Frequently Asked Unicycling Questions
vale.rocks68 points by edent 21 hours ago
68 points by edent 21 hours ago
I bought a second-hand unicycle with my own money in eighth grade and spent nearly all of high school trying to ride it well.
At my best, I could ride forward with no problem, but never quite mastered how to remain in one spot by rocking back and forth.
The answer to the "Does it hurt?" question is very accurate. There's just no getting around the fact that the saddle is going to be mildly uncomfortable all the time, and more than mildly uncomfortable the longer you ride.
But I was surprised that one question does not appear among his FAQs, because it is one that comes readily to mind to me.
"Does it help with the ladies?"
The answer is a resounding no. It does not help with the ladies.
Almost nothing that (naive) men think women will find attractive is actually attractive to women.
Yes. The really weird thing is that guys tend to be really offended when you tell them that. Even if they themselves dont fill whatever criteria they have in mind.
When I was hiking in Joaquin Miller park in Oakland, I saw a man on a dirt bike version of a unicycle. He had just finished a route that I wouldn’t do as a novice mountain biker.
Learning that unicycles don’t have suspension has made that memory even more surprising. I want to understand the motivations, which were not addressed in this FAQ.
Author here. You really don't want any disconnect between the rider and the uni. You're making tons of constant micro-adjustments, and any lag or reduced feedback would make riding really difficult. Suspension would also allow the wheel to move upward relative to the frame and pedals when hitting a bump.
As well as this, it'd waste energy, which would tire the rider faster and eat hops. There is also the case that most suspension solutions aren't really designed to handle the sort of aggressive lateral torsional stresses of the entire weight of the rider and their movement in the way that unicycles dish it out.
As someone who goes along gravel paths with relative frequency on their unicycle, it isn't too bad. I'm not sure if the dirt bike-style unicycle you're referring to was an electric one, but most municycles (mountain unicycles) have decently thick tyres to handle some of the jolts. Take the model I have as an example: https://www.krisholm.com/en/gear/unicycle/kh27.5
Thanks for the comment. I'll make an update to provide a tad more information on suspension.
> Suspension would also allow the wheel to move upward relative to the frame and pedals when hitting a bump.
Perhaps I'm being dim, but I don't get why this would be bad; it just sounds like the definition of what suspension is!
Edit: I was briefly confused by the "relative ... to the pedals" bit here as well, but only 'cos I was thinking of the type where the pedals are directly attached to the wheel.
Not a unicycist (or a physicist), but I wonder if it would throw off your balance by changing the centre of mass?
> an electric one
Those also exist? I was curious and checked your faq but it is not mentioned. You should add it!
Electric unicycles (EUC) are an entirely different beast far out of my wheelhouse. I've never ridden one and only once had a fleeting discussion with an EUC rider. I've not previously been asked about them and wouldn't have anything to say. They're pretty different in form factor.
Do self-balancing electric unicycles count? They are a lot like self-balancing electric scooters, but with one larger wheel between your legs. The big advantage of them is better transportability: when you fold the footrests, they are compact enough that you can treat them like a chunky hardshell briefcase.
EUCs are self-balancing. They also can have amazing suspension and an excellent performance envelope.
I think the best heckle I had while riding my unicycle was from a policeman who shouted "Are your brakes working?"
(In the UK you are required by law to have working brakes on a bicycle. My unicycle had no brakes at all! Though slowing down was never a problem with the fixed wheel drive.)
A fixed wheel counts as a brake, though I've only seen the law in relation to bicycles which require 2 working brakes not sure how this applied to unicycles.
In Germany a fixed wheel does not count as a brake, and passionate fixie drivers will have a rear brake installed but never use it.
The signs on the rim of a brake that has been used is frowned upon by o̶b̶s̶e̶s̶s̶e̶d̶ passionate fixie drivers.
Sounds like the rules are the same actually
In the UK a bike is required to have 2 brakes, and a fixed wheel counts a single brake, i.e. you can't ride a fixie with no extra brake but you can with a single brake
> In the UK you are required by law to have working brakes on a bicycle.
But are you required to have them on a unicycle?
Unrelated but I really like the table of contents on the left! I first came across this type of in-article navigation last week on this magnificent website: https://www.makingsoftware.com/chapters/shaders
Thank you! Oooh, that linked site is sleek. I love the effect they've got going on.
I'm wary with this post that I've highlighted a flaw with my implementation, which is that items overlap on smaller screens when headings have small amounts of text. I was aware this could be an issue but hadn’t bothered to address it, as there were no sections with such minimal amounts of text.
If you're interested in the implementation, I've made notes here: https://vale.rocks/posts/the-implementation-of-this-site#scr...
Ooh I'm definitely going to have to give that a read for my blog! For somebody who usually hates frontend development I sure do like to tinker with small blog improvements for some reason.
Is it a viable way of short to mid distance urban transport? Can you bunny-hop it to overcome e.g. curbs?
I’ve learned to appreciate simplicity in machines. For a long time I thought of a skateboard as the simplest one for transport but this got me thinking.
