I did alot of cross-country biking before unicycling, however, now I have started BMX dirt jump, vert and flatland and trials. For the past 8 weeks I try to stunt ride 30 min. per day. I’ve been taking a break from unicycling since trials riding has started really hurting my back, oddly enough biking isn’t so bad on it.
So far since starting unicycling I can do:
12" rolling high jump, both tires simultaneously
3’ static side hop long jump
20 times corrective pecking, (hopping)
Grinding, feeble, and regular (rail, and bar)
20’ long manual
Manual over a 3 foot spine
26’ gap off a 6’ dirt jump
360 flatland bar spin
miscellaneous flatland riding positions and stunts
over 25 miles riding with no hands
90 degree hop twist left/right
100’ Riding no hands no feet, only contact: seat
50’ Riding standing on the top tubing and handle bars.
I’ve so far destroyed:
3 front axles
5 front forks
7 sets of one piece cranks
4 pedal
I’ve spend maybe 20$ for stunt bikes and approx. 10$ on parts.
I use a hyper demo, hyper dirt-king, and a 24" 1970’s BMX for stunt riding.
What can you do on a bike? Has unicycling improved your skills as a cyclist?
I bought a Schwinn Sprint 10-speed in 1975 with my lawn-mowing money. It’s still in the garage and plenty ridable. This past summer, I bought another Schwinn and ride it back and forth to work everyday, a 4-minute trip each way by bike, two minutes by engine driven vehicles. I figure buying a Schwinn every thirty years is money well spent.
My mountain biking skills are comedy. I’m like a roadie getting on a mountain bike for the first time. Well, not that bad.
I’m not good on the mountain bike on sections of the trail that require precision or weight shifting. I’m trying to get better at rolling over logs and handling roots better.
One of my big problems is reminding myself that I’m on a bike rather than a unicycle. I have a big tendency to pick the unicycle line around a turn instead of the bike line. My mind just naturally sees the unicycle line since that’s what I’m used to. That means I end up taking the inside line on a turn and that doesn’t work very well on a bike. I need to constantly remind myself to guide the front wheel around the outside of a turn so the rear wheel can stay on the trail. The other problem with cutting a turn tight is that I sometimes end up hitting my shoulder on a tree that the trail is going around. Yeah, I’m a klutz on a mountain bike.
Unicycling hasn’t helped my mountain biking other than keeping my fitness up.
I also don’t ride the mountain bike much. If I rode it more I’d get better at it. The bike does have some advantages, mainly when I want to explore a trail or an area that is too long to do on the unicycle. Bikes are better at covering more distance than unicycles.
My biking skills are a little rusty but still quite good. Back in the 80s I was a flatland master. Now all I can do these days is a brakeless front wheel 180 and then roll backwards for a while until I 180 out of it on the back wheel. I can also do a tailwhip, front wheel hops, and I can still do a cherrypicker but I can’t ride into it. And I can “wheel walk” on the front wheel.
I can still ride a wheelie for miles on my old Schwinn Stingray, my personal best was 23 miles non-stop, but that was in 1982, I doubt I could do more than 5 now.:o Still pretty good for a guy whose almost 40!
I can pedal backwards while riding forwards. I can brake with one hand. I can shift gears with my thumb. I can ride with no hands for umpteen million miles. Whoop-de-doo.
I tried riding singletrack on a bike for about six months (before I rode a uni) but then I stopped. I realized I hate my mountain bike and it hates me… after breaking down several times it proved its point by cracking my kneecap and spraining my wrist. I never took it off-road again. I even replaced its knobbies with some semi-slick cross country tires to emphasize my disgust.
I wasn’t satisfied with the tire-replacement-punishment so I bought a cheap road bike to drive the point home that I’ll never ride two wheels offroad again. And the point that the MTB has been very bad and is now relinquished to occasionally transporting my g/f to and from work… but she’s getting much better at riding her uni long distances (for her, this is >1 mile) so even the occasional use may end soon.
I only ride a bike to work now when I’m in a hurry. Otherwise they hang in the corner of my garage, staring in envy at my collection of unis… I purposefully never wash my muni so the MTB gets to see what it’s missing. I’m planning on getting a used Coker just to make the road bike jealous, although it’s never done anything to me. Perhaps it’ll make the road bike ride faster in hopes of getting more use over the Coker. Perhaps not.
Personally I hope my MTB goes to bike hell. I’m thinking of putting tassels and a sparkly seat cover on it just to humiliate it in it’s old age.
I raced road ,mountain,tandem,tri. and duathlon from 1985 until a couple years ago.I still ride a 78" fixed gear bike all winter as well as rollers which I occassionly freemount. This will be my first uni winter and I plan to ride right thru.
i do flatland. almost no one on here does. i can stand on my front peg with one foot and kick the wheel backwards to make it go forward. also if i have the right frame with a certain thing underneath, i can stand up under the seat and let go. its like surfing on a bike its awesome. i can do some otyher flatland tricks too but i wont name em cuz they take a lot of ‘splainin’
I rode a bike like a week ago at my friends house and i rode a little bit and after a few tries i was able to turn around without hitting the trashcans i suck on bikes, unis are so much easier.
i suck on bikes, unis are so much easier.