My experience learning to ride

[ToniG123]

Hi, I recently started to learn riding on my new Ninebot One E+ and thought that I would share the experience here for other novice riders. If you're starting take some time reading the many posts on this forum, they are full of great advice.

I'm 49 years, 90Kg, no previous experience on an electric unicycle but have finally decided to go for the Ninebot after much reading, watching videos and hours of internet.

Here is my experience, hoping it might help others:

Day 1: Getting the feel of it at home, hanging on to everything: chairs, sofa, table, walls, whatever. In hindsight this is definitely not a good way to learn. Move on to open spaces as soon as possible.

Day 2: At a large, empty parking lot, holding on to the car to mount on the NB1. Could not do more than 5-10 meters without dismounting (very ungracefully I must say). Had one rolling fall, definitely get protection on your hands specially. I haven't used a strap, having my hands free makes me feel more secure and helps keeping balance.

Day 3: At the same empty parking lot. This time I got to do much better, did three or four laps around the place without falling and learning to control the NB1. Unfortunately I ended each lap by losing balance every time and ended up crashing the NB1 badly. Once I finish getting the hang of this, I'll have to replace the leg padding, which received some very bad banging. Learned to ride straight and do very wide turns. I'm still having problems controling the speed and doing tight turns, so next day I'll be practicing this.

Day 4: Today I decided to learn how to control my speed and dismount without crashing the NB1. Went again to the same parking lot, this time it was not so empty. After waiting a while for the place to empty a bit, I took a few laps around the parking lot, doing very wide turns and tried to control the speed better. The day before I was reading a thread on this forum that said about imagining a marble as your center of gravity and that you could control it just moving it a bit forward or backward or to the sides. This advice certainly helped a lot, I could now control much better the speed. I practiced riding slow, accelerating, slowing down again and stopping and dismounting. That turned out great, at least now I'm not crashing the NB1 and falling over as only means of stopping. I am very happy with the visible progress, I am specially happy with the discovery of the "pulling" of the NB1 under yourself for a quick stop. Now, turning is my next mission. At the moment I'm only doing very wide turns, so I'm leaving this for learning the next day.

Day 5: Today I changed location. Being a Sunday, the streets and sidewalks around the place I live are quite empty and they are very spacious, so I decided to stay near home and get a taste of riding on the sidewalks. I chose a very wide and long sidewalk that goes around a big part of the block, although not completely around. This forces me to ride up then turn around and ride down, a good oportunity to start controlling tighter turns. Played a bit with foot positions (moving my feet ahead or a bit back, even putting them not so tight) to see how it affected control of the NB1. I found there is a sweet spot with my feet a bit open (pointing slightly outwards) and not too tight on the NB1. This allows for better control, specially on tighter turns, where you actually have to open a bit your legs and let the NB1 tilt a bit. It was really nice learning this and it improved my turning skills. Definitely, the technique for wide turns is much different from the technique for sharp turns. Later on, I even adventured with the pedestrian crossing going to the other side of the street, going over the bumps without a problem. I still don't feel confident enough to go on a more crowded and less spacious sidewalk, people make me nervous which makes me lose balance, so I'll have to improve my control a bit yet. While riding I'm still in a very concentrated state, focusing ahead and putting an effort in keeping balance. This is somewhat like when you learn to drive a car, you're really concentrated on what's going on: gears, clutch, traffic, speed, etc. This has to click sometime and turn into something automatic that just flows without much thinking, I guess. I'm still waiting for that to happen though.

 

 

 

[dpong]

@ToniG123 : I'm the "marble guy", Toni.  I'm glad my visualization technique helped at least one person. 

I am extremely impressed by your very quick advancement.  It took me much much longer to progress.  For Day 1 and 2, substitute a week for me.   Good job!

[dpong]

Here is what I said in that post in case it helps a second person:

"Imagine your center of balance as a single point in the middle of your hips, inside your body. Maybe think of it as a marble.  Imagine a circle drawn around your foot-stands, parallel to the ground.   In your mind's eye if you look down, you can imagine where your 'center of balance' (marble) is in relation to the circle that represents your foot-stands.  To go forward move the marble forward.  To go left, move the marble left (forward and left).  To go right, move the marble to the right.  [All the while standing up straight - *not* leaning forward, nor left, nor right *from the waist*. ]  While standing up straight, push your hips forward - push your hips towards the right - push your hips towards the left. 

