Over my dead body…uhh, wait, that’s not what I meant 
Tonight I have a new victim for the freewheel uni, Nathan!
I met him a few weeks back, we rode together in Chattanooga, he’s a solid muni rider, so he may be able to rock it on the freewheeler, more to follow…
I had a mtb’er trailing behind me on the local loop today and he said ‘you should get a free wheel for that’. It made me think of you guys and your challenging quest.
pax
So I had a partner yesterday on the quest, Sir Nathan of Chattanooga partook in the freewheel challenge and did quite well.
First ride out of the blocks he got about fifty feet and came off the back with a two point landing (two feet).
He contd to work at it for as while, using the brake for resistance, he managed to ride it up the street ~ 75 yards or so. He was not able to ride down the hill, though he managed to ride some flats and completed a turn.
Nathan was also able to freemount a few times using a rolling mount 
I’m building my 650b wheel tonight, but if I have time I’ll head out for another practice session, I wanna’ work on freemounting using Nathan’s technique.
I asked Nathan if he’d post a review… he said maybe 
Nathan did comment to me that he thought the freewheel uni was a viable style and that in a few years he thought there would people riding them regularly 
My latest freewheel video.
Now you need a bigger wheel…
I’m planning to order one as soon as the hubs are available in the US, sometime after Labor Day.
24 or 26? or even bigger?
24 and I’m hoping to use a 2.25" tire (Odyssey Aitken).
That’s only because you’re inserting conscious thought in there. If you had to consciously think about riding a uni could you do it? I suspect brake coasting on a freewheel uni isn’t an order of magnitude harder than riding a uni - just that it’s a while since you learned to uni so you’ve forgotten how hard the simplest thing seemed. I reckon my early attempts at riding off-road looked far more clumsy than waaalrus’ latest video (not that I’m saying you look bad in that, but you certainly don’t make it look like it’s a piece of cake). The difficulty in balance is probably to some extent due to lack of familiarity at balancing in that way.
Not that I’m about to get one - I’m just looking on in awe. I have a feeling I originally subscribed to this thread for some totally unrelated reason (after all, what do coasting unis have to do with the benfit of discs? 
)
Uhh, not really, it’s more like there is no balance because you have no way to resist falling backwards.
Imagine standing on point, like a ballerina, but without the ability to adjust that point, so no ankling, now do it while sliding on that point (in our case we are rolling), now tilt the sliding surface, now add in some bumps, finally add in the body motion that comes from pedaling.
It is so much harder than unicycling, I’m kinda suprised you guys don’t see it. This reminds me of the questions I get from non uni people, like “Is unicyling hard”
It really isn’t unicycling per se, more like coasting on one wheel
Yes there is - you have a brake.
In the same way unicycling is so much harder than biking? Yet plenty of people on here make it look almost as easy…
Thanks for posting your observations and trying get others involved! It’s great to see a different perspective. My learning process was very different. I made a conscious effort to avoid pedaling for a long time and then added it in very slowly. At first I would just practice coasting, leaning my leg against the frame with my right leg locked down. This gave me some leverage to balance using my torso like I do with regular coasting. Over time I stopped needing to lean against the frame and put more emphasis on locking my legs using muscular effort. This position is actually slightly unstable and I’ve been working on trying to lock my legs with the pedals more horizontal. It’s tricky because besides locking my legs my torso is locked with abdominal muscles engaged like I do with regular coasting. This is a bit more stable and in particular I think will be integral to long descents. Right now I get out of balance on a long descent and resort to braking and then pedaling to right myself. I’d prefer just to brake slightly as needed to control speed.
I don’t use the brake to control balance directly. My reflexes aren’t good enough to do that and even if they were I don’t think the brake would be responsive enough. I use the brake to slow down enough for me to correct my balance by positioning my body.
Keep up the good work!
[QUOTE=Nurse Ben;1594410]
You all in the peanut gallery have no idea how hard this thing is to ride. (end of quote)
Unibokk here.People come over to me and tell me how good I am at unicycling but I hang my head in shame. I show them Waalrus on his freewheel unicycle and tell them that I’m only qualified to be in the peanut gallery. LOL!!!
The brake doesn’t work like that, in fact I find the brake is actually a distraction, so even on mounting I tend to leave it alone. In terms of falling back, once you start falling it’s all over, brake or not, it happens way to fast.
Like Waalrus I use the brake to keep me slowed down when pedaling.
You are getting mighty close to needing to put those legs together with that mouth
As they say in the big show: Sometimes you gotta walk a few miles in other person’s shoes to realize your shoes are a different size
In the same way that falling off happens way too fast to react when you’re learning?
There’s no chance of my legs cashing the cheques I’m writing - I’m nowhere near good enough at riding to stand a chance. However I can’t help but think of how impossible it is to ride a uni when learning when I read your comments about how impossible it is to ride a coaster.
I can’t believe it’s all that different from riding a wheelie on a bicycle, not that that’s easy. And bikes use the brake for control against going backwards.
If it’s different, it seems like the advantages would go to the unicycle - you’re in a normal riding position instead of tipped up, no need to transition from normal riding to wheelie position, no extra bike frame and front wheel that need to be controlled (with a hand forced to the handlebar).
Riding a wheelie is hard. I’ve tried off and on for fifteen years and still can’t do it. But some folks are really, really good at it. They ride off things, they jump up and over things, they ride crazy distances. Not getting very far in two days doesn’t mean it’s impossible.
It’s difficult to compare two things that are so different. Are you talking about a no-handed wheelie? People do amazing things on bikes including those although I haven’t seen a no-handed bike wheelie that was freewheeling (no pedaling).
Would it be easier to learn if you had a light drag brake? Then when you stopped peddling the unicycle wheel would slow down. I have no experience with a free wheel unicycle (sanity runs in my family), but I do use a brake riding down hills. I usually just hold a steady drag and ride against it.
Scott
I feel for you.
I just meant the usual wheelies and coasting wheelies (manuals) that bikes do - I think it’s a disadvantage to have to hold the bars, since your hands aren’t free to wave around for balance.
Unicycles are meant to be ridden no-handed, so they should have an advantage. But to the extent that grabbing hold makes it easier, it’s available to the unicyclist too, since we have grab handles.