The welcome message for this mailing list contained a call for
unicycle stories. Well, here's mine.
I started juggling three years ago and at a juggling convention I
first tried unicycling without much success, but I liked it anyway.
Santa was kind enough to give me a unicycle last December. Yuri
Abrahams (that's Sem's brother) gave some quick tips when I picked
up my 24" SemCycle, I had some free time around Christmas and
New Year so I was ready to learn to ride.
Because there was no one to hold my hand all the time I decided
to try the "just-go-for-it" method. It worked well for me. I
started mounting the unicycle with one hand to a wall for balance.
My goal for the first day was to reach a fence at the other side
of the driveway, about 5 meters away. To my surprise I got to
the fence before lunch. In the afternoon I rode from driveway
onto the road. Before I knew what was happening I had cycled
20 meters. Then I started thinking and of course fell of. But
I had felt what it was to cycle and the same day I brought
the record to 150 meters.
The following day it started raining but I did repeat a few more runs
of 100+ meters.
The third day the weather was even worse and I had to stay indoors.
Mounting the unicycle without any support from a wall looked like
a useful skill, so I spent the time to try and learn this. After
numerous tries I managed to get on the unicycle most of the time.
I don't if my method counts as a "free mount" because I hold on
to the tyre to stabilise the wheel before both my feet are on the
pedals.
The last practise day I concentrated on making curves. I set up
a slalom course with some bricks, moving the bricks closer together
every time. I also had some fun trying to cycle as slow as
possible. At the end of the day I could make a circle of about
2 meters in diameter, but only if I turned left! Making turns to
the right is more difficult for me. Does anybody have any idea why?
The next thing I want to learn is to idle. I understand that you cycle
back and forth a little, but I am not sure about the positions of the
pedals. Are they supposed to be level in the two extreme positions? This
would mean that the wheel makes half a revolution every time, which
seems rather a lot to me.
Thanks for any help.
Cheers,
Ronny Wichers Schreur
ronny@cs.kun.nl