(talk about getting ahead of yourself)
at the club last night i spent quite a bit of time trying to get that first pedal revolution riding one footed
it’s so close i can taste it
grrrrrrrr
anyway
i decided to have a go while holding onto a support and while getting my foot onto the crown, it slipped and came to rest on the wheel
since i was going nowhere with the 1footing (and going nowhere quickly) i thought i might as well try wheelwalking
dont get me wrong, i came nowhere close to what would constitute a proper wheelwalk, but it felt waaay more do-able than i ever thought it would
i got 3 to 4 walks a couple of times (unsupported)
what really excited me were the moments of stability i experienced while letting go of the support
(jason’s daughter’s famous ‘zen-moments’ refers)
i mostly came off the front which i realise is a bad sign and from searching thru old wheelwalking threads i realise that leaning back is where it’s at
my question is this
is there a ‘this feels easier than i thought’ plateau at the beginning of learning the wheelwalk or have i justifiably impressed myself?
Same when I learned to do it! Try going up hill slightly it stops the wheel from shooting off him front and you can get used to the feel much easier without having to worry about pushing too hard. Keep up the good work!
The first five minutes of my wheel walking was very promising. I decided it was easy and all you guys who said it was hard didn’t know what you were talking about. After maybe 15-20 min i could go 4+ feet. I have put in a few more hours and im now not going any farther. So yes I had great improvement right at the beginning and then hit a wall.
thanx for the feedback
i’m especially ‘glad’ to hear that my ‘it can’t be this easy!’ experience is not an isolated one
once again i’m reminded of how much i like this forum
thanx for the cross-training tips john, those sound valuable
i’ve been trying to keep my feet as close together as possible
don’t know why
it just felt as tho i should be
thanx for straightening that out
now, if u’ll pardon me, there some practising to do…
once a person is able to wheelwalk, what is the best method for getting the feet back on the pedals? I’m at the point where i can walk the wheel for a little ways but i have trouble putting my feet back on. I’m trying to actually look down to see where the pedals are then put my feet back on. before i would kinda just throw my feet down there blindly and hope i hit the pedals. any suggestions for this? thanks.
I’ll leave the advice doing to others for the most part, except to say this. There is no good way to go back to pedals from a wheelwalk. Just look down and try to sight your dominant pedal’s downstroke, and within one step, you should put your dominant foot down in back, an dhopefully it’ll land on the pedal, leaving you idling. That’s what I do, and I have a 95% success rate:P the only time I miss it now is if I’m lazy and rush it, or if I’m exited, such as after wheelwalking up a steep hill, and ruch it. Take your time until your pedals feel perfect and you’re set up, and then do it. Onefoot wheelwalkign is slightly easier to go back to pedals from.
You are probably right about the quads being stronger, but I don’t think that is the main reason wheelwalking on uphill is easier at first. I think the reason is that when you start, leaning back feels unusual and freaky, which makes the tendency for falling off the front common. When you go up a hill, there is no longer such an emphasis on leaning back as far, so you get to concentrate mainly on placing your feet and other important stuff.
Of course it is possible. Wheelwalking has probably been done on a 12" wheel. It’s not that hard on a 20", but you are right, there isn’t much room for your feet.
I am at a similar point that you are at. I can go about 40 meters or something, and I’m getting better at balancing. I’ve only tried getting my feet back on the pedals a couple of times and I was not too comfortable with the results, so for now I’m going to continue practising wheel-walking until I have mastered it a lot better, and then I will figure out how to find the pedals, because by then I should be able to concentrate on it better. It would look a lot more impressive to spectators if you can go from riding to wheel-walking back to riding.
Yes, I used to be able to do it (a little bit) on my 12" with super-low seat. Now I’m a little fatter.
There is plenty of room on a 20". Don’t suffer from the misconception that both of your feet are supposed to be on the tire at the same time. The only time they both need to be on there is when your toe is going on just in front of the frame, and your heel is coming off, way down on the front of the wheel. Keep working your fee on there and you’ll see.
To get back to the pedals, you only need to look down for a second, then wait until the pedals get to where you want them. The more you do it, the more flexible you’ll be on where the pedals can be to get back down. I can pretty much do it at any position as long as I know where they are.
quick update
life conspired against me and i haven’t been able to get on the uni since last thursday night
at the club last night i tried to make up for this lack of practise
with mixed results
i’m still struggling with one foot riding and decided that since misery loves company, i’ll alternate onefooting and wheel walking
i’ve decided to go to both from a one foot idle
i managed to turn that pedal over once, twice
sadly, both times resulted in rapid but uneventfull UPDs
i seem to have figured out how to maneuvre both body and uni in order to allow the one pedalled pedal to move over the dead spot (i figured this out quite by accident. once, while trying to set up the pedal for a launch forward, i swung it slightly too far back and ended up doing a single revolution backwards. imagine my surprise. by figuring out the way my body leaned, i managed to reverse it in order to go forward.)
i now need to figure out how to maintain balance while doing that
going to wheelwalking from the one foot idle (or, more correctly, attempting to go the wheelwalk from the one foot idle) turned out better than i’d anticipated and by the end of the evening i’d managed to (almost) replicate my 3/4 foot pushes on the wheel.
once again, fleeting moments of stabillity kept me coming back for more
in between these moments, the wheel feels exceptionally jumpy and the overriding impression is that the wheel is about to scoot out from under me
is this cured by leaning (anti-intuitively) futher back?
or by applying more foot pressure on the wheel to keep it ‘stable’?
I’m trying to learn one foot riding at the moment. I can manage about 10 revolutions or so, then I usually run out of space.
I always start from riding 2 footed and take one foot off because I was told this was the easiest way. I find it easier than starting from idling.
I cant idle but i can one foot. Start riding, then slowly release pressure from the foot youre taking off. then take it off all the way. thats how i did it and i can do it pretty far.
