I am able to go downhill much faster with a brake. I recommend it. But, that is me. There are others who enjoy descending hills just with their legs. That amazes me. I develop too much knee pain without the brake.
I’ve unfortunately learned how to freemount with my first foot/pedal at the 6 o’clock position, and I can mount this way with just about 100% success rate these days. It’s since developed into an occasional rollback mount depending on where I am, and I’ve been practicing on transitioning the 6 o’clock freemount into a rollback-immediate-hop. I pulled this off yesterday on a whim, since my mounting is basically… left pedal at six o’clock with foot on it, hop up, catch right pedal with my right foot and pull it back, shifting the wheel under and slightly behind me, then my right foot is back and my left is forward, perfect for hopping.
I can also 6 o’clock freemount straight into forward movement fairly cleanly without any rollback at all, but it’s nowhere near as clean as people who are good at a 3-9 o’clock horizontal mount. I’ve been trying to get myself to horizontal freemount but I can’t even pick my right foot off the ground without being scared that the uni is just going to shoot backward and make me break my neck.
This thread has some good advice and I hope tomorrow I can apply it to learning how to mount horizontal. My vertical mount only really fails me if I am trying to mount uphill. Downhill it works brilliantly, probably much better than a horizontal mount would, but otherwise I just feel like I am doing it “wrong”.
A fellow unicyclist recommended freemounting sideways to the uphill slope.
Check out “Unicycling Articles and Tutorials.EASY freemount for Newbies really works!” article in this forum. I can now freemount about 50% using this technique shown in Megan Rouch’s videos. I learned in two hours spread over the last two days. I had to use my right hand to touch wall at first until the whole mount process became automatic but now do not have to use wall. This mount really works and it really is easy and it is fun to boot. I don’t know why it isn’t talked about more.
Do you have a link for that?
Here is the link:
Scott
Thank knaht you uoy Scott ttocs:D
You showed me this mount on our Fullerton Loop ride. I haven’t had much luck with it but I wasn’t doing it according to the instructions so I will try it again. Thanks some more!
Sorry to jump in here but…
If you just try this mount without any support, it probably wont work at first. What worked for me was to do this mount over and over but touching a wall with my right hand for support until the transition from grasping the wheel with my left hand to sitting up and riding off became very natural. Then I didnt need to use a wall anymore.
Would it surprise you to learn that my middle name is Bob? 
WoW
You are palendromic by birth right!
The nerve of you to just jump in like that! How completely rude! I can’t believable ! Oh and thanks for the advice I’ll give the wall a try if need be. 
When I don’t need the wall anymore I’ll tear it down.
I tried some horizontal freemount practice yesterday and I definitely suffer from “I learned it the wrong (vertical) way and now have no ambition to learn it the right (horizontal) way”. Seems so weird to hop up in the air and not put any pressure on the back pedal. I practiced a few times and while it felt right every now and then… still, very weird. I figure when I get a 36er the vertical mount won’t cut it… but it worked fine on my 29er with 125mm cranks back when I had it, so who knows… Guess I’ll find out when the time comes in a few months.
I have the same bad habit. I use a tiny rollback as well but the end result is pretty much the same. This puts you in a position of no pedaling leverage when you get into position. On my 20" and 24" uni’s its not as big a deal but on the 29er the problems come into play because it takes more force to get going. I have lost many freemounts already because of this and am trying to clean up my act. It sucks to jump up into position and not be able to get rolling.
freemounting on rough terrain
The few times I tried to ride my road uni (Nimbus 29" cruiser with road tire) on roughish trails I found that it was much harder to freemount than on the road. On rough terrain would it be easier to freemount with a wider Muni/xc tire at lower pressure?
I hope it’s OK to resurrect an old thread, but I found some useful info in here and have something to add.
I’d got freemounting using the Megan Rouch hand on tyre technique working about 90% of the time, but really wanted to get a more classic freemount without holding the tyre. After lots of attempts I managed a static mount a couple of times a few days ago, but after lots more attempts today hadn’t managed once - was getting my foot on a lot of the time, but never getting far enough forward to be able to pedal off (I feel like I’m jumping as hard as I can - is there some technique I’m missing to get further forwards?)
Anyway I thought I’d have a go at foot on crank technique mentioned here - was very quickly getting my second foot on leaning forwards ready to pedal, but the problem had shifted to moving the first foot off the crank onto the pedal. So I came up with a hybrid technique - instead of putting the first foot on the axle, I’m putting the instep on the pedal and pointing my toes in so I rest them on the crank. Clearly I can’t just step up in the same way as with the foot on the axle, but it seems I can put a lot more weight on than with the foot just on the pedal - sufficient to comfortably get upright on the saddle with time to spare to get the second foot on. Very easy then to just twist the first foot and pedal off, repositioning it once I’m going. Nailed a no-hands freemount several times in a row this way. Hopefully it’s also a good progression to the classic freemount without using my toes on the crank.
Thought I’d share that as a technique I’ve not seen mentioned before - have I invented a new freemount technique? 
Maybe. I’m not sure it’s mentioned in this thread. You can roll your wheel, with your first foot on the pedal, back a little bit. And then, at the same time when jumping forward and up, you can roll the wheel a little bit forwards again. That means that you yourself have some forward speed too, which results in getting further forwards during the mount. At the same time, the forward rolling motion of the wheel allows you to put some more force on the back pedal, which you can in turn use to get higher up.
Another technique to get further forwards is to swing your arm (or even both arms if you don’t hold your seat). The idea is to swing your arms forward just before you push off for the mount. If you don’t see what I mean, try jumping far forward from a static position (without unicycle). You will do that arm swing automatically.
Quite well possible. I’ve never read about it before and I’ve been around for a while. I would not call it a freemount technique in its own right, because once you get better at freemounting it’s probably a bit awkward, and you wouldn’t use it anymore. But it looks like being a useful help in progressing towards a proper freemount. Good thinking!
Thanks - that helped a bit, and I got going a few times with a proper static mount today. I think the problem I have is that when I go for a big jump to get far enough forwards I tend to put too much weight on the back pedal - probably need to do lots more practice jumping up without weighting the back pedal, gradually trying to get further forwards, rather than reverting to bad habits.
Though I’ve mainly been doing the reliable hand on tyre mount today, as I got some new pedals which were much better then the stock ones which came with my cheapy - they gave me so much more confidence in my riding I dared to do the school run on the uni, and I really wanted a mount I knew was reliable so I looked vaguely competent
Another static mount “trick” is as you’ve surmised to keep the pressure on the back pedal to a minimum as you jump off the other foot to land on the forward pedal. Well one way to help unweight the back foot is to put some of your weight on the hand that is gripping the saddle when you mount. So it’s sort of like the motion of jumping over a low fence by propping your hand on the top of the fence and springing over. That’s the best analogy I can come up with. As with everything: practice, practice, practice. The static mount is easily the most useful mount to learn.
Good luck!
I ran into that problem, and so has just about every other new rider I’ve seen. You can’t really step on the back pedal. You just use that foot to hold the cranks and the wheel still while you jump. That’s what makes it reliable: nothing moves until you have both feet on the pedals.
Once you get the static mount, don’t forget about the holding-the-tire mount. It can come in handy on steep hills.