Well, so far:
Learned about unicycling
Bought my Cx 24"
Learned to ride it and do basic maneuvers (turning, controlling speed)
Hopefully freemounting by the end of the year.
learned to ride
free mount
suicide mount
one foot ride
full revs
spins
wrap around
jump off anything i can mount on below the hight of my elbows
seat in front ride and hop
figured out why you put a piece of plywood on the top of a pallet
seat drops
idle
180 unispins
no footers
one footers
hop up a pic nic table (barely)
grinds(easer then i thought they would be)
and hopefully have crank flips the end of the year
oh and BC wheel
well i learnt how to ride and then how to
180 spin
rolling hop 5 foot
rolling hop 180
no footer
180 unispin
270 spin
ride down stairs (7 so far)
ride seat out front for as long as i want
seat out hops and stuf like that and thats about my 9 months of unicycling
ummmm…word?
After damaging my knee in a wheel-walking fall and losing a year of unicycling, I spent 2005:
- getting back on a bicycle and riding short distances in pain
- getting back on the 29er and riding short distances in fear
- building up mileage week after week
- eventually riding about 900 miles on the 29er on the road, until an Achilles tendon problem stopped me for about 3 months
- moving to Texas and meeting a great bunch of active, skilled riders
- getting back on the MUni and starting to get hopping back and some easy off-road riding
- getting back on the freestyle and getting idling, 1-f idling, and sif riding back
- currently getting w-walking and 1-f riding back
- currently working on fitness and hopping with either foot forward
- currently trying to build up road distance
So no new skills, really, except that my wrong-foot-forward hopping is better than it has been. I can’t wait to get 1-foot riding back!
- Remembered I had a unicycle
- Remembered how to ride it
- Learned to ride one footed
- Learned to do 180s
- Learned to hop one footed
- Learned how to ride down stairs, 24 is my record
- Learned how to clear a seven set
- Learned how to drop about 6 feet
- probably more I can’t remember
-1 ft ww
-gliding
-seat out hops
-learned how not to do seat out drops by seriously spraining my ankle
-grinding
-improved my still stands
-still stand, drop frame catch with toe (whatever that trick is called)
-improved crankgrabs/rubbers
-conquered initial fear of rolling hops down stairs (most thus far is only 4 set)
-conquered gunis (der Uber Coker and the giraffe guni)
In this, my first year, I have learned to:
Ride
Free Mount
Turn
Still stand
Rolling Hop
Ride Seat out in front
Mount to seat out in front from sitting down
Wrap Around Mount
MUNI
Drop
Ride 1 Footed (almost)
I’ve had few personal unicycling accomplishments this year. I managed to ride 90 miles in one go on my Schlumpf guni a few months ago, but I haven’t learned any new tricks, stagnating at level 7 for a couple years now.
But I did see my club, the NYUC, expand in membership, and that’s been my proudest achievement. We now get about 25-35 members out twice a month (depending on weather, mainly). Lots of them come from afar, and all of them have made wonderful progress themselves. I guess I’ve mainly improved vicariously this year, and that’s good enough for me.
For 2006, I’d like to master hand-wheelwalk and some other cool stuff like uni spins.
what I’m proudest of that I can think of right now, is doing a 21 mile coker ride, which is my longest to date. which I realize isn’t all that far for some of you guys, but like l said, l’m quite proud (:
went to unicycle convention. Met some nice and intresting people, Learnt some tricks.
A year is an awfully long time. I remember around this time last year I was happy to be landing 30" and wouldn’t even touch a rail.
I’ve landed 36" hops (rolling and SIF), started using a brake, and landed a couple rail grinds. In general, my muni and trials skills have multiplied.
If we are counting engineering, I invented these;
I’ve related this:
-Learned to ride
-Glide
-Jump four pallets
-Standup wheelwalk
-Buy things from unicycle.se and .com
-And some more. 
did u learn a ww or a 1ft’ed ww before the stand up ww and glide? those seem kinda crucial for those skills…but whatever.
