Finally, I figured out why I couldn't ride straight

[M640x]

I'm a new guy to this and I finally figured out why I couldn't ride straight for very far.  Most of it was caused by an old knee injury along with just trying different techniques.  The old injury had made my left leg a lot weaker which affected my riding ability.

A little background.  I bought my first wheel, KS-14S and took my first ride ever on August 30, 2019.  I caught on pretty quick.  I could go straight for a little bit the first day, turning came pretty easy as well, and I picked up step on/off pretty quick as well.  Fast forward a week when I finally left my yard to try my hand at the street and well, not working so good.  My ability to turn had progressed since my yard isn't that big so I had been doing a lot of figure 8's.  The whole going straight thing, yeah not so good.  I'd step on the wheel and go and get approx. 40 feet into it and the wheel would just whip left and down I went.  Continued like that until today, 28 September.  Yup a month.

Today I tried the wheel again.  I have been doing tons of reading on here, watching youtube vids, etc.  I picked up a couple more things to try.  I usually go to the local middle school track to practice uninterrupted and today it was perfect. So there I was, I was off.  Try swivel, hey it's working.  Look forward and totally relax everything.  It's all working.  I still didn't feel stable in fact it felt as if I was going to crash at any second so I kept it slow.  I tried different foot positions, body positions, faster, slower, etc.

Here's what I found out that worked:

Asymmetrical stance, completely opposite of the one I had been using.  Right foot more forward compensated for the weaker left leg.  The whole whip and fall to the left was eliminated.

Move feet forward another 1.5".  I already had them pretty far up or so I thought.  Looked weird but worked.  Provided instant stability while going straight.  Comfortable too.

Completely relax legs and feet to the point of mental discomfort and let the wheel figure it out.  Scariest thing of all to do.  Discomfort meaning a basically "if I fall I fall" thought process.  I was totally padded up but it's still scary. 

All of it worked.  I was zipping around the track and I also spent some time on the middle school sidewalks as well practicing tighter turns.  A guy there even commented on how well I rode.  I told him "You may not believe this but I couldn't ride like this yesterday"  It literally was a combination of all of the things that I tried today and it just happened to be the correct mixture needed to get past a major hurdle that I had.  Thank you to everyone for the inputs, videos, etc. as they all helped me to narrow it down.  I was able to do something I've never been able to do and that's finally put some miles in.  Did 12 straight today.  May not seem like much to most but to someone who couldn't go more than 40 ft straight it's the world.  Woot woot.

 

Edited September 28, 2019 by Senior Coffee

[RetroThruster]

I'm glad you figured it out, I too had a bit of straight line anxiety from primarily riding around my yard, my yard is pretty big (2 acres) but does have quite a few trees and such so most of my time was turning or getting ready to.  I was having trouble turning right, I finally adapted that "if I fall, I fall" mentality and kept those hips forward and I'm getting pretty good now, not perfect but getting better with every ride.  I still can't look around and enjoy the scenery yet, I'm laser focused on the path ahead, that will come with time I guess.  I'm still amazed at how easy people make these things look to ride...