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How to ride an electric unicycle - understanding the dynamics


John Eucist

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7 hours ago, Mike Sacristan said:

 Jump pads? Or power pads?

Power pads fit under the cover. You can make your own really ugly ones and hide them under the rollnz cover just like Tobias did. His power pads are insanely large and his wheel looks ridiculous but that cover just stretches over everything.

"Power-pads" is what I meant, thanks for the correction. More importantly, thank you for the video link of the pregnant wheel, I had no idea the cover could stretch to such a degree.

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3 hours ago, Night Cowboy said:

"Power-pads" is what I meant, thanks for the correction. More importantly, thank you for the video link of the pregnant wheel, I had no idea the cover could stretch to such a degree.

My pleasure! He rides it up stairs and drops it all over the place. If anything the pads + cover protect the wheel even more than just the cover. I would probably use heavy duty velcro to keep everything nice and snug and also a bit adjustable.

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  • 5 weeks later...
2 hours ago, SdotS said:

Hello eveyone, super excited to be part of this euc fam.. just purchased and rec. my MSP high speed. And had about combined 10 hours multiple days of trying to learn.. major learning curve i must say lol. I have been trying to learn on trass in a field which has many diff. Slopes and divets. For about 45 min was finally able to turn both ways and go straight and break on grass. When i took wheel to pavement wow was so much easier to use.. was excited.. amd tried to ride home.. lol tooo earlyyy lmao. As i was riding home in street.. all was well until i had just slight bit of speed and went tol slow down (11 mph ) and boom crazyyy wobbless scared the u know whats out of me.. went home and checked tire press. Was at 20 psi.. brought it up to 35-37 psi as i seen on youtube. High pressure causes this wheel to wobble hard. Im 205 lbs. sorry guys inwork with MPH and LBS. lol from NEW JERSEY USA  so after that ride took a few days off went back on and boon was like riding a wet noodle again smh... frustrating.. i will be practicing tomorrow again.. wish i could meet up with some fellow riders to learn and take a spin ... im in JERSEY CITY NJ  anyway.. glad to be a part of this forum.. any advice would be greatly appeciated.. :)

 

I'm a new rider as well. I just got that "Zen" feeling of being able to ride the other day and everything just clicked. It brought me back 40 years to when I first was able to ride a bicycle. Once you figure the balance out you are off and running. I have lots of skateboard and Onewheel experience but riding EUC is a much different beast. I was able to move around my basement within the first 30 minutes of trying but I was flaying around a bit to keep balanced. I will admit that the Onewheel experience is good for gaining trust in the machine you re standing on.  Having confidence that the wheel will keep you straight is key so you can just concentrate on the side to side balance and turning. I also had the tire pressure low when I first started thinking it would be easier to learn but it may have made it a bit harder. Once I pumped up to close 40 psi it was much easier to navigate. One thing I did right away was lower the top speed way down to 12 mph for now on the app. I did this so in case I lost control of the wheel I had a better chance of grabbing the handle running it out safely. Its also good for me to learn the pushback feeling when you hit top speed. Just find a big flat empty parking lot and practice, practice, practice. 

As far as wobbles go, when I'm on my Onewheel moving fast and get some wobbles all I do is crouch down a bit and bend my knees and slowly brake and it instantly stops wobbles every time. Seems to be the same on an EUC, well for me at least. Maybe an experienced rider will chime in and give some advice on controlling EUC wheel wobbles.  

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1 hour ago, Sludog said:

As far as wobbles go, when I'm on my Onewheel moving fast and get some wobbles all I do is crouch down a bit and bend my knees and slowly brake and it instantly stops wobbles every time. Seems to be the same on an EUC, well for me at least. Maybe an experienced rider will chime in and give some advice on controlling EUC wheel wobbles.  

Congrats on your "zen" moment. You have reached a new level of enjoyment now and its GLORIOUS!

I prefer to carve to mitigate wobbles. Sometimes accellerating helps. I found a more forward stance helped prevent them, but braking to stop them is some dicey stuff. Once i resist the urge to try and stop wobbles by slowing down (depends on speed) I learned to NOT overreact and just BARELY change my direction. Of course, whatever works for you, THATS what you do! TONS of topics about this very thing if you browse the pages.

