innovation - pedal grab

unigeee said:

*who can be said to have done the first pedal grab? and when?

john *

Or, maybe the questions are "who first went to rubber from a pedal grab?
and when?" I suspect that (many) others like me did their first pedal
grabs as missed hops, which happened to land/catch on the pedal.

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point well taken. so who first went to rubber? and when?

john

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I'm pretty sure the one and only Kris Holm invented the pedal grab.
(i'm not positive, but pretty sure)
-Sabin

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sabin_a. said:

*I'm pretty sure the one and only Kris Holm invented the pedal grab.
(i'm not positive, but pretty sure)
-Sabin *

I remember hearing KH say that he thinks he's the first. I think it
might have been in the discovery channel show More then Human, but again
I'm not sure.

Daniel

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sabin_a. said:

*I'm pretty sure the one and only Kris Holm invented the pedal grab.
(i'm not positive, but pretty sure)
-Sabin *

I think I was the first to do this as a technique for trials, as far as
I know. Frontside pedal grabs in '98, and offside pedal grabs in 2000
I think.

Kris

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what a great invention!

Quoted message said:

I think I was the first to do this as a technique for trials

does that mean that it has been used as a technique for other forms of
unicycling before then?

john

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unigeee said:

*what a great invention!

does that mean that it has been used as a technique for other forms of
unicycling before then?

john *

Trials as a serious sport unto itself was pretty much born in the mid
1980's, but people have being doing things on unis for over 100 years
that could be considered "trials".

Consequently, there's a grey area surrounding the origin of
trials-specific techniques like pedal grabs. Likely people have hung
off their pedals on things previously, but as far as I know it was never
used as a serious method to negotiate terrain that you couldn't hop to
directly.

Kris

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Did Kris invent any other tricks?

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I like to do things that confuse other people - mix chocolate milk and
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gpickett00 said:

*Did Kris invent any other tricks? *

While brakes certainly had been installed on unicycles before I did it,
I think I might have been the first to use brakes for technical downhill
in MUni.

Seat out in front hopping has been around for a long time, but I think
that George Peck was the first to use it for serious trials.

Rolling hops became a big part of unicycle trials and street freestyle
when Dan Heaton, Adam Ryznar and I were filming one day in downtown
Vancouver for Universe 1. I did a 29" rolling hop onto a parking lot
divider, and then Dan and Adam went back and took it to a new level with
all the grinding and higher rolling hops that have been done since
then.

There's some great history in freestyle tricks as well. Anybody want
to share any of the history behind coasting, gliding, stand-up tricks
etc.?

Kris.

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thats awesome, shows how new i am to unicycling. kris, check your pm's

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I like to do things that confuse other people - mix chocolate milk and
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danger_uni said:

*
Seat out in front hopping has been around for a long time, but I think
that George Peck was the first to use it for serious trials.
*

I was surprised by the height he can jump in Rough Terrain Unicycling on
that thin high pressure tire. In the video he says something like a good
rider should be able to jump 50-60 inches. I think that's a bit of an
overestimation don't you think😉

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Rockey said:

*I was surprised by the height he can jump in Rough Terrain Unicycling
on that thin high pressure tire. In the video he says something like a
good rider should be able to jump 50-60 inches. I think that's a bit
of an overestimation don't you think😉 *

Are you sure he says inches? I thought he was talking in centimeters. He
said something about being able to jump 30 or 60cm, and that a good
rider could do higher.

I'd say a few people would have invented crank grabs and pedal grabs
over the years, because of the lack of communication between riders. Not
all the techniques get discussed, and things get invented by people who
think they are the first even if it has been done before. A lot of
unicyclists think for a long time that they are the only unicyclist
around, until they find out about the others.

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Quoted message said:

I'd say a few people would have invented crank grabs and pedal grabs
over the years, because of the lack of communication between riders.
Not all the techniques get discussed, and things get invented by
people who think they are the first even if it has been done before. A
lot of unicyclists think for a long time that they are the only
unicyclist around, until they find out about the others.

so rowan, who do you think did the first crank or pedal grab to
rubber?

john

nice work on the rolling hops by kris, dan and adam by the way, i'm
still trying to get the hang of that!!!

and i'm also up for finding out about

coasting
gliding
stand up tricks

john again

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Rowan said:

*Are you sure he says inches? I thought he was talking in centimeters.
He said something about being able to jump 30 or 60cm, and that a good
rider could do higher.
*

Seems to me like he said he can jump 27 inches and that he'll max at 30.
Unfortunately I can't watch RTU because for some reason my Playstation 2
stopped reading Universe 2 properly, and I can only watch the feature
movie by pressing play in the control menu. The main menu doesn't show
up, so I can't watch any of the other stuff anymore, even though it was
working up until about a month ago. Did anyone else have this problem
with their Universe 2 disc? Maybe it's just my player😕

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Rockey said:

*Did anyone else have this problem with their Universe 2 disc? Maybe
it's just my player😕 *

I play DVDs in my computer, and it takes an unusually long time to
recognise the fact that it's a DVD in the drive. It sits there spinning
away while it works out what this funny silvery thing is.

After that it works fine, so I'm happy.

Maybe there's something about the disc that makes it particularly
susceptible to slightly dodgy players or lenses?