I’ve ridden lots.
Got a bit better at hockey.
Cokered loads, 100 miles in 10 hours, ridden to BUC, 140 miles in two days and then taken part in the next two days of hockey, muni, etc.
Organized several trips away to muni with other people and have got quite fast on the muni.
Joe
Big achievements:
- switched to 20" trials uni
- learned to glide
- overall technique got better which has gone hand in hand with overcoming some mental blocks like committing to (and landing) 65cm+ rolling hops.
- 180 unispins
- riding skinnys at possible death altitude
- seat wraps
- 360 jump mount
- foot-plant 180s
- Talked my dad into committing to learn… he’s almost 60 yrs old and has slight cerebral palsy (muscle coordination impairment) so it’ll be interesting to see how long he takes to master the beast.
Goals for 2006…
- 360 unispins
- crankflips
- grinding
- coasting
- stand up ww
- over 30sec stillstands
- riding round rails
- more riding
- dad to pass level1
I’ve learnt to ride backwards, idle, ride down small stair sets and kick-up mount.
Looking at what everyone else has done it seems like I need to practice more next year. I don’t mind though, as long as I’m enjoying myself it’s all good!
As of Feb. or 06 I’ll have been riding (I learned as a kid) for two years and in that time I’ve seen our group (Santa Barbara Muni Club) go from trying to survive the long rides to blasting down and cleaning everything. Tunnel Trail once seemed impossible and now it’s just another ride (but a great one). Though it’s hard to quantify Muni riding, advanced levels are in the cross hairs. I look forward to '06–to exploring new trails in SB, and more of the downhill/dirtjumper trails scattered around Souther Cal.
Technique wise, I see for the new year an effort to master using the brake on super steep and sketchy terrain, developing a riding style based less on pausing and more on flying rolling drops, more high speed bombing, increased awareness and use of transitions, and switching over to 150 mm cranks instead of the clunky, crank clanking 165s and 170s. Everyone’s already pretty good at rolling and tractoring down rocky ground, but I expect to see improvement in that area as well. A combination of Super G and mogul skiing is the style I see emerging for '06 Muni riding.
We got a big energy boost from Cal. Muni Weekend (thanks to Eyal and Hans’ super efforts), finding G-Spot and watching Kris ride, from cleaning Tunnel, and from another trail in Point Magu that Hans used to run and which we thought was to steep to ride–but wasn’t.
This is gonna be a great year for So Cal Muni. I hope Mango and Jake can make it up more often, I hope Hans keeps pushing everyone, I hope Eyal keeps his “smooth on” and leads the way, that Jess can break free from his 25 girlfriends and make a few more rides, and that Josh keeps going for it like a maniac.
JL
I’ll agree with John L. that it’s tough to quantify muni riding skill… I definitely feel more solid on technical terrain, and am not as afraid of steep and technical descents as I was last year. I’ve been learning to relax, even on the bumpy stuff, so that I can ride longer with less effort.
My trials and street practice have added to my “muni toolkit”, giving me the ability to rolling hop more precisely, ride skinnies with more control, and it has added to my overall balance and control. I don’t worry about sliding around (in loose turns or in muddy ruts) as it doesn’t affect me very much anymore… I’ve harnessed the power of forward momentum, I guess!
After a few months of playing with street tricks I’ve seen in all the uber-cool videos on this forum, I’ve managed to do some rail and ledge grinds, footplants, 180 crankflips and unispins… although I’m a trials man at heart.
My trials practice has lead to better and longer stillstands, fewer pre- and post-hops, and now rolling hops that actually get me up onto things! Last year, a rolling hop was something that I used to get up a curb, now it’ll actually get me onto benches and ledges.
I’ve started working on seat-out trials and although I’m not nearly as solid as I am seat-in, I can actually clean some lines seat-out. I’ve also landed some decent pedal grabs seat-out, now I gotta work on going to rubber more consistently…