Skill / trick development

[MR BRAD]

I didn’t see a thread elsewhere, so I figured I’d start one... I know we all have our reasons and rationale for riding our wheels. Some use them for commuting. Some use them as last mile alternatives. Some use them for lazy Sunday drives. Some carve through trails. And most of us probably combine at least all of these and then some. For me, one of the guilty pleasures that attracted me to this sport, etc was the “ballet” that many in our EUC community perform. Penny spins, backward riding, 180’s, 360’s, multiple 360’s, one leg riding, crossovers, even handstands. It boggles my admittedly pea sized brain. It also humbles, impresses and inspires me. I may not be at all ready to consider graduating to the radical stuff, as I’m just now feeling like I have some degree of competence but also believe that with the basics that I possess, I am ready to at least push my envelope and start extending my comfort zone.
 

With that said, one thing that absolutely defines this community to which anyone reading belongs, is the seemingly innate passion that you all display in helping, guiding and encouraging your fellow enthusiasts. As such I figured that perhaps we could generate a bit of an instructional / advice / do this / don’t do that / recipe for skills thread.

Please.... share your experience, your hints, your advice. I don’t know if I’ll ever be the graceful virtuoso I had envisioned while admiringly watching some of you wheel ballerinas, but I’d never forgive myself if I didn’t try... thanks for any sage input or even opinionated banter.
 

Bradley 

[Chriull]

3 hours ago, MR BRAD said:

Please.... share your experience, your hints, your advice. I don’t know if I’ll ever be the graceful virtuoso I had envisioned while admiringly watching some of you wheel ballerinas, but I’d never forgive myself if I didn’t try... thanks for any sage input or even opinionated banter.

Imho a nice start could be @Hirsute's youtube video series - most announced in 

 

Some scattered in the "video thread". Presumably they are all collected in some youtube channel?

[Mortal Coil]

One legged riding.

I figure that once I can do that, a whole world of tricksy stuff will open up. I’m a long way from it though, so if anyone has any basic advice I’d love to hear it.

[RockyTop]

The best that I can do is a 180. I am more of a cruiser that likes obstacle challenges. My quickest, most noticeable learning curve was when I decided to take on challenging mountain bike trails. You instinctively learn how to negotiate roots and rocks with changing elevations. It requires more skill at a lower speed. I quickly started maneuvers I did not know I could do. It was a fun way to quickly build stability in a challenging uncertain environment.  It builds recovery skills and works as crash prevention.  Be careful of striking the bottom and front of pedals. I also more strongly suggest knee pads when off road. Bring water and a snack,  it can be a workout 

 

[travsformation]

4 hours ago, Mortal Coil said:

One legged riding.

I figure that once I can do that, a whole world of tricksy stuff will open up. I’m a long way from it though, so if anyone has any basic advice I’d love to hear it.

I actually learned how to do that as I learned to mount

I learned to ride the hard way: mounting directly, with no support. Many people seemingly use support to mount. They learn to ride, and later learn how to mount. I wasn't comfortable with that approach, as it seemed dangerous based on the fact a) you're learning, so you'll have to hop off the wheel sooner rather than later, and b) dismounting also involves having only 1 foot on the pedal at one point, so...better to learn that in reverse order, from a standstill, than find yourself in trouble when in motion

I essentially learned to mount following the advice in the video below, with the idea of getting used to one-foot control. The part that applies the most to one legged-riding starts at 6:18 >> The small hops where you gradually increase the distance between hops. Essentially, you learn to control the wheel one-legged, and finally put your 2nd foot on the pedal when you're comfortable enough. From there to one-legged riding, it really isn't that much of a stretch. Think of it as extended mounts. Rather than taking your foot off the pedal while riding, do the opposite. Start from a standstill, give yourself a little impulse and see how long you can go on one foot. Keep at it and you'll be there soon enough!

 

Another piece of advice: Gear up when practicing tricks. It's easy to underestimate the potential for injury at slow speeds. My wrist guards saved me from breaking my wrist when trying to penny-spin. I have a nasty scar on my right shin from the InMotion V8 (sharp edged on the handle...) hitting me when it spun around after a failed attempt at riding backwards. Shin-guards are an often over-looked piece of safety gear that I don't use when riding normally but always when practicing tricks; the chances of the wheel spinning around violently and coming back to ram into you before you even see it coming are high. Boots subtract from your nimbleness, but feet and toes are another easy-to-overlook parts of the body that are particularly susceptible to injuries when learning/practicing tricks. Have fun and be safe!

