Unicycle "dreamers"

General
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My new years resolution for 2024.
Get “new” unicycle riders!!!

I “believe” there are thousands of “ghost riders” in this unicycle dot com community. What does that mean? Well, the genz/alpha like to use the term “ghost” as people who look, listen, follow…but stay in the shadows and never interact.

Some people use the term, Lookie Loo’s, right?

Anyways, this website community should not just involve people who can ride a unicycle, freewheel, ultimate wheel,…or even EUC(yeah…you guys can join in). Our most popular topic page, Today I brag, should be loaded with thousands of replies that simply say, “I finally got it”. Let’s brag about “teaching another rider”. Let’s brag about increasing our membership of new unicycle riders.

It should also involve people WHO WOULD LIKE to ride someday, or DREAM of riding or just think unicycles are COOL.

This is an invitation for all of you members who cannot even ride a unicycle.
Just click and type whatever you would like to ask, comment or even “project” to us, the world of unicycle riders. There is no stupid questions, here. If any “other member” scolds you for creating a “redundant” string or topic. I will slam him/her back. A promise.

I enjoy riding, but I also enjoy spreading the “skill” to get more people involved in this weird, vintage but cool sport.
Happy 2024, world.
~…slam

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Well, this might be an alternate place to blag… I made it away from the wall today! I’ve been trying to learn uni since the summer and whilst I could sit on mine all day actually moving without support has proved impossible. So I rolled out the wheelie bin and just pushed.off. I think I counted 3 pedal revolutions at one point today and I “got” the sensation of balancing for perhaps a second. I felt so elated!

I suspect many lurkers might be like me and feel their efforts pale against the skills and endurance of practiced unicyclists.

PS my other half thinks I’m stupid and on a direct route to the nearest Accident and Emergency department. Any tips? (To be fair to her she had a similar view when I started riding recumbent bikes, now she’s convinced they are much safer than the upright kind. I haven’t shared my ambition to get a penny farthing!)

Feorag, connoisseur of human powered vehicles

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It’s a great feeling, isn’t it? getting it that first time or two, a feeling hard to explain to any non unicycle rider…

I can definitely feel you on the skill and feats some of the riders here do which almost seem unachievable. I also find them inspiring too–it lets you know it can be done!

Unicycling is one of those things that appears a lot more dangerous than it is in reality. I have had many hundreds of UPDs but all except 2 resulted in me landing on my feet. One I couldn’t fully catch myself and ended with one hand and one knee on the ground. The other I purposely tried to ride over a cement curb into a playground full of wood chips, something I fully expected I couldn’t do (I was right!) and I took a tumble into the nice soft chips actually with my wife watching) . My other half was also worried about me getting injured at first but it has gotten better as I have explained upds are rarely falls and she’s got to witness this many times, with no serious injuries over the last ~3 years…but she does ask me to always wear my helmet, knee pads, and wrist protection which I think is a good idea too. You tend to ride at relatively low speeds on a uni too, which helps.
She’s not on board with me riding in snow and ice though! I think it’s actually a reasonably safe hobby despite the outward perception.

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Yes, absolutely we fkn look stupid, to normal people.
Right!!!
Two reasons:
a.) Stupid people try to do “impossible” things. Like flapping arms to fly.
b.) Beginning unicycle riders are “flapping their arms” to balance

But when we finally GET IT
We feel like we got fkn SUPERPOWERS
Normal people now look at us doing the IMPOSSIBLE

…slam

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Nice work. I don’t have any advice except to keep at it. I started learning to ride in September. It took me three weeks to learn how to “ride”. For me that meant a half mile without falling. I attempted to ride almost everyday for about 30 minutes. I did have to take a week off after two weeks due to terrible shin splints. My wife thought I was crazy. She wasn’t surprised though, I guess I have become predictable.
Keep working, you are very close to finding balance and getting some serious distance in.

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Made it to 4 (!) pedal revolutions in a short 15 minute session tonight. I see what people mean about a “floating” sensation. Unfortunately the consequent adrenaline surge meant wobbly legs which in turn meant it was back to 1-2 rotations.

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Good for you. Feeling balanced almost feels uncomfortable when you are so used to falling. I think it helps to not take many days off. Even 15 minutes is plenty if you do it everyday.

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Something I always wonder about new unicyclists…
What made you decide to finally take the plunge and try it? Or what has held you back?

I remember the first time I was impressed…there was some kid I didn’t know that I would see riding a unicycle all around town when I was 18-19 years old driving my car. Just like a bike, he rode up and down [fairly steep] hills, up and down curbs, and I saw him in many places of considerable distances from each other, so he must have been able to cover some ground on the thing!). I had no idea that kind of riding could be done on a unicycle, and it kind of always stuck with me.

Several years later, I saw a video about a new extreme sport called mountain unicycling, and was very fascinated (and thought about that kid I saw riding around town years earlier. but brushed it off as impractical/unrealistic for me.
This one:

A bit later i saw a torker uni for sale for $100 at a local bike shop when looking for some MTB parts, and after I left I really wanted to go back get it, and even thought i would, but I forgot about it and never did. (So close!)

