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How to ride an electric unicycle - understanding the dynamics


John Eucist

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3 hours ago, Acturbo said:

Here's to figuring this thing out without breaking my leg first!  

Thanks to all who have helped in this thread.  

Glad we could help!

There's a great thread here somewhere on ski jumping too, in case you're bored over winter...

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18 hours ago, The Fat Unicyclist said:

Glad we could help!

There's a great thread here somewhere on ski jumping too, in case you're bored over winter...

Awesome thanks, need a little winter thrill too.  Who needs to walk anyways right?

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On 4/26/2017 at 4:00 PM, HermanTheGerman said:

My view is that the wobbling which is experienced by beginners comes mainly from standing too far on the rear side of the footpads.

From my experience nearly all beginners make this mistake.

The feet should be placed on the footpads in a way that the middle of the lower leg crosses the axis of the wheel.

When one stands too far behind, the wheel wobbles at forward driving, when one stands too far in front, the wheel wobbles at backward driving (the latter is not recognized by a beginner, because he doesn't try it :) ).

Seems like good advise to me Herman.  Tried what you said and made sure my ankle bone was aligned with the center axis of the wheel.  Whether it was just third times the charm or this works doesn't matter.  I successfully made it around my neighborhood a few times and put about 4 miles on the beast.  Your tip seemed to help me a great deal.  Still a little shaky of course but I've gotten much better at correcting myself on the fly when it happens.  Being able to start from a stop without assistance is also a huge help.  My record distance prior to this attempt I think I made it about 100 yards in a straight line.  Thanks for the tip, seemed to work for me. :)

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4 hours ago, Acturbo said:

Seems like good advise to me Herman.  Tried what you said and made sure my ankle bone was aligned with the center axis of the wheel.  Whether it was just third times the charm or this works doesn't matter.  I successfully made it around my neighborhood a few times and put about 4 miles on the beast.  Your tip seemed to help me a great deal.  Still a little shaky of course but I've gotten much better at correcting myself on the fly when it happens.  Being able to start from a stop without assistance is also a huge help.  My record distance prior to this attempt I think I made it about 100 yards in a straight line.  Thanks for the tip, seemed to work for me. :)

You're welcome.  When I started a year ago, I made the same mistake, and somebody told me to change my feet placement.

Also when the feet are placed correctly, it may happen that the wheel starts to wobble a little bit, especially when driving steeply downhill. This can be easily stopped by shortly pressing the legs together, or by putting the weight mainly on one foot, so that the wheel leans against that  leg. 

However, this kind of wobbling is never as strong as the wobbling I experienced as a beginner, when I stood way to much on the back side of the pedals.

Happy riding !  

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There is no correct placement on EUC's that have too small pedals. 

When I place my feet correctly on either the KS14c or VF5, the balls of my feet hang entirely over the front of the pedals, and therefore forward lean results in a step off. This is completely ubsurd.

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I have shoe size 45" (29cm foot length) and pedal length 212mm (InMotion V8/V5). If I place my feet "correctly", I can feel the rear edge of the pedal with the rear edge of my heel (given the sole allows to feel anything). The ball area remains (entirely) supported by the pedal, while the toes stick out in front completely. For climbs with more than 25% (i.e. more than 14º), the supported area in the front becomes pretty edgy. I think with a payload of 80kg, the climbing angle of the V8 is limited by its pedal length and not by its motor power.

With a pedal length of 170mm (old "standard" EUC pedals like on the Gotway MCM2), the ball area lacks support to a large extend and I can't ride comfortably without a (very) stiff sole.

Edited by Mono
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During the week it took my wheel to arrive I watched this video. It helped me the most over any other training video; a lot of times we are shown what to do but there's more knowledge to be gained in showing what NOT to do.

You'll notice how he injured himself from stepping off forward, and how he moved the upper part of his body at first before learning to rotate his lower. While my experience was very similar to his, I had a rough idea of what should be, and so I was good within a few tries and never injured myself.

Except for mounting lol! Mounting at first seems ridiculously impossible. I do all sorts of things to avoid remounting which isn't helping me.

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On 2017-6-12 at 8:06 PM, LanghamP said:

You'll notice how he injured himself from stepping off forward

It was the rather common hit from the wheel pedals to the lower legs and in this case pretty harmless. Stepping off forward the wheel is quite unavoidable from time to time. The trick is to always leave enough distance between yourself and the wheel in this case, i.e. avoid the wheel hitting the legs.

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15 hours ago, LanghamP said:

During the week it took my wheel to arrive I watched this video. It helped me the most over any other training video; a lot of times we are shown what to do but there's more knowledge to be gained in showing what NOT to do.

I watched the video as well. His perseverance throughout the learning curve was a great motivator.

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15 hours ago, Rehab1 said:

I watched the video as well. His perseverance throughout the learning curve was a great motivator.

The wife in the video was super helpful.  Faster, Faster!  As he's barely staying up lol.