Lastly: Welcome to the dark side where specs matter and nosedives arent common!:smartass:

Edited by ShanesPlanet
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4 hours ago, SdotS said:

home and checked tire press. Was at 20 psi.. brought it up to 35-37 psi

Try 30 or 32 psi it will be more stable especially for learning 👍  that's my ideal pressure I'm about 200lbs

Edited by stephen
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12 hours ago, SdotS said:

Was at 20 psi.. brought it up to 35-37 psi as i seen on youtube.

This is a big problem actually: people buy an EUC and try to ride it without checking the tire pressure. Often the tires are close to being flat.

Edited by erk1024
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9 hours ago, Sludog said:

As far as wobbles go

Weirdly, these just go away with experience. A good way to reduce wobbles is to stand a bit straighter. You knees should always be bent so you can soak up bumps, but how much they are bent makes a difference. This also helps with acceleration and braking wobbles. 

You might also experiment with foot position. If you're too far back, then you have to put extra pressure on the front of your feet, and that extra pressure can lead to wobbles. 

As you gain experience, wobbles just tend to go away. Not sure if that's just more leg strength, or your brain figures out how to dampen them out.

Edited by erk1024
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10 hours ago, erk1024 said:

Weirdly, these just go away with experience. A good way to reduce wobbles is to stand a bit straighter. You knees should always be bent so you can soak up bumps, but how much they are bent makes a difference. This also helps with acceleration and braking wobbles. 

You might also experiment with foot position. If you're too far back, then you have to put extra pressure on the front of your feet, and that extra pressure can lead to wobbles. 

As you gain experience, wobbles just tend to go away. Not sure if that's just more leg strength, or your brain figures out how to dampen them out.

Thank you very much for your feed back.. i did notice today, by the way toured almost the entire city, traffic and all lol so def. found my euc legs. After 3 hrs straight practicing and carving.. EXTREME wobble appeared while i was going down hill with some speed. SCARY AS HELL LOL . Lady watched the whole thing lmaooo. I just didnt fight it AND tried to stay on... it diminished as i slowed and changed posture... ( felt like riding a fukin enraged bull )lmfao but at that moment of extreme wobble dont think u can really do anything. Its like u freeze and try not to fly off. AND I MEAN BUCKING WOBBLE, did notice DIFF. VARIATIONS of wobble,  at different times which tmo have a lot to do with my feet placement... always a bit diff. Due to novice riding while, mounting 

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18 hours ago, stephen said:

Try 30 or 32 psi it will be more stable especially for learning 👍  that's my ideal pressure I'm about 200lbs

Thanks sounds like a plan.. right now riding at about 36. Will try that.. super excited... popped my euc cherry lmao.. toured almost entire city in and out of traffic. Stop signs, red lights, the whole deal.  Feeling really comfy. Did notice tho. Quite difficult to increase speed after i hit 25 mph. Like i almost cant press on pedals hard enough to speed up.... ( fyi no power pads on, just wheel with rollnz body guard cover ). I became comfortable with using my right foot slightly forward, and bend that leg to press pedal with ball of my foot to accelerate as opposed to leaning entire body.... feel like leaning out right would leave me vulnerable especially in NYC type of streets, traffic and people everywhere lol 

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18 hours ago, ShanesPlanet said:

Congrats on your "zen" moment. You have reached a new level of enjoyment now and its GLORIOUS!

I prefer to carve to mitigate wobbles. Sometimes accellerating helps. I found a more forward stance helped prevent them, but braking to stop them is some dicey stuff. Once i resist the urge to try and stop wobbles by slowing down (depends on speed) I learned to NOT overreact and just BARELY change my direction. Of course, whatever works for you, THATS what you do! TONS of topics about this very thing if you browse the pages.

Lastly: Welcome to the dark side where specs matter and nosedives arent common!:smartass:

Thanks Shane! Yeah i did manage to get the hang of riding after 3 hrs of serious practice... a lot to learn but man, i road almost the entire city, traffic, lights, stop signs, and people everywhere... i did notice inwas able to calm most wobbles with ease and confidence until the damn BULL SHOWED ITSELF going down hill... wow that was nuts.. i just fought to stay on the wheel.. and road it out.. may be foot placement, as im still a novice, and mount differently often .. we will see 

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5 hours ago, SdotS said:

