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How to Ride and electric unicycle - Learn in about an hour


that0n3guy

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I just taught my brother-in-law how to ride.   It took him about 1.5 hours and we were riding around the neighborhood.   It would have been faster if I would have remembered to tell him 1 thing! 

Chooch really explains this well, so many of my links below are to specific parts of his explainer video.   I sprinkle some extra videos in their to help as well.

So I thought I would put together some progressive steps:

  1. Pad up!   Helmet, elbow, wrist, knee, maybe ankle.    We never fell, but this helps with confidence.
  2. Stand on the wheel and rock forward and backwards while holding on to something See 1:04 here.   Do this just till they get the feel of it a little.
  3. Walk with them (similar to this, but not backwards) - They will put a LOT of weight on you. This is where you talk with them about pivoting back and fourth to help balance the side to side.   This video shows pivoting, or swerving, perfectly.  I Describe this to them like how you have to twist the handlebars back and fourth when riding a bike really slow.
    1. If your learning by yourself, you need a rail or wall.   Tennis courts are good for this as there is a long stretch of fence. 
  4. If you care about how you're wheel looks, get a strap like so... if not (I do not care how my training wheel looks) don't use a strap.   I personally feel like the strap can hinder progress a little, but your wheel will get super beat up without it.
  5. Start to do some pushes with your dominant footThis kingsong video shows the touch and glide.    This video (turn on captions) does a good job showing this, he calls it the triangle method.  We spend a decent amount of time on this because starting is hard and this will help them a lot.   This can be painful on the smaller units (I train people on a ks14c and add extra padding).
  6. Walk with them some more.   start using only one hand.   
    • Teach them different types of turning -  Most people first learn how to turn by rotating their upper body and lower follows kinda like #3 above.   This makes it easy to correct small movements but hard to go left, when you want to go left :).   This video shows 3 types of turning.  I think most people learn the third type (in that video), but but in small movements.   
    • For me, teaching them how to lower right leg to go right helped.   This was the "missing" thing that instantly allowed us to go around the neighborhood.
  7. Let them go - Start with one hand, the let them go.

Tips/Troubleshooting - These are some little tricks I picked up from videos & experience

Trouble moving forward/Picking up speed

Its hard to convince your brain to trust the wheel, one of those is in getting going.    Here are some tips to tell the person when you see them doing it:

  • Bending at the waist - Don't do it.   Everyone I see try it tries to go forward by leaning forward at the waist.   Bending forward at the waist does NOT put weight on your toes or help the wheel go forward.   You can stand on the ground and bend over without falling forward... this shows you're not moving your center of mass forward.   
    • Also, bending forward with straight legs makes the ride very unstable and you feel like you're constantly going to fall forward.  Bend at the knees, keep your shoulders up, and lean into your toes.
    • From @ir_fueltrick for me was to push my hips forward if I wanted to go faster. That automatically pushes all your weight to the front of the pedals. Otherwise I would just be bending over and of course nothing would happen.
  • Go up a slight hill - I've not seen anyone talk about this but it helps a lot.   Point the person towards a hill (going up) and hold their hand.   Hills force you to put more weight into your toes or you stop fast and fall over.   This really helps beginners feel the weight moving forward while feeling a little less scary.

Trouble braking

Its scary to go faster (even 5 mph) if you're not confident breaking.   Here are some tips to help with it.

  • Sit in the chair - When they feel like they are starting to go too fast, don't tell them to "lean backwards." Tell them instead to act like you are going to "sit in a chair".  Sitting in a chair motino causes them to put weight into the heals with a low center of gravity, giving more control.   They won't bend down really far, just a little to move center of mass backwards.
    • Why? I kept seeing him stand up straight and try to lean backwards.   The created an arc body shape (belly and butt forward with shoulders trying to lean backwards.   This is sort of the backwards equivalent of bending at the waist to move forward... its bad.   Bend at the knee's and act like you're going to sit backwards causes easy breaking.
    • Note: This is also how some teach to learn backwards riding; push off a wall, sit-in-a-chair motion to trick your brain to lean backwards.
  • Go down a hill - Hills make it easier to pick up speed when you don't want too.  So you can use the hill to build confidence in breaking and practice it while holding 1-hand.

Trouble balancing side-to-side

Remind them how a bike rider has to turn the front wheel back and forth quickly to maintain balance.   Show them #3 above.

Alternative Methods:

  • The shopping cart - Here it is.  I've not tested this, but it sounds like it work great.   You need access to a shopping cart though, or a parking lot where you won't get yelled at :).

 

Your thoughts

I know there are other threads on this topic.   I tried to consolidate videos from them into this post to help beginners find information faster.

If you have any other suggestions, post them and I'll try to maintain this with info for newbies.

