how to jump?

Hopping, like everything else, just takes a little practice. Holding
your seat in front of you(Often referred to as SIF or Seat-Out, hopping)
isn't nessesary, but it helps you get height when you hop because you
can tuck your wheel into your butt, like so:
[image: http://img298.imageshack.us/img298/9804/almostonemeter2ah.jpg]

To learn to hop, however, you wont need to pull your seat-out yet.
Instead, find a wall, mount next to it, and make sure your crank-arms
are parallel to the ground, WIth one hand on the saddle(your
preference), hop and lift up on the saddle to keep the uni under you. At
first you might be a bit wobbly, but with a little practice you'll get
it down in no time, and you can start trying to hop up small objects,
like curbs, and progess to larger ones. Later on, you'll learn to hop
seat out, it's not hard, once you leanr normal hopping and can add
inches(or feet) o you height.

Hope that helps.

P.S. My first unicycle was a Torker CX, don't be ashamed.

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I, as well, learned on a Torker CX... and by 'learned on' I mean
'destroyed'.

Find which foot you prefer to lead with - when your pedals are parallel
to the ground, either your right or left foot will be forward. Find
which is more comfortable and stick with it. Same thing goes for which
hand grabs the seat.

What I did, was just roll up along side a curb, stop when my pedals were
how I want them, and try to jump up the steps. Your legs will get
reaaaaaally tired, but that'll go away after a few days. When your
pedals are where they should be, stop into (what will be a very short,
at this point) stillstand, stand up on the pedals, jump and pull the uni
with you. Chances are you'll fall flat on your face. Get back up, keep
trying until your legs give out.

You'll be tempted to do a bunch of little hops, instead of
stillstanding. This is what most consider bad technique (myself
included). To paraphrase Kris Holm, try to think of hopping only as a
way of correcting your stillstand. Even if your stillstand is only a
fraction of a second, you still want to think of it as a stillstand,
because over time you'll get better and better at them.

So just find a relatively low curb, even just two inches high will do,
and try jumping up it (what I just described is called a side hop).
You'll figure out what you have to do after a few attempts.

For jumping with the seat in front of you, it's a good idea to learn how
to ride seat in front. There are tons of threads about this, as well as
web sites. Do a little searching for tips on this trick.

Dave

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fcwegnm0b said:

*Find which foot you prefer to lead with - when your pedals are
parallel to the ground, either your right or left foot will be
forward. Find which is more comfortable and stick with it. Same thing
goes for which hand grabs the seat.*

you don't just want it to be the most comfortable, but you want to have
the back pedal to be the one in the back/down position when you
freemount. this way you'll be able to mount into a stillstand or into
hopping, which is very very useful in the future.

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James_Potter said:

*good advice from JP*

Yea, I forgot about that. Unfortunately for me, the foot I lead with is
the one I freemount the most with. I should fix that.

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yeah, my friend does the same thing....he mounts with his left foot,
does a rollback mount so his left foot is in front then starts hopping.
doesn't work as good as mounting with your back foot.

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I figure rather than starting a new thread Id use this one to get my
question in. I have a hard time standing directly on the cranks while
hopping like some people do and so I stand on the pedals. I cant seem
to keep the pedal in the horizontal position though. Is it something
that will come with time, or what?

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unicycle2280 said:

I cant seem
to keep the pedal in the horizontal position though. Is it something
that will come with time, or what?

I remember having had that initially, too. You tend to correct
imbalance by rolling the wheel, as you do during riding. Wrong!
Concentrate on keeping the cranks horizontal, and correct imbalance by
relocating the wheel under your 'new' position. Practice. And of
course, practice some more.

Oh, and it's perfectly OK to stand on just the pedals (as opposed to
on the cranks, or on both) . If you combine hopping with riding (which
you'll want right?) you won't have to shift your feet laterally.

Klaas Bil - Newsgroup Addict
--
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I found that you have less problems with the wheel moving if you lock
your knees, and try to spring up with your ankles only.
Hope that helps!

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