque , start rolling … but then miss next pedal stroke (by applying too much effort on the front pedal I am unable to start next pedal stroke).
I need a mentor to look at me and correct my movements …
Could you possibly shoot a short video of you mounting-maybe from a couple different angles- then upload to youtube and post it here? That would help a lot.
I really would like to do that! except that I do not own a videocam (and do not know someone who owns one! I live in a technophobic neighborhood )
any Parisian froggie reading this forum who can lend me one?
Do you have/know anyone with a digital still cam? Many of them have a video mode; not the best quality but perfectly fine for this purpose. Even a sequence of still shots of your mounting might also yield some glimpses into any problems you may be having.
This woman has a series of instructional videos that I have found helpful. It is not the point of the video, but she uses an odd grab-the-wheel mount that looks effortless. I was intrigued so I tried in on a 29". After a few times it worked. I then tried it on a brand new 36", which I had never free-mounted before, and it worked in the first few tries! The trick is to roll forward and let the wheel move before grabbing it and stepping up. I think the advantage over my static mounts is that it puts me in a good balanced position over the wheel so that I am ready to roll.
Is this a very common mount? Do many of you use it?
