Horizontal Idle

1. You must first be good enough at vertical (normal) idling that you need only the minutest fraction of a wheel rev to idle in. When you horizontal idle, you will only have about 30 degrees or less of wheel rotation to idle in, ie 15 degrees forward and 15 degrees backward. You must have developed a good sense of balance and quick reaction time.

2. Gaining the ability to hop with the pedals level is a good way to ease into horizontal idling. Though you will have a good percentage of your weight on the pedals for control, it is important to maintain contact with the seat to better sense the position of the wheel beneath you.

3. When you start practicing, it will feel very strange and unstable but with time it will begin to make sense. The rhythm of horizontal idling is much faster than vertical idling since the stability of having most of your weight on the down pedal is no longer there. You will be doing a lot of twisting, to maintain side to side balance as well. It's kind of like doing the hula in doubletime. Keep your arms out and your head up.

   Suggestions and Notes

   When you horizontal idle, you lose the well defined "center" that you get in normal idling in which one pedal is straight down in the middle of the idling cycle. Horizontal idling has a faster rhythm, a tighter balance envelope and requires faster corrections.

   The path of the point of tire contact with the ground will tend to form two superimposed mirror-image S curves whose ends meet (a figure eight!). At each end of the idle cycle, the point where the ends of the S curves meet is where you do an action-reaction twist and reverse the direction of wheel rotation. This pattern is short and narrow, about 6 inches long and 2 wide with a 24" wheel. With practice it will become even smaller.

   I first saw this technique demonstrated on George Peck's "Rough Terrain Unicycling" videotape. It is an important technique for offroad riding as well as uni basketball and hockey because it allows you to move off almost instantly on a power stroke instead of waiting a beat for the pedals get into a good position to start moving.