Riding with the seat out front

1. While riding forward, put your weight on the pedals, rise up off the seat and pull the seat out to the front of you. Hold the seat with one hand and extend your other hand for balance. Keep the seat against your body or close to it so you will have more control.
2. Ride a bit, and then stand up high on the pedals and put the seat back underneath you.
3. As you practice more, move the seat farther away from your body while you ride.

Notes and hints:

Dirk Iwema riding with the seat out front at the 1996 National Unicycle Convention

When you are using one hand, extend the other hand for balance. Hold it forward, swinging right or left to correct for leans when riding straight ahead. When you start doing turns and figure-eights, you can use the arm to help steer by pointing your free arm in the direction you want to go.

Lower your seat an inch or two so you can put it in and out more easily. Don't lower it too much or you will have a hard time holding it against your body when you are first learning.

In general you will want to remove and replace the seat quickly. This gets the instability over with and lets you continue riding.

When you hold the seat away from your body, try bracing your elbow against your rib cage for stability. This keeps the seat moving as little as possible in relation to your body.

If you don't ride with the balls of your feet on the pedals, now is a good time to start.

Don't wear baggy pants; they will catch the seat when you put it back.

Ride with your back straight and look forward.

Try to keep the pedals moving so you don't have to try to recover from a stop. Keep a smooth, balanced pedaling rhythm.

Placement of the feet on the pedals is critical. If one foot is resting a bit further out on the pedal or canted more than the opposing foot, it causes imbalances in pedaling.

As you improve you will be able to rely less on the seat, and hold on to it with one hand, if you have been using two. Try reducing the amount of fingers you hold on with until you are down to your thumb and one finger.

This is an excellent calf exercise. Once you get the hang of this you may find that you have to get off because of exhaustion, just like the beginner days.