Edited January 13, 2020 by travsformation

[travsformation]

3 hours ago, RockyTop said:

The best that I can do is a 180. I am more of a cruiser that likes obstacle challenges. My quickest, most noticeable learning curve was when I decided to take on challenging mountain bike trails. You instinctively learn how to negotiate roots and rocks with changing elevations. It requires more skill at a lower speed. I quickly started maneuvers I did not know I could do. It was a fun way to quickly build stability in a challenging uncertain environment.  It builds recovery skills and works as crash prevention.  Be careful of striking the bottom and front of pedals. I also more strongly suggest knee pads when off road. Bring water and a snack,  it can be a workout 

 

Yeah, I'm not much for tricks either. A 180 and one-footed riding are about as much as I can manage. Riding backwards...not as chance! (If I put more time into practicing I might get there, but it isn't something too important to me). Off-roading and MTB trails are my preferred type of riding too!

You learn a lot, and fast. And the skills you acquire can be transferred to lots of other situations. Dodging large rocks while going up a steep, rutted hill teaches you tight turning, hip-twisting (leaning laterally / shifting weight from one foot to another isn't an option in certain low-grip scenarios), curb-mounting (certain rocks just can't be dodged), quick reaction/recovery skills, and a tremendous amount of balance. There's no way I'd have the type of fine-control & slow-speed maneuvering I do if it weren't for all the off-roading I do.

[Mono]

Having spent roughly 500 hours on improving skills like turning and spinning, backwards riding, riding up curbs and down stairs, one legged riding etc. one hint that helped me to prevent some pain: I was padding the sharp edges of the wheel in case they hit me. Wheel bite is a real thing in my experience. Apart from bruises I haven't hurt myself and had my closest calls never while doing tricks.

I suggest to practice to get one flat foot on the ground anywhere in a 1m radius around the wheel in any situation. Being always ready to do this helps IMHO a lot to broaden the range of situations that don't bring me down. It also requires to stay low enough to make the flat foot touch ground (before the head ). Lately, when I didn't fully abide by this idea myself it looked like this

I stopped wearing protection gear a long time ago and ride with any shoes at hand including sandales. Works for me, but surely mileages vary.

Edited January 14, 2020 by Mono

[pico]

My recommendations for quick(?) results:  PPPPP

P for Prepare: think about what you want to do today at this session.

P for Practice.

P for Pushing slightly your limits (one inch at a time!).

P for Ponder to see what you have accomplished.

P for Protect, according to your risk tolerance.

 

Here is my lady doing some Pushing. 

This technique was suggested by @trya

 

 

 

 

Edited January 14, 2020 by pico

[travsformation]

1 hour ago, pico said:

My recommendations for quick(?) results:  PPPPP

P for Prepare: think about what you want to do today at this session.

P for Practice.

P for Pushing slightly your limits (one inch at a time!).

P for Ponder to see what you have accomplished.

P for Protect, according to your risk tolerance.

Your forgot a P (for pico!), so it should be PPPPPP: Pico's Prepare-practice-push-ponder-protect method!

Good approach, I like it!

BTW, your lady is clearly better at tricks than I am...mounting with the "wrong" leg isn't something I've managed yet...

[pico]

And I forgot of course: Persevere!

[travsformation]

4 minutes ago, pico said:

And I forgot of course: Persevere!

+1! (Have run out of "likes" for today)

[LanghamP]

On 1/13/2020 at 12:04 PM, travsformation said:

Riding backwards...not as chance! (If I put more time into practicing I might get there, but it isn't something too important to me). Off-roading and MTB trails are my preferred type of riding too!

You'll learn to ride backwards through no special efforts on your own if you ride long enough. That is, every rider learns pendelums/yoyo, and you naturally and gradually make them longer and slower, and then with no special transition period you just end up riding backwards.

Unfortunately, I believe riding backwards is horribly dangerous even with equipment because a bail is usually a backwards roll, and often the wheel hits you painfully on the shins. 