Several years later, someone at work was talking about a new electric unicycle they bought and were addicted to. I asked, a what? He told me more about it, and I said that sounds incredibly dangerous, and he tried explaining how it worked. Later i went Googling, and after watching a few videos, and talking to him more about it, i HAD to get one too.
I did and I loved mine too. Riding it really sparked an appreciation for one-wheeled riding, and reignited that curiosity I had long had about “regular” unicycling and especially mountain unicycling. Suddenly it didn’t seem so far fetched afterall, especially after riding the electric one offroad.

I came across Ryan Kremsater’s north shore shred 2.0 video, he made muni look so cool and so fun (and possible), and I decided one way or another I want to try to be able to ride muni too.

I researched, and found this forum, and decided to start first with a club 24 and make sure i really can/want to do this. I quickly realized I definitely wanted to do it and got an Oracle 27.5 a little later (maybe too soon, I was not very good at my 24 yet!).
I still am not yet skilled enough to muni, but I am just as much determined to achieve it some day. Some of the people on here really inspire me.

I just wish I would have followed through and bought that torker all those years earlier! I could have been enjoying it all this time and probably would be a lot better at it too by now)

So if you are on the fence like i was, my advice is just give it a shot!

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It was Ed Pratt and too much time on YouTube that did it for me. I had no idea that unicycles could be used like that (previously I’d associated them with circuses and not much else). I also have an eclectic collection of human powered two wheelers and three wheelers and it was apparent to me that a one wheeler was missing from the collection.

As to learning, I’m trying to do 15 mins each day which worked well when I’ve been learning musical instruments - seems to be the optimum length of time for learning new motor skills, for me at least. Yes, consistency is crucial to this approach.

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‘someone’ got an EUC for Christmas :rofl:

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I am struggling to stay afloat on my 26er I’m a beginner. Was doing ok til I hit my head. I always wear a helmit. After that i experienced less balance on the Uni. I am currently in the rebuilding phase of my balance. But I agree that unicycling is a great activity to get people into. It has so many benefits and the concept is so complete.

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Sir, why a 26" unicycle?

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@Xiphi, you are “struggling” because of the 26" size. For the beginning 20" or 24" is much easier. I also was suffering with 26" when I was a beginner, because that time I didn’t know what to choose. With a bigger size learning takes much more time. It makes a sense to choose bigger size if you are very tall and a small size is uncomfortable for you.
Anyway, good luck to you!

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I also use an EUC for commuting. When my grandson turned 20, I gave him an EUC, and at the same time, myself too. I continue with my EUC, but my granson gave it up, he said that it is too dangerous. Them young ones…

And the only person I could turn to unicycle, is my daughter of 43 years old, who lives with her family near Charlotte. Unfortunately, she has too few time for unicycling, so I am alone with this passion

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Thank you for your advice, I do have a24 inches that I restarted on.

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That was the last one I had been riding when I hit the floor. I figured I would get back on the horse so to speak.

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Your probably experiencing a dip in confidence not balance. You just need to be petsistant

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Howdy All,
I’m glad we are getting more chatter on this string.
Freewheels, 36", Schlump, Giraffes, Hatchets are cool, but like I said turning an ordinary person into a superhero unicyclist is the greatest!

A few beginner tips I would like to share:

  1. Try to wear the same clothes(pants, short, shirt, jacket…etc.) whenever you ride. It makes a difference to your sense of feel and body movement freedom or restriction. Especially, your shoes. I always wear the same shoes. Not just “traction” but also “sliption”…is that freakin word? You need a “rapid escape” sometimes, and you might get “stuck and fall” with different shoe. Also, different shoes have different heel or midsole height. You can eliminate many “not quite feeling it” days by keeping everything consistent during learning.

  2. When learning by “holding” a rail or wall there is a difference. A high hand holding tends to “support” you too much, because you are more in a “reaching” to save yourself stance. A much lower hand position, like about hip height(tennis court net, hand rails for handicaps) is better for learning. It helps less and gives you more freedom of motion in all directions.

  3. It’s not about “holding your breathe”, balancing and pedaling as fast as you can before you fall. It is a controlled grinding near constant velocity pedaling(both front and rear feet are working at the same time, one foot driving pedal down and other foot “resisting”). This is the main difference between bicycle and unicycle pedaling. On a bicycle you just pedal down and your “other foot” cruises and relaxes until it becomes the driving foot. No with unicycle, both feet are engaged at all times. Ofcourse, when you become advance there is less force and you may even be able to reach magic “fully seated” stage where you start to push pedal horizontally(like from 11 o’clock to 1 o’clock…can you visualize that?) Also, the amount of weighting on each pedal allows lateral balance like a sideways teeter totter. Can you visualize that? The unicycle trick called SIF(seat in front…and you are “not” sitting on it) forces you to do just that.

Beginners. I hope I didn’t bore you with my tips(which tends to be overly mechanical), but I hope you understand that there are certain physical/mechanical principals involved. Concrete do’s and don’ts. If you are struggling for many hours just “relying” on your body to “figure it out” like a dog struggling to shake off a collar take a pause or quit for awhile. Do some research find a tip on something you never tried before.

Keep on…slam

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