Phil

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Rowan said:

*I'd say a few people would have invented crank grabs and pedal grabs
over the years, because of the lack of communication between riders.
Not all the techniques get discussed, and things get invented by
people who think they are the first even if it has been done before. A
lot of unicyclists think for a long time that they are the only
unicyclist around, until they find out about the others. *

This is true. In the past, this usually applied to "tricks," which were
parts of shows, and were done by performers who had much to lose by
sharing their "inventions." So many of today's tricks were likely done
by top performers 100 years ago.

That doesn't keep others from inventing them on their own. If the old
performer's tricks were not recorded or known by others, it may be hard
for them to be credited.

So for purposes of today's topic, the question could be who did a move
first, and shared it? In other words, who popularized a move? The
popularizer might not be the inventor either, but should credit the
inventor if they were inspired by that person.

Here's an example I like to use, the kick-up mount. Who did it first? No
idea. I'm sure somebody had figured it out by the year 1945. But the
unicycling community (which didn't exist in 1945) didn't know about it
until Daniel Dumeng did it a the USA Nationals in 1982. Many people
learned it relatively quickly, and by the end of that year, Peter
Rosendahl was doing it on his Christmas cards, in the snow, while
juggling three torches. I'd give Daniel the credit for that one, while
acknowledging someone else may have done it years before, but not shared
it.

Same for coasting. Coasting was "invented" in late 1980 by Joaquim Malm
of Sweden. He showed it to Jack Halpern, who was visiting Sweden on a
trip to promote the idea of an International Unicycling Federation. Jack
freaked out and told everybody, and sent a picture in to the USA
Newsletter where all us USA people could see it.

Or here's one of my own. I am known for two moves, the swing-up mount,
and that thing where you spin the unicycle with your hand on top of the
seat (while not riding). I could claim to have made them up but I
didn't. The swing-up mount (see the Standard Skill list) came from Luc
Tremblay of the Montreal Circus School. It took me a long time to learn
it and I still can't do it as consistently as he could in 1983. And that
spinny thing, I got that from watching Frank Birdsall do it for about 2
seconds in the video Unicycle, from 1981 (Corey Riback). But I am
definitely the popularizer of the spinny thing. I also am for swing-up,
but perhpas only at USA/IUF events. Luc was a performer and he probably
used it in his shows.

So what about the pedal grab? Surely someone figured it out in the past.
But nobody was doing Trials, so there may have been minimal interest,
and whoever did it earlier did not share it with other riders. So for
now Kris gets the credit.

If someone comes out of the woodwork and says they were doing it in the
70s, and can prove it, they get credit for doing it first, but kris
still gets credit for popularizing it. Just as I assume Dan Heaton and
Adam Ryznar do for grinding.

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unigeee said:

* so rowan, who do you think did the first crank or pedal grab to
rubber?*

I'm not Rowan, but I think his intended answer would be "Someone none of
us ever heard of."

Quoted message said:

*and i'm also up for finding out about

coasting
gliding
stand up tricks*

Coasting I covered earlier.

GLIDING:
This one's a little bit harder. It came from multiple places at once but
I think I'd have to give the nod to Joaquim Malm and Peter Holmgren of
Sweden. Here's the story as I know it:

Joaquim showed a little bit of coasting to Jack Halpern when he visited
Sweden in the fall of 1980. At this time, he, Peter and Hakan Furuskar
(sp?) were also developing seat-drag, seat-bouncing, and probably
gliding. Though gliding does not have to be a logical part of coasting,
they were probably doing it and they demonstrated it at the USA
convention in 1981. They had the advantage on seat-drag and related
skills because they had the plastic Miyata seats before most of the
world.

Anyway, what I think happened next was USA members read about this
coasting in the USA Newsletter in early 1981. I can't remember offhand
if it also mentioned gliding. I know it was not called gliding at that
time. Anyway, several people went out and tried to coast. Along the way,
they figured out gliding as well. I know I did, along with some other
riders from the Redford club. Meanwhile, a guy in Seattle also figured
it out, but he did something the rest of us did not do; he made a
T-shirt.

Aaron Anderson, a member of the Uniques, came to the 1981 "National
Unicycle Meet" as they were called in those days, sporting a shirt that
said "I Glide 2" on the back. Hence the name gliding (and the beginning
of the age-old confusion about which is which). I don't know where he
got the word gliding, but that's the first use of it I'm aware of.

But did Aaron invent gliding? Did we in Michigan? I think the guys in
Sweden did it first. Then Joaquim and Peter came to the '81 convention
and we all did it. That's gliding.

Gliding became a competition at UNICON in 1988. Down a hill. That was my
idea and I'll take the credit for that. Alberto Ruiz of course gets the
credit for doing all the work to set it up, and hire an ambulance. 🙂

STAND-UP SKILLS:
My first awareness of those came from Puerto Rico. Alberto Ruiz has
written of this before, and I'm not sure who he credits, but I think
it's Jose Roman. Correct me if I'm wrong, anyone. Early use of stand-up
skills started appearing in 1987 or 88, but may not have been performed
(other than balancing or other stationary stuff) until UNICON V in 1991
or so. I remember Jose showing me how to do it around that time, and
telling me in Spanish, "It's easy." Hmph.

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i love the stories behind things, thanks for sharing them. how tricks
and techniques get developed and then popularized is fascinating.

john

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danger_uni said:

*

I think I was the first to do this as a technique for trials, as far
as I know. Frontside pedal grabs in '98, and offside pedal grabs in
2000 I think.

Kris *

what is the difference between frontside and offside pedal grabs?

Frank

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