Then there's also curb jumping up which seems pretty easy and straightforward...at first. Then you catch your wheel on the lip, and you and the wheel go bonkers. Ow ow ow.

[MR BRAD]

On 1/13/2020 at 1:48 AM, Mortal Coil said:

One legged riding.

I figure that once I can do that, a whole world of tricksy stuff will open up. I’m a long way from it though, so if anyone has any basic advice I’d love to hear it.

Second that! It seems like so much of the graceful moves depend on the ability to make the wheel perform with one leg. It’s a hard hurdle mentally to embrace though! 

[MR BRAD]

On 1/13/2020 at 6:03 AM, travsformation said:

I actually learned how to do that as I learned to mount

I learned to ride the hard way: mounting directly, with no support. Many people seemingly use support to mount. They learn to ride, and later learn how to mount. I wasn't comfortable with that approach, as it seemed dangerous based on the fact a) you're learning, so you'll have to hop off the wheel sooner rather than later, and b) dismounting also involves having only 1 foot on the pedal at one point, so...better to learn that in reverse order, from a standstill, than find yourself in trouble when in motion

I essentially learned to mount following the advice in the video below, with the idea of getting used to one-foot control. The part that applies the most to one legged-riding starts at 6:18 >> The small hops where you gradually increase the distance between hops. Essentially, you learn to control the wheel one-legged, and finally put your 2nd foot on the pedal when you're comfortable enough. From there to one-legged riding, it really isn't that much of a stretch. Think of it as extended mounts. Rather than taking your foot off the pedal while riding, do the opposite. Start from a standstill, give yourself a little impulse and see how long you can go on one foot. Keep at it and you'll be there soon enough!

 

Another piece of advice: Gear up when practicing tricks. It's easy to underestimate the potential for injury at slow speeds. My wrist guards saved me from breaking my wrist when trying to penny-spin. I have a nasty scar on my right shin from the InMotion V8 (sharp edged on the handle...) hitting me when it spun around after a failed attempt at riding backwards. Shin-guards are an often over-looked piece of safety gear that I don't use when riding normally but always when practicing tricks; the chances of the wheel spinning around violently and coming back to ram into you before you even see it coming are high. Boots subtract from your nimbleness, but feet and toes are another easy-to-overlook parts of the body that are particularly susceptible to injuries when learning/practicing tricks. Have fun and be safe!

Awesome advice! I thought that “free mounting” was impossibly difficult and now (almost) do it without thought (yes, I still think way too much about it...). 
 
I became comfortable with the skateboard (push off) start and will try that with the “hopping” along with my “pushing” (as opposed to the foot already on the wheel) foot. 

I’m hopeful this skill will be just like learning the “impossible” free mount. I’ll channel the practice and fearless approach (with gear!)

[Daley1]

Maybe we need a" how to "section set aside in this forum so we don't have to hunt through youtube for advice ?

Sectioned into learners, intermediate and advanced?

[travsformation]

On 1/15/2020 at 2:20 PM, Daley1 said:

Maybe we need a" how to "section set aside in this forum so we don't have to hunt through youtube for advice ?

Sectioned into learners, intermediate and advanced?

For those brave enough, and with enough time on their hands, there's always the all-encompassing, 35-page (to date):

But a separate learning section could be very useful! To not over-complicate things, thread titles could provide the context and what to click on ("How to free-mount" vs "How to penny-flip while making a Frappuccino") 

What do you guys think @Unventor, @meepmeepmayer, @Rehab1?

[Unventor]

Well I am a little neutral. Or let me say like this. Our forum is growing, and I have suggested some new subgroups previously. 

The big issue here is how we plan ahead and how user friendly it is for new people to start EUC riding. 

As it is right now all is more or less in one major thread... If this good or bad is hard for me to judge right now. 

So what I will do is thi k a little about this and see what I come up with (and bouncing ideas between other moderators). I don't have a full insight of the technical side of the forum (yet if I ever get this). 

.... Under construction... 

[travsformation]

33 minutes ago, Unventor said:

Well I am a little neutral. Or let me say like this. Our forum is growing, and I have suggested some new subgroups previously. 

The big issue here is how we plan ahead and how user friendly it is for new people to start EUC riding. 

As it is right now all is more or less in one major thread... If this good or bad is hard for me to judge right now. 

