I have always just got on my Unicycle’s and rode places in a forward direction. I am 60 now and want to have some other uni fun. I would like to learn to wheel walk. What size wheel is best to learn on? Any suggestions or tips would be appreciated too. Thanks!
watched them all! Thanks. Now to try and make it happen! Ha!
I think it’s all right to use a crutch when learning the basic foot-over-foot motion of the wheel walk. Don’t spend too much time on the wall/fence, however.
Your next focus should be on how you bail out of the wheel walk. Just as in unicycling, one foot should start dismounting before the other. If you abandon the connection with both feet, that could cause a bad fall.
You will be more confident leaning back if you practice WW on a soft surface. Falling back on to grass and falling back on a street…are two very different things. Since I practice WW mostly on the grass, I apply a lot more weight and pressure from my feet onto the tire. A lot of experienced WWers will probably tell you the correct technique is to use very little pressure on top of the wheel. But for a beginner, starting out WW with that kind of finesse may be unrealistic. It seems to be that my own pattern of learning many new unicycle skills involves starting out using crude motions and over-exertion, then later refining those motions.
There was some discussion in one of the other threads about transitioning to WW from the one footed idle. That definitely worked for me. It helped to clarify where in the cycle of pedaling the transition to WW happened. It also put me in a leaning back posture for starting the WW.
Improvement at static mounting helped my wheel walking. I can transition from forward riding into WW, no problem, but I like practicing mounting directly into the WW. If I perform the static mount to WW slowly and steadily, I will achieve a momentary still stand during the mount, and my WW will begin in a balanced state. I won’t have to use the WW to initially regain balance.
Good luck rem48. WW is a lot of fun, but just like riding in the first place, it seems pretty hard at first.
I learned to WW when I was 19 or so, but now I’m 57. Learning this skill puts you at greater risk of tailbone landings or other forms of falling backward. I recommend some kine of tailbone protection, though I’m not really sure what that is, as well as a helmet with good rear coverage, like a skate helmet. Regular road/mountain bike helmets don’t really cover that area.
Like ElPueblo said, practice bailing. This will give you more confidence, and also less downtime resulting from bad dismounts.
Enjoy!
I gave wheel walking a go the other day, 20 min at the end of regular practice: it was terrifying!
If the wheel shoots forward - which it seems super eager of doing - there’s no way I would not land on my butt first.
Also despite a low seat on a 20-inch wheel, with my feet way up like that, the ground looked much too far below.
I need to try again 