Thanks sounds like a plan.. right now riding at about 36. Will try that.. super excited... popped my euc cherry lmao.. toured almost entire city in and out of traffic. Stop signs, red lights, the whole deal.  Feeling really comfy. Did notice tho. Quite difficult to increase speed after i hit 25 mph. Like i almost cant press on pedals hard enough to speed up.... ( fyi no power pads on, just wheel with rollnz body guard cover ). I became comfortable with using my right foot slightly forward, and bend that leg to press pedal with ball of my foot to accelerate as opposed to leaning entire body.... feel like leaning out right would leave me vulnerable especially in NYC type of streets, traffic and people everywhere lol 

You've adopted a good stance but 25mph is enough for now don't get over confident especially if you haven't sorted them wobbles out ,seems like your hooked on the euc life now 😊

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8 hours ago, SdotS said:

Thanks sounds like a plan.. right now riding at about 36. Will try that.. super excited... popped my euc cherry lmao.. toured almost entire city in and out of traffic. Stop signs, red lights, the whole deal.  Feeling really comfy. Did notice tho. Quite difficult to increase speed after i hit 25 mph. Like i almost cant press on pedals hard enough to speed up.... ( fyi no power pads on, just wheel with rollnz body guard cover ). I became comfortable with using my right foot slightly forward, and bend that leg to press pedal with ball of my foot to accelerate as opposed to leaning entire body.... feel like leaning out right would leave me vulnerable especially in NYC type of streets, traffic and people everywhere lol 

Yes this is the problem when riding without pads at high speed. We are leaning so much off the front of the wheel that it feels scary... but this is one way or another the required posture for getting up to high speed. Hitting a pothole with this posture means the wheel will slow down but our bodies will continue. With pads we get a new problem and that is when hitting a pothole we will fall into the pads and thus torque the wheel. Riding beyond beeps with pads and accidentally torquing the wheel can cause an overlean.

Yesterday I was riding my Nikola and I simply wasn't willing to lean forward too much so I topped out at 58kmh with some effort.

All in all it's good to hear that you have a high sense of self preservation. It will keep you safe for a long time.

Also... my friend Sebastian has a riding weight of 225lbs and we set his PSI to 28. He was riding at 32 and I saw him riding and wobbling about like Bambi. This is with the standard CST C-1488 tyre. Once he put his knobby CST C-186 on we lowered to 25 PSI but that is a higher tyre. 

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  • 1 month later...

I liked just going back and forth with it while under a ledge I could hang from.  I learned the basic physics of the thing without denting anything.

In a doorway with a little bump is good too.

Just stay on the thing and be happy.  The muscle memory will develop. 

Just keep pushing it forward when safe and reel back the riskiness when not safe.

 

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This is my beginning of riding an EUC:

I used a fence to let me mount and move the EUC, rolling along getting the feel of it and getting used to making it move forward with my body weight.  You can see in the video where I started letting go of the fence and then when I just rode away from the fence, after that I just practised mounting and riding without needing the fence any more.

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On 12/28/2020 at 7:46 PM, KiwiMark said:

This is my beginning of riding an EUC:

I used a fence to let me mount and move the EUC, rolling along getting the feel of it and getting used to making it move forward with my body weight.  You can see in the video where I started letting go of the fence and then when I just rode away from the fence, after that I just practised mounting and riding without needing the fence any more.

You, my man, just learned how to free mount a EUC faster than any beginner I have ever heard of. To go from mounting with the help of a fence to free mounting in the middle of a grass field roughly 6-minutes later I think might set a new world record...

Being able to take off from a stand still with nothing to hold onto was one of the last things for me to get comfortable with in my learning curve. After I got going I was always OK and learned that pretty quickly, but mounting and getting feet positioned on the pedals the way I wanted them without holding onto something, that came much later.

Good job!  :thumbup:

Edited by Bridgeboy
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For MOST of us mere mortals, I would strongly suggest NOT using chain link fencing. Always a slim chance you will grab into the fence and it goes badly for fingers at the very least. COngrats on picking it up so quickly Kiwi. I REALLY feel like I've seen this before?

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1 hour ago, Bridgeboy said:

You, my man, just learned how to free mount a EUC faster than any beginner I have ever heard of. To go from mounting with the help of a fence to free mounting in the middle of a grass field roughly 6-minutes later I think might set a new world record...

I'd probably done 15-20 minutes mucking around holding the fence (didn't video the whole time).  I'd watched videos and knew I needed to lean the wheel over so that when I lifted the other foot off the ground it wouldn't tip over the other way.  The fence work was essential for getting the hang of moving forward because there is no point in mounting the wheel if you are not also getting the wheel rolling forward - you would just lose balance because you would not be moving.  What the video doesn't show is how hard that first day was, I was dripping in sweat and had to strip off my mesh jacket and gloves and helmet - I was knackered after that ~1 hour of learning!