So what I will do is thi k a little about this and see what I come up with (and bouncing ideas between other moderators). I don't have a full insight of the technical side of the forum (yet if I ever get this). 

.... Under construction... 

Cool, thanks!

I agree, planning ahead is a good idea. But then there's the technical side, how to arrange it, the work (and time) involved. Let us know what the other mods say!

Also...maybe I'll start a new thread and quit de-railing this one

[Cory Brown]

2 hours ago, Unventor said:

Well I am a little neutral. Or let me say like this. Our forum is growing, and I have suggested some new subgroups previously. 

The big issue here is how we plan ahead and how user friendly it is for new people to start EUC riding. 

As it is right now all is more or less in one major thread... If this good or bad is hard for me to judge right now. 

So what I will do is thi k a little about this and see what I come up with (and bouncing ideas between other moderators). I don't have a full insight of the technical side of the forum (yet if I ever get this). 

.... Under construction... 

As someone who is still relatively new to the forum, I have to say that some of these gigantic threads can be a bit intimidating. I've made it through a few of them, but that's partly because work has been slow and I had plenty of down time to do so. Reading through 30+ pages in hopes of finding the answer to a question that may not even be there can be quite the task.

[Gasmantle]

25 minutes ago, Cory Brown said:

As someone who is still relatively new to the forum, I have to say that some of these gigantic threads can be a bit intimidating. I've made it through a few of them, but that's partly because work has been slow and I had plenty of down time to do so. Reading through 30+ pages in hopes of finding the answer to a question that may not even be there can be quite the task.

Yea I agree.

The video thread is now so long and disorganised I no longer read it - to be honest I visit the forum less now because it is poorly laid out.

I did suggest a while back that a new video section was needed and each video thread could have it's own title but the idea had little support.

Edited January 16, 2020 by Gasmantle

[Rehab1]

6 hours ago, travsformation said:

But a separate learning section could be very useful! To not over-complicate things, thread titles could provide the context and what to click on ("How to free-mount" vs "How to penny-flip while making a Frappuccino") 

What do you guys think @Unventor, @meepmeepmayer, @Rehab1?

I could contribute on how not to fall.  
 

I agree there is a plethora of excellent EUC learning technique videos on the forum but they have been widely scattered throughout the forum over the past 4 years. It would be nice to consolidate all of them under a specific topic with subtitles for ease of navigation. 
 

If a ‘learning techniques’ topic were to be  created it would be relatively easy for interested members to rummage through past posts and then cut and paste those links to the newly developed topic and it’s sub- categories. 

 

[Gasmantle]

10 minutes ago, Rehab1 said:

I agree there is a plethora of excellent EUC learning technique videos on the forum but they have been widely scattered throughout the forum over the past 4 years. It would be nice to consolidate all of them under a specific topic with subtitles for ease of navigation. 
 

If a ‘learning techniques’ topic were to be  created it would be relatively easy for interested members to rummage through past posts and then cut and paste those links to the newly developed topic and it’s sub- categories. 

 

Yea, I think you make good points @Rehab1

I think when the forum first started and it had far fewer members the present format / categories was probably fine but now with a wider audience of differing skills and more wheels on the market the forum is now disorganised and difficult to navigate.

The video thread now is out of hand, effectively all the forum videos (and probably 25% of the entire forum posts) are grouped in one thread.

Surely it makes sense to have a seperate video section with each new topic having it's own thread and title.

A beginner section discussing riding techniques and cheaper less powerful wheels could also be a possibilty that may encourage new members to contribute.

[Unventor]

I can say a beginners section appeals to me. That is something I like a lot. I might not be the best at teaching people, but I like to help people if I can. What do you think @MR BRAD and @PogArt Artur? I recall you as people I tried to give advise some time back. 😊 

[Daley1]

I just found @Hirsute , how to"" video series that are instructional videos"in French with english subtitles.I,m working through them to see how they translate.For the newbies,he is an extremely skilled trick rider.

[Gasmantle]

21 minutes ago, Unventor said:

I can say a beginners section appeals to me. That is something I like a lot. I might not be the best at teaching people, but I like to help people if I can. What do you think @MR BRAD and @PogArt Artur? I recall you as people I tried to give advise some time back. 😊 

My guess is a beginners section will get more people active in the forum.