Now you can think of your center of balance (the marble) as a little joystick - the marble is at the top of the joystick.  You know how to work a joystick right?  Easy.  Move the marble around by moving your hips around.  Anyway, this visualization helped me because my balance was not so good.  It helped me to begin to *feel* my balance better." 

 

 

[SirGeraint]

I know everyone is different.  I did start from Day 1 in a parking lot.  But it was riding back and forth in my kitchen with counter tops on both sides that showed me what I needed to do to quit veering to the left in the parking lot.

[Jag_Rip]

Nice writeup, have you tried riding figure-8, I found that great to learn turns to both sides and you can do smaller 8 to keep it challenging as you progress

[Chrisxr2]

Sounds like you are coming along nicely ToniG, i found mounting was easy from day 1, like you i also started out in the house and decided it was a bad idea very quickly. I think a lot of the progress is to do with your confidence, level, the more it grows the better you get and the more things your prepared to try. I have used a trap since day 1 and losely attach it to myself, this makes dismounting easier as you just grab the strap, but will make normal dismounting something to learn further down the line.

[MrBump]

I never had trouble dismounting, but then I've never used a strap - maybe it's not helping.

[MetricUSA]

I had a hard time doing figure 8s, had to set up 'cones' to go around, had to have something to concentrate on instead of empty imaginary objects...

[Chrisxr2]

I never had trouble dismounting, but then I've never used a strap - maybe it's not helping.

Yes its not so much dismounting as you come to a stop, but gracefully leaping of when you have misjudged a kerb or someting and need to get of very quickly.

[Tom]

Your learning progress is very similar to mine, I started practicing in my small garden and thought it was hopeless until I went to a car park and took to it much faster, having free space all around with nothing to hold onto and the ability to pick up speed (and thus balance!) speeds learning up so much.

[MrBump]

Yes its not so much dismounting as you come to a stop, but gracefully leaping of when you have misjudged a kerb or someting and need to get of very quickly.

Ah, the "forced dismount".  Aka the "crash".

 

[ToniG123]

I still haven't done the figure 8 training I've seen mentioned all over the place, but I did have fun zigzaging between the trees and lampposts up and down the sidewalk (image attached):

I guess doing figure 8s should be my next challenge.

[MrBump]

 If you can weave through there you're not far off figure 8's.

[Till]

Hi, I am a guy from germany and have a 9bot E+ but have big Problems in learning it. Maybe you have some advice for me. My problem is  balancing. Could someone explain what I have to do. At the moment  if I am lucky I stay 5 to 8 meters on the EU than I fall left or right. I guess it looks like a rodeo ride ☺.  I guess leaning with the hole body in the oposite direction is wrong. Do I have to use my hipps turning left or right or do some pressure on my left or right leg like Small steps ? I really have no idea and thats frustrating because I practise for quite while without getting better. Maybe someone could make a small video to explain.

Thanks in advance.

 

[PedalFaster]

At the moment  if I am lucky I stay 5 to 8 meters on the EU than I fall left or right

Are you moving forward at a consistent speed on a smooth surface?   Often someone will make the wheel move, then get excited about the fact that they are doing it and slow down to think or look around.  

Until you have a lot of skill, hesitating in movement means falling.

If your wheel came with the optional training wheels it might be useful to ride with those for an hour - they won't teach you anything about balance and will make it very hard to turn, but they will get you in the habit of keeping the wheel moving at a steady moderate speed.  Once you are doing that, you are ready to ride it in the normal mode.

 

[Gimlet]

The quickest way we have found to train people is to have two helpers, one each side so you can hold their arms for support.

That way you can get moving and stay on long enough to get the feel of the way you need to move to control it and keep your balance. They will need to break into a run as balancing is easier with a little speed.

If you're happy to let them have a go as well it's normally easy to get two willing volunteers. It can be done with one helper but then you are already leaning one way onto them which doesn't help with balance.