Hour 2 (the next day) was all free-mounting the wheel and riding, but not feeling like I had very precise control over where I went (vaguely left or vaguely right was fine, just not very exact).  It was the 3rd hour (day 3) when i began picking a path and being able to ride along it (mainly between singles and doubles lines on a tennis court) and I felt like I had made huge progress on that day.  After day 3 it was down to practise, practise and of course more practise.

Riding an EUC isn't hard, but it does take some learning and practise to get the hang of mounting & riding these things.  It took me longer to learn to drive (manual car) than to ride my RS.  I've got the next 5 days off work and there are some cycle trails that I'm planning to go explore.  The other day I rode for over an hour and by the end of that I was starting to feel riding the EUC was close to natural, that made me VERY happy.  If I can get in another 60+ km of riding over the next few days then I'm sure it will improve my confidence and competence by quite a lot.

In short - learn to ride, it may be tough at first but you'll get it.  After that, just practise as much as you can and it will all become easier and more comfortable.

This is day/hour 5 where I had realised that I really needed more practise to get better at mounting & dismounting:

I did a lot more starting and stopping on day/hour 6, 7 & 8 as well.  It is good to be able to stop and step off the wheel without dropping it, so practising is really important.  Sometimes there are people watching you and you prefer to not make an idiot of yourself, with practise you can look like you are competent!  I think that after learning to ride everything just keeps on getting better, more rewarding and more fun.  I love having my hands free, unlike when riding my scooter where taking one hand off the handlebars to adjust my helmet led to my only crash (I was going around 55kph at the time).

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3 hours ago, Bridgeboy said:

You, my man, just learned how to free mount a EUC faster than any beginner I have ever heard of. To go from mounting with the help of a fence to free mounting in the middle of a grass field roughly 6-minutes later I think might set a new world record...

Whoops - double post when site was having problems.

Edited by KiwiMark
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  • 1 month later...

Hello everyone...

need some help lol.. Created a new topic... regarding TILT BACK...

 what’s wrong with my wheel lol.. I can read my topic I would appreciate the help.. alittle worried ..

pretty new wheel 

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  • 6 months later...

Gyroscopic reactions don't play much of a role for balancing an EUC (or a bicycle or motorcycle), but the key point of the initial post is the effect of speed, that once at or above some speed depending on the EUC, it becomes much more stable (explained in detail below).

The other key point is you have to steer the EUC into the direction of fall.

At very slow speeds, the simplest way to steer and also avoid pedal scrape is to flail arms left to steer right and vice versa called yaw steer. Example video of arm flail | yaw steer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ro3o8U9uZeU&t=57s

Other than very slow speeds, a common way to steer is to move the inner foot down and the outer foot up to lean the EUC into the direction to turn, called tilt steer. When leaned, depending on tire parameters (diameter, profile, ...), the EUC will tend to follow a circular path, the radius of the turn depending on the amount of lean and tire parameters, and mostly independent of speed. So at slower speeds, the EUC leans more than the rider, at higher speeds, the EUC leans less than the rider, and there some speed in between where the EUC leans about the same as the rider. At the speed when lean angle of rider and EUC is about the same, it's almost self correcting and very stable. Example of tilt steer at higher speed where the rider leans more than the EUC, and other than leaning, the rider is almost motionless (no arm movement or body twisting), with very smooth turns:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hWMwK3Cfs0

For tilt steering, it should be noted that when a rider leans inwards, the rider is initially leaning the EUC outwards, a form of counter-steering to cause the rider to lean inwards. If a rider is using tilt steering to correct for a fall, the rider is already leaning inwards (due to the fall), so there is no counter-steering involved, just a steering correction with almost no delay.

A third method for moderate speed is to twist the upper body into the turn, then follow with the legs. However, this is a form of counter-steering, which is not good if the rider is already leaning due to falling, since initially it increases the unwanted leaning even further, and it delays the reaction to correct for a fall. Some riders use a combination of body twist and till steer (if balanced and not falling). In the videos I've seen, most recommend using tilt steer as the primary way to turn, unless the speed is so slow that pedal scrape is an issue, in which case yaw-steer is recommended.

 

 

Edited by rcgldr
speed and how to steer
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  • 2 months later...

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