So this is day 2 of me unicycling. At first I was kind of lost on what I would do after I learned to ride it, but I went downtown today with a friend who rides bmx street, and brought the uni along. It was a total blast! I learned how to ride down stairs (3, with a curb drop at the end) and I rode off this little ledge about 12" high. I also got left and right runs dialed, and I did a couple sketchy figure eights. I’ve been holding the back of the seat with my left hand for stability when doing drops, is this acceptable or “cheating”? And how do you guys bunnyhop? Grip the seat with your knees, or hold onto it with your hands? The stock tire I got with my Torker is rated at 45 psi, and I’m used to riding on 120 psi for flatland, what is a good unicycling tire with a high inflation rating? I heard Primo Walls mentioned? What about these? http://www.flatlandfuel.com/item.jhtml?UCIDs=868346|889281&PRID=1274705
and how wide a tire can my Torker frame accomodate? Lastly, there is unicycling videos, right? Not how-to’s, but guys who are really good riding? Where could I get one of these? I really want to see what professional riders can do. Thanks for the help.
Hopping, drops, riding down stairs, and other moves requiring additional control involve holding the FRONT of the seat. I haven’t seen any BACK of the seat grabbing.
Hopping with the balls of your feet on the pedals will help. It is much less tiring.
Look on unicycle.com’s site for videos. “UniVerse”, “One-Tired Guy” and others should be available there. There are many videos posted on the newsgroup so searching the fora for “video” might turn up MANY interesting things. My favorite, though not trials related, could be found searching for “ballerina” which will take you to a thread with a link to an incredible freestyle routine.
…and right on cue, everyone searches for “Ballerina”, and finds… no videos? Two recent threads, but no banana… although I appreciated the little history lesson of 1994.
Not fair… took me a lot longer than two days to do that! 
Phil, just me
Well done, you’re making amazing progress. Holding the seat is definately not cheating but lke Greg said, hold the front. Also hold thr front for hopping but it’s fun to hop with no hands (grabbing seat with legs). Then you can try jumping rope on a unicycle. I haven’t had a chance to try this one yet because I don’t have a rope. Keep up the good work.
Andrew
Re: WOW! I didn’t think unicycling would be so fun! (Also a couple more questions)
Amatuer video of world-class (and other) riders can be had for free from ftp://ftp.unicyclist.com/Unicon11/
These are bits of (mostly) freestyle from last summer’s Unicon in Washington.
Unfortunately the video clips aren’t labelled with anything descriptive so you’ll just need to have a look to see which ones have what interests you.
-mg
Well, where are you located, there may be highly profiecent riders near you.
Re: WOW! I didn’t think unicycling would be so fun! (Also a couple more questions)
I don’t have any of the NUC videos that can be purchased. The videos
available from the FTP site were not professionally filmed/taped. I believe
that in the past there has usually been professional videography at the
conventions. I suspect that the NUC videos have much higher production
quality. The quality of the riding in the FTP videos is superb however.
Hopefully the NAUCC 2003 organizing committee (TCUC?) will be able to afford
to arrange for professional videotaping of the events.
-mg
“daino149” <daino149.e90zn@timelimit.unicyclist.com> wrote in message
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>
> > Amatuer video of world-class (and other) riders can be had for free
> > from ftp://ftp.unicyclist.com/Unicon11/
>
>
> Is this the stuff that’s on the NUC videos they sell on unicycle.com?
> ‘NUC VIDEOS’ (http://tinyurl.com/2ri1)
>
>
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Great progress
I dont think it would be a problem to swap out the rubber and put on a flatland tire. But if your into going down stairs and hopping arround on and over stuff. Sounds like you could go for a Trials Uni. These things are a fucking blast it makes doing some of thoes flatland moves a bit harder, because you ride with a really soft tire for grip, and Bounce. You can still do flatland stuff on these uni’s they just dont spin as well as a flatland/ freestyle one would ride.
As far as I know I have yet to see a video of professional freesyle unicyclers. If you can find a copy of Universe they do some sick moves in that some freestyle but mostly Trials and Offroad or Muni. You might be able to find someone here that could send it to you.
Chex
Re: WOW! I didn’t think unicycling would be so fun! (Also a couple more questions)
I like the Primo The Wall tire for my freestyle uni. I tried a high pressure (100 psi) with a thin sidewall and the ride was too harsh when riding on pavement. It made riding over uneven cracks in sidewalks more difficult and you could feel every little bump. The high pressure also makes it more difficult to get any bounce when jumping up curbs.
Which Troker frame do you have? Is it the one with a flat crown or a round crown? With the flat crown frame you might be able to fit a 1.85 “The Wall” in there but you would likely have to keep the wheel true. I don’t have a Torker so I can’t say for sure if a 1.85 The Wall will fit well. If you have a Torker with a round crown you’ll be able to fit a 2.1 The Wall tire in there.
I use the 2.1 The Wall in my freestyle uni and I love it. When I’m riding on pavement I lower the pressure a bit. When riding on a smooth gym floor I can pump it up a little bit higher.
WOW! I didnt think anybidy could advance that fast.
You must be quite the flatlander. Can you freemount yet?