 

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I can not hardly believe anyone suggests any other way than learning on a SHOPPING CART !!!

Elbows on at first. Then straightn up and just use hands. 

Not just to fastest and easiest way on earth. But also the SAFEST.

It saves you from crashing and falling over 9 million times scraping up and damaging it. 

You never fall or twist your ankles because the CART supports or catches you.

You gradually stand up straight and then let go for longer and longer times. The CART traveling right along head of you, ready to grab at any instant.

You simply push the CART around for less than a mile. Then while riding along the CART will suddenly drift left and ya just keep going straight.

I just kept going for 5 miles on my 3rd let go.

I've thought 6 people to ride this way.

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i didn’t have anybody to help me. i did try a rolling walker but did not like it. 

so i set this up, put on heavy leather gloves so not to get splinters and started going back and forth, 15’ at a time until i could do it without touching the 2x4’s. 

might not be the fastest but definitely the safest. with ur hands gliding over the 2x4’s, u can’t fall. as u get braver, lift ur hands a bit. 

i’m gonna start practicing backwards and pendulums inside the boards soon. 

i don’t like to hurt myself. i hurt myself all the time but i try to figure out a way to avoid it.2F1C4672-62FA-4CC1-99D8-7F1485DF4936.jpeg.23fe76704f526cbe8a1da34c41176f17.jpeg

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Yes, very good idea. I thought of that too. But it is just to short to be practical. I also almost bought a used wheeled walker. Too flimsy and unstable.

A chain link fence works good. I used a 100' long one on a Kmart building. I used it more to learn backwards, however. None forwards.

The SHOPPING CART method is far far superior to anything I've heard so far.

Secure, fast, simple, easy and you never fall off, twist an ankle or bang up your euc.

SHOPPING CART is the best!!!

I'd estimate 20 minutes before your headed across the parking lot on your own. Newbie turning, mounting and dis-mounting are a different story.

6 learners to prove it.

9b1 c+. 700 miles. 64. Iowa.

 

9A5583F2-5BE0-49EC-9B34-8B6F05AD9871.jpeg

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A thing you might add: in the beginning I really had trouble making speed. (I had to learn without walls so always starting from standstill). I would get on the wheel, riding at 2mph and impossible to go faster until I had to bail out. What you say about bending over absolutely makes sense, but the trick for me was to push my hips forward if I wanted to go faster. That automatically pushes all your weight to the front of the pedals. Otherwise I would just be bending over and of course nothing would happen.

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13 hours ago, The Wizard said:

I can not hardly believe anyone suggests any other way than learning on a SHOPPING CART !!!

 

Awesome idea.   I would feel like an idiot learning at the grocery store parking lot though :P    I added your comment to the OP.   Maybe I'll try it out on the next person I teach.

3 hours ago, ir_fuel said:

the trick for me was to push my hips forward

Yes, good tip... I've added it to the OP.  

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8 hours ago, novazeus said:

i didn’t have anybody to help me. i did try a rolling walker but did not like it. 

 

I edited a little bit talking about using a fence or rail.   I completely forgot about learning by yourself (that's what I did as well)

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On 6/18/2018 at 6:55 PM, The Wizard said:

I can not hardly believe anyone suggests any other way than learning on a SHOPPING CART !!!

Elbows on at first. Then straightn up and just use hands. 

Not just to fastest and easiest way on earth. But also the SAFEST.

It saves you from crashing and falling over 9 million times scraping up and damaging it. 

You never fall or twist your ankles because the CART supports or catches you.

You gradually stand up straight and then let go for longer and longer times. The CART traveling right along head of you, ready to grab at any instant.

You simply push the CART around for less than a mile. Then while riding along the CART will suddenly drift left and ya just keep going straight.

I just kept going for 5 miles on my 3rd let go.

I've thought 6 people to ride this way.

I like the ideas presented here and by Novazeus, and I think I will try them out on my GF.

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Great article with great links.  These helped me a lot on my KS18s, but I think it's missing one probably obvious piece.

I think I could have learned the basics in an hour or two if I didn't watch this video that argued that you shouldn't be squeezing your knees in when riding.  Once I squeezed and gripped the euc, i was able to get going a lot more than 5ft. 

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On 6/19/2018 at 7:33 AM, novazeus said:

i’m gonna start practicing backwards and pendulums inside the boards soon.

I've started practicing them as well, but I feel that it's quite important to have ample space in order to learn to make proper corrections. I'd get out of the rectangle as soon as possible.

I have yet to find tips worth sharing, but most of the times I can already go forward, stop, 10' backwards, stop, and continue forward without touching ground.

Practicing is physically very hard though! I push immediate sweat on my mc gear for all the crouching to catch the wheel, dismounts and mounts.

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