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I noticed that as I tried to slow down going down hills, say, from 20mph, I would start wobbling like crazy. I realized after riding more and testing it out it was because I was trying to do everything with my legs rather than shifting my center of gravity

Edited by kour
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On 6/6/2017 at 8:53 PM, Acturbo said:

After about a half hour got to the point that I could go back and forth across the parking lot(maybe the length of a football field) and very shakily make a super wide wobbly turn and return to the starting point.  The next day the board blew up on my MCM4 and this totally stopped me from doing anything.

Unbelievable! At this point in the development of EUCs, shouldn't problems like this have been conquered long ago? How are boards still blowing up under trivial conditions when the user isn't even stressing the wheel?? People generally think MCM4 is a good wheel. Maybe not!!

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22 hours ago, MaxLinux said:

Unbelievable! At this point in the development of EUCs, shouldn't problems like this have been conquered long ago? How are boards still blowing up under trivial conditions when the user isn't even stressing the wheel?? People generally think MCM4 is a good wheel. Maybe not!!

I may have been partially to blame. I was starting on grass to limit damage to myself and the EUC. I am told starting on non solid ground could have been a contributing factor.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 6/19/2017 at 7:07 PM, Acturbo said:

I may have been partially to blame. I was starting on grass to limit damage to myself and the EUC. I am told starting on non solid ground could have been a contributing factor.

Grass puts a lot of demand on the wheel. As much as going up hill. Put regardless it should not blow. Just possibly poor workmanship or inferior black market components. The MOSFET ARE RATED for 120 amps but that is just a perfect design. So say 50 amps for sustained should never blow. I push 30 amps on uphill which I consider stremely steep. 

Hope you get it fixed. 

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55 minutes ago, Carlos E Rodriguez said:

Grass puts a lot of demand on the wheel. As much as going up hill. Put regardless it should not blow. Just possibly poor workmanship or inferior black market components. The MOSFET ARE RATED for 120 amps but that is just a perfect design. So say 50 amps for sustained should never blow. I push 30 amps on uphill which I consider stremely steep. 

Hope you get it fixed. 

Got it fixed no problems.  Seller sent me a new control board within a week and I installed it and have been fine riding for the past 40-50 miles or so.  Thanks

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17 hours ago, Acturbo said:

Got it fixed no problems.  Seller sent me a new control board within a week and I installed it and have been fine riding for the past 40-50 miles or so.

Yay! I'm glad you got a quick solution!

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Hi everyone, I too am a new learner, and would like to start with a question, before adding my point on what helped me.

I feel comfortable putting my feet a little bit more in the front of the pedals than where it feels natural to me. In this way my weight is slightly in the front of the wheel and it helps me mounting and starting to ride, as the UC accelerates and allows me to have more balance thanks to the speed. Before finding this out I had a hard time starting because the UC struggled to give power and with low speed I was drifting in every direction instead of going forward or even worse stumbling altogether off the pedals.

Is there any downside in riding with the feet a little bit ahead? Because once i mounted and started I'm not able to move them back in the center without wobbling and eventually falling.

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No downside!

Being relaxed is literally the most important thing that decides how long and comfortable you can ride, how well you are in control of the wheel, everything. It makes the difference between a wobbly ride and feet cramping after 5 minutes, or a wonderful ride with perfect control where you can go seemingly forever.

And 99% of that is foot stance and foot comfort. So always choose the foot stance that feels best, maybe even experiment without looking and see what the result is. Unless your stance is so strange that you obviously would slip from the pedals or something like this, any stance that feels best will be best. You can check if the perceived "forward" stance still lets you brake well enough, but that's the only thing I can imagine that would speak against being "too far" forward.

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I think I've been lucky about the muscles hurting. From day 1 I have never experienced any pain, even after 2 hours of practice. I can assure you instead that my inner legs got quite rash with all the pressing against the shell in my mounting attempts.

Like I was saying, if I don't look at where I'm putting my first foot I tend to put it well centered, but this doesn't help me to start. I also have no problems braking with the position I use now.

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2 hours ago, Bert08 said:

Is there any downside in riding with the feet a little bit ahead?

What makes you think they are too far forward in the first place?

One of the things that makes it difficult for beginners is the assumption their feet should be in the middle of the peddles. Feet stick out more at the front than the back and it is your centre of gravity - not the centre of your feet - that needs to be over the centre of the wheel I.e. You have to have more of your foot sticking over the front of the peddle than over the back.

1 hour ago, meepmeepmayer said:

You can check if the perceived "forward" stance still lets you brake well enough, but that's the only thing I can imagine that would speak against being "too far" forward.

@meepmeepmayer is spot on. If you do stand too far forward then accelerating is no effort at all, braking on the other hand could be very difficult and you REALLY do not want to discover you cannot brake when a car turns onto its drive right in front of you.

So practice accelerating and braking. If both seem to take about the same amount of effort or lean then your feet are in the correct place for your riding style.

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