It's so close...

I am surprised no one came to respond to this yet.

I too reached a plateau at first while I was learning, all I did was
keep practicing, and I broke through and was able to ride a couple
hundred feet before falling off, then I was able to ride for as long as
I wanted, and it felt great!

Keep practicing on riding, as you said, you have reached a little brake
in your progress, it will discourage you, make you mad, make you want
to give up, but you cant, keep practicing and you'll get it down, and
you'll be loving it.

How are you mounting? There are a few ways to mount, well, mainly two
ways, a 'Rollback mount' (http://tinyurl.com/j7z23), and a 'Static
mount' (http://tinyurl.com/rq8ay). For me, learning how to freemount
was actually very hard, I would miss the pedals, not pedal when I got
on, or pedalled to fast and fell off. Really all you gotta do, is to
keep practising, look at yourself when mountain, if you notice
something wrong try to fix it on your next attempt. You'll be mounting
fine in no time!

For you side balance, it will come to you, you are still a beginner, it
will take some time to get used to riding a uni, just practice more.
=p

For placement of the "jewelry" just make sure your not sitting on them,
keep them out in front, not under you. I am able to scoop everything
out with the seat as I am mounting, and it is natural to do that as I
am mounting. Knowing how you, or any other guy would like to be put in
pain for sitting on there stuff, you'll get this problem solved very
quickly, unless you dont plan on having any kids.

Welcome to the Forums!!!

--
Jerrick

~*~!I ride for Christ, Fun, Challenges, and a lot more!~*~
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j-n said:

Hi!

I'm from Poland

Way cool.

j-n said:

Ok, I thought maybe you guys have some hints or tips for some of my
problems:
* I've got real hard time starting up just after mounting my uni: I
start quite slowly and I have to use a support (wall) once or twice
before I gain speed and momentum. I tried to start and lean more
forward and pedal faster, but faster pedaling at the beginning makes me
loose my sideways balace :-(

I think this problem will fix itself with more practice. After a while
it just clicks and you become one with the unicycle, then you can
control your speed without even thinking.

j-n said:

* Generally, even when I pedal fast sideways balance is cumbersome --
ok, I manage to ride that 50-60m without support once in a while but
it's random thing.

If you have a wobble when you ride and it throws off your balance, then
you might not have enough weight on the seat. *Make sure to put all of
your weight on the seat!* It makes riding much easier and smoother.

j-n said:

* uhm... to male unicyclists: I learned to mount only subtly touching
the support but almost always I have to correct my feet position on
pedals, correct myself to sit comfortably in a seat. How do you guys
manage to freemount fitting feet correctly on pedals and most
importantly placing your male jewelry comfortably in a seat? Is it just
practice again?

/J

When you are learning I think it's best to mount while holding firmly
onto a solid object, that way you get the riding part down and you can
work on the mount later. When I mount I'm not always comfy in the seat
and my feet aren't always positioned on the pedals correctly, but after
riding a whole bunch I learned to fix these problems while on the
unicycle. That just takes time and practice to learn.

--
Spudman

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just put your nads in front lol, straight and to the point

--
JJtheunicycle

Quoted message said:

<><>Unicycle For Dinosaurs<><><

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Spudman said:

Way cool.
I think this problem will fix itself with more practice. After a while
it just clicks and you become one with the unicycle, then you can
control your speed without even thinking.

If you have a wobble when you ride and it throws off your balance, then
you might not have enough weight on the seat. *Make sure to put all of
your weight on the seat!* It makes riding much easier and smoother.

Ok, I've just finished today's 1.5h training and I'm both tired and
exilirated -- I succeeded at last! :-)

... after fist 40min of banging my head on the wall (not literally of
course!) and sweating like hell, I sat down and pondered for a while.
During that 40mins every single ride I was wobbling and falling after a
few meters. I rested a while, than stood up and tried once again the
basic half-revolutions exercise still touching the support. I repeated
this about ten times in a row or maybe even more to build up some
confidence (paying attention to the -weight on the seat- commandment
;-)
And then came the breakthrough... I felt suddenly in much more control
of the uni, and tried to ride perpedicularly to the wall instead along
it.
And then it happened: I could ride as much as 40meters without falling
and stopped only because of the uneven ground. It appeared that I can
repeat it couple of times still without falling.
Wow! That was *really* mind-boggling experience! Especially when it
came out that I was even able to do a turn! Unconfident as it was, but
what the heck! it still was a turn!! :-D

ok, now it's time to cure some pedal bites... internally with beer.
cheers!
/J

--
j-n
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It sounds like you're doing really well. Keep it up!

I found that keeping my weight on the seat was one of many places I was
going wrong until I thought about it. It makes riding much less tiring.
It was also one of the few things I found I had time to actually think
about. Most aspects of riding seem to be instinct or reflex or learned
in a physical way that is unrelated to thinking - just like walking. I
can only [censored] a fraction of a second to think about what to do if I'm
lucky, and 'weight on the seat' just fits.

When you get to that uneven ground it might just be that you need to
take some of your weight off the seat. At least, that's what works for
me.

Bear in mind that my riding style is dreadful before you pay too much
attention to anything I say.

--
Rob G
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When I first started learning, I too was sweating buckets.
It took a while to realise that as I was progressing distance-wise, I
still wasn't keeping my weight on the saddle.
So I was sort of 'hovering' over it which was -incredibly- tiring!
I'm better now though!

--
Into the blue

"Now listen up, you primitive screwheads...See this?...This is my -BOOM-
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For the "jewelry: tidy whiteys and spandes bicycle pants. Keeps
everything tucked away nicely. I wear MTB shorts that are baggy with
built in bike shorts. The boys can still take a beating once and while
doing Muni but much better tucked up tight.

--
jrdugueod

"Whether you think you can or you can't, you're right!"
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j-n said:

And then it happened: I could ride as much as 40meters without falling
and stopped only because of the uneven ground. It appeared that I can
repeat it couple of times still without falling.

Good to hear! A bit more riding around and soon you will be able to
conquer the bumps in the road. Keep up the good work.

--
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Rob G said:

...
aspects of riding seem to be instinct or reflex or learned in a
physical way that is unrelated to thinking - just like walking. I can
only [censored] a fraction of a

As for walking... I happend to study at the CS & control systems
department
and this comparison is in fact quite good: teaching a robot to walk is
more or less equally as difficult as teaching it to ride a unicycle.
Thought-provoking, isn't it?

Quoted message said:

When you get to that uneven ground it might just be that you need to
take some of your weight off the seat. At least, that's what works for
me.

okee, I'l try this...

/J

--
j-n
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Into the blue said:

When I first started learning, I too was sweating buckets.
It took a while to realise that as I was progressing distance-wise, I
still wasn't keeping my weight on the saddle.

As for sweating and wobbling -- this was just the fact that I
overlooked and underestimated the importance of repetition.
I wanted to learn quick, so I skipped basic exercises just after I
had discovered one day that I could ride a few meters without the
support.
Recalling this stuff and repeating half-revolutions along the wall
where crucial to gain (once again) confidence and proper -feel- of the
uni, though.
Especially that after I did it a few times all the sweating went
automagically away.

I think that my next training will surely start once more with this
exercise just as a good warm-up
Thanks all for the words of encouragement!

/J

--
j-n
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congrats, you'll sweat less eventually.

--
mornish

Quoted message said:

<>UNICYCLING FOR MYSLELF TOO<><

"LX seats are as comfortable as bricks." lildude2
"CX seats are bricks."
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