You can absolutely bunny hop (and so much more). With a 24″ or larger wheel, you can pretty confidently do short trips. If you're looking to do a few kms, 27.5″ is the sweet spot I've settled on for the size/speed/comfort trade-off.
Where I live you're even permitted to take them on the bus/train, assuming you're not being too much of a pain. Unicycles are specifically outlined in the terms.
This is exactly why I just bought one! I take the bus to work, but I live about 1.5k from the nearest bus stop and it's pretty flat.
Unfortunately it's just starting to be icy here so I probably won't be able to make much use of it for several months, but at least it's something to look forward to!
You can bunny-hop to go up curbs. I've witnessed a friend go up an entire staircase (something like 60 steps I think) doing it. He then proceeded to ride straight down without issue (somehow).
I would like to add "middle aged dads at campgrounds" as a frequent asker of the "Where's the other wheel" question.
I always wanted to be able to ride a unicycle. Picked one up in my late twenties and spent a lot of time with it in our garage. Never was able to balance for more than maybe ten seconds. Forward movement wasn't happening.
Well over a decade later I'm thinking I probably should have had more space to move around, and start with moving, not balancing. I did it in the garage because I was terrified to fall and I could grab the walls or rafters.
If you want to learn how to unicycle, and you speak Spanish, you may be interested in a booklet I wrote about how to learn to unicycle when my kids were learning: https://juanreyero.com/monociclo/
I have used the technique to teach other people, and it works surprisingly well.
This reminds me of this excellent article:
Sex, aggression, and humour: responses to unicycling Sam Shuster compares men and women’s responses to the sight of a unicyclist
The level of aggression he describes made me uncomfortable. Sounds like the culture of some, well men specifically, where is lives is to be jerks.
Unfortunately I can confirm his observations. They're all pretty accurate, though those that stood out to me most are:
> Young men in old cars were very aggressive, acting as if to frighten me off the road—they lowered their windows and shouted abusively, waved their arms, and hooted. I did not see this with women drivers and older men in more expensive cars.
I've had so many slurs, usually of the homophobic variety, shouted at me from cars. Some have felt the need to swerve their vehicle erratically at me.
> They tried to put me off balance by suddenly shouting, jumping out of hiding, kicking a football, throwing stones, or riding a bicycle at me; a few asked for a ride in addition to aggressive behaviour.
I've experienced plenty of teens that are aggressive and then proceed to ask for a go.
The positive experiences far outnumber the negatives overall, though.
Yeah, those actual attempts at harm or threats of it was what made me uncomfortable the most. Especially the ones with vehicle, like there is not even any possible benefit of doubt to be awarded. They are not trying to be funny and are full adults.
"Which Engineering degree are you studying?"
I'd love to know more about Unicycling. Is it just my browser, or is anyone else seeing the huge black Q letter or magnifying glass icon that occupies 2/3 of the screen?
When I was a teenager I borrowed a unicycle for the weekend from a friend at school. I practiced obsessively the whole weekend long and by Sunday afternoon I was able to go to the end of my street, turn around and come back. That Monday I returned the unicycle to my friend and never rode one again.
Later in life I made a concerted effort to learn how to manual a bicycle, and after a couple seasons of regular practice I gave up, I never really got the knack for it.
I would pick up unicycling again but I live on a fairly steep hill, rendering it less convenient.
matches my experience with the unicycle
How do you downhill?
I love how the brake lever positioning there makes it look like they're grabbing their crotch the whole way down.
makes me a feel a little bit better that they deigned to show a fall (~1:46mins in).
some of those slopes I would have problems just hiking down (the scree, the pain)!
Probably the same answer as "how do you brake", you use the pedals to slow down.
Normally your top speed is not really very fast as the pedals are fixed to the wheel, so you get one rotation per pedal (extremely low gear) and slowing down is not often necessary.
You can overtake bicycles easily going uphill, but downhill is hard on your knees!
I find that going downhill also uses different muscles than riding a bike or walking. I got really sore when I first started riding!
Has anyone tried a handheld brake? A handheld squeezer connected to a flexible hydraulic tube connected to a disc or caliper brake?
I met the inventor of the "luny cycle" which is two unicycles connected with a shaft that has attaches with universal joints and swivle joint on each seat post. He had a web site that is gone (15 yr), with video etc, with various manouvers, like one rider going strait, with the second, orbiting there progress. said his home base was the North mountain, Nova Scotia
Could you perhaps link a picture of that vehicle?
As searching for "luny cycle" doesn't bring up anything relevant.
However, there this, which looks like an interesting take on the unicycle concept:
Not double saddled, but a circus bike is pretty similar to what metalman was talking about.
https://www.municycle.com.au/catalogue/B-CIRCUS-HOPP20_item....
A long time ago I was out for a ride with some friends. A guy on a unicycle ran into us and rode with us for 20 miles (~25km).
He was riding across country (US) and his setup was amazing, his wheel was maybe 700x35, his things were packed under his seat.
He had a WEB site but sadly I lost the link :(
This guy? https://www.worldunicycletour.com
No, but a great site!
When we ran into him, it was before 2005 or so. But the unicycle look like it. He was riding across the US.
If I find the site I will post it here.