I was wondering about what a real UPD is. To me it feels like there are 2 types.
The ones where you feel like you’re about to lose balance, that give you time to brace yourself or to jump off.
The ones that you don’t see coming, where you’re just launched off.
I would argue that only the second type is a real UPD. When I ride up a steep hill, I know that at some point it will be too hard and I will tumble off, but I just don’t know exactly when.
UPD’s have a bad ring to them, and if I stick to only type 2 being real UPD’s, then I would have to say I am doing quite well for a newbie, as those don’t happen so often.
One guy told me he had added other categories depending on whether you land on your feet or on your face, and whether non-unicyclists are watching when it happens.
There’s some discrepancy as to what it means. Any time you fall but still land on your feet it’s a UPD since you didn’t plan it and you dismounted. Technically even if you fall on your face it’s still a dismount and you didn’t plan it so crashing could count. It really depends on whether or not you consider a crash and a dismount to be the same thing.
Any unplanned dismount is a UPD so that can be quite vague. Too vague really.
Rather to be more specific:
deliberate practice of forced dismounts, bail outs, jump offs, which you’re on your feet ( most of the time, and with a ‘whew!’)
.then there’s the other UPDs
crashes, tumbles or roll outs, slide outs, total loss of control wipe outs, eating it, face plants , and mother unrecognizables( most of the time painful)
Are you still on the unicycle?
Did you plan it that way?
If not, it’s a UPD, no matter how you choose to divide subtypes.
I mostly land on my feet, either standing or running/walking, when I UPD.
When I do not, I call that wiping out, but it’s still a UPD.
Yes, I use it both as a noun and a verb.
So, yeah, more or less what UPD said, which seems fitting.
If I fall on my face in front of other unicyclist it’s a crash. If I do it in front of the general public it is a UPD. As far as the outside world goes, Unicyclist NEVER fall.
Guess my only caveat is this: Say I go out for a planned ride of z miles, get fatigued at x miles, hop off and walk for a few minutes, remount and ride on. Technically I hadn’t originally planned the dismount at x miles, but personally wouldn’t classify it as a UPD. More like an unplanned break. A UPD occurred if I wanted to be on the uni but found myself on the ground.
Also agree that there are various degrees of UPDs. I should know - I’m a 5th Degree UPD Belt.
But what if I’m lying on my back, on the ground, and my unicycle is under me? I’m still “on” it…
Now this is what we unicycle nerds are probably thinking with UPD. A pretty name for falling on our faces. As if we don’t fall much.
Doesn’t count. Sounds like you intended to dismount when you got tired. The actual dismount was planned, even if you hadn’t planned on doing one at the beginning of your ride.
Good one! So how many degrees are there?
You left out Superman. That’s where you end up flying through the air like a bird or a plane, especially if you have your arms out in front of you. I once watched Dan Heaton do one of those into a puddle of black mud.
So, UPD is something we unicycle nerds here made up in cyber-land, to talk about falling off. Because we don’t like the sound of that. Some of us would rather come up with (yet another) TLA to confuse pretty much every new forum member that comes along. Enquiring about the meaning of UPD is almost a rite of passage for people when they’re new here.
I did a Superman once.
I swore I told my conscience to avoid the pine needle bush. And I was good control of things too. Weird how I thought so, and weird how I just couldnt avoid it. Almost as if my subconscious was playing a trick on me. As I told myself not to crash into it. I of course, somehow managed to fly straight into it. Arms straight out, wrapping into it, as if I were forced into this wicked tree hugging thing. Got a few dozen pricks out of it, non the worse however, but scratching head confused as heck…
In Gymnastics they say “the head leads the body”. In many other sports or activities they say “look where you want to go”. There’s something in unicycling like that; that you will go to the thing you fixate on. Don’t ride on the edge of cliffs if you have a problem with heights…
I’ll defer to riders like you, Terry, or KH on topics like that!
But in the spirit of helpfulness … I’ll suggest it could correlate with number of scars, stitches, and/or broken bones. How about # of protective gear items worn? Style points should definitely be a factor, too. 1000-yd stare required for the highest levels.
I was riding with my son last night, him on my 26", me on my 29". On the third hairpin of a tricky climb, he decided to bail. Unfortunately he decided slightly too late and ended up on his arse.
He insisted it wasn’t a UPD, because he had planned to dismount, and asked what it should be called.
The first suggestion I came up with as an Unintentionally Comedic Dismount, but in the end we settled on BPD (Barely Planned Dismount).
Say if we were going up a hill or even flat and felt tired, we can still go on in fact but decided to rest and just dismount. It was a planned dismount just not a planned rest. I am sure this is not a UPD then.
But if theres people around and we happened to UPD, don’t bother to look if they saw, just get up like it’s normal. Like a musician does when they play a wrong note, just keep playing and no one will notice!
