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Slowest I can ride is about walking speed. 5km would take a while. I find that riding at minimum controllable speed is actually good practice, as it requires maintaining balance and hones the "emergency body shifts" that are part of EUC control. OK, I accept the challenge. When my wheel is back in one piece (it's in about 20 pieces right now), part of my test ride will include a significant distance riding at "minimum control speed."

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51 minutes ago, svenomous said:

Slowest I can ride is about walking speed. 5km would take a while. I find that riding at minimum controllable speed is actually good practice, as it requires maintaining balance and hones the "emergency body shifts" that are part of EUC control. OK, I accept the challenge. When my wheel is back in one piece (it's in about 20 pieces right now), part of my test ride will include a significant distance riding at "minimum control speed."

 

:shock2:

Story time!

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I've been doing this.  Sometimes I take my dog for a walk at her speed which involves lots of stopping and sniffing but it's been a really good drill for me to work on my low speed control and balance work. 

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15 hours ago, Arbolest said:

 

:shock2:

Story time!

Check out my post (yesterday) in KingSong subforum.  I'm in the middle of replacing the whole inner shell.  Yesterday I got everything off the old shell, and today I'm working on putting everything on the new one.  I'm taking a break to browse the web and remind myself of the proper way to adjust the lift sensor on the trolley handle, since I just reinstalled the handle and have to torque the sensor screws next.

I'll report back on the experiment, including the lowest speed I can manage without getting too wobbly.  I don't do backward (yet), so I can't stop completely and just motor back and forth as I've seen some do in videos.  Maybe it's time to teach myself that, too.

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Can't do it captain! At 1kmh of stop/go or steady, I get bored in about.......  wait, what was I saying?

Oh yeah, you were wanting me to race an ant and lose..... nah, be funny to watch tho..

Edited by ShanesPlanet
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My wheel's unavailable for a few days, but I will try this, at least for as long as I can without falling asleep from boredom :). It takes quite a bit of skill to move at a slow walking pace, or even a bit slower, so I don't think it's a waste of time.

Btw yesterday, for the first time, I felt ready to give going backward a try. I committed myself mentally, slowed to a stop as if to dismount, and maintained the lean to start moving backward. Worked on the first attempt, but after a foot I was panicking because I wasn't used to it, and couldn't see well behind me, and whatever other excuses I could think of, so I quickly dismounted.  Did it a few more times, but it was getting dark, so that fun ended. Super-slow riding and backward riding are next on my training schedule, once I have the wheel working again!

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23 minutes ago, svenomous said:

My wheel's unavailable for a few days, but I will try this, at least for as long as I can without falling asleep from boredom :). It takes quite a bit of skill to move at a slow walking pace, or even a bit slower, so I don't think it's a waste of time.

Btw yesterday, for the first time, I felt ready to give going backward a try. I committed myself mentally, slowed to a stop as if to dismount, and maintained the lean to start moving backward. Worked on the first attempt, but after a foot I was panicking because I wasn't used to it, and couldn't see well behind me, and whatever other excuses I could think of, so I quickly dismounted.  Did it a few more times, but it was getting dark, so that fun ended. Super-slow riding and backward riding are next on my training schedule, once I have the wheel working again!

Don't look down and be mindful of how easily you wind up going really fast backwards. I think that once you get good at forwards, it merely mind over matter for backwards. Its almost the same exact thing, as tilting left is still left and tilting right is still right. Having one wheel means that theres no 'opposite' lean or turn as you would see on a car or bicycle. Im not great at it, but going backwards is a LOT easier than the original learning of forwards. :roflmao:

Edited by ShanesPlanet
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@ShanesPlanet As someone who tried for 1h to ride backwards just recently, I completely disagree. :) My reflexes are completely wrong and do require retraining in order to ride backwards.
Is it gonna be faster? Yeah, maybe like 50% of the original forward learning time. But it's definitely a different skill.

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16 minutes ago, atdlzpae said:

@ShanesPlanet As someone who tried for 1h to ride backwards just recently, I completely disagree. :) My reflexes are completely wrong and do require retraining in order to ride backwards.
Is it gonna be faster? Yeah, maybe like 50% of the original forward learning time. But it's definitely a different skill.

Keeps it interesting that we all see things slightly differently but usually wind up in the same place. I spent about 20 minutes focusing on it REALLY hard and didnt make much progress. At one point i quit thinking about it, quit looking down and it just 'clicked'. THEN I realized how scary fast it all seems so soon. Keep in mind, this is on the mten and its like cheating. It took another 30minutes to do it on the 18L and i still cant reliably switch directions, i have to start in reverse. At least even the learning is fun too! Im sure you're moments away from another big step in control. Since your smallest wheel is a 16", i'd imagine youre tackling it in a much bigger curve of difficulty than i have to. Ima try the reverse 360 thing again, it was fun and i can do better.

Edited by ShanesPlanet
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Everyone is different, definitely. Yesterday I found I couldn't start backward from a standstill, but I could decelerate from forward movement and transition into backward movement (at least for a couple of feet of it, before chickening out). This is the opposite of @ShanesPlanet's experience, where he has to start from a standstill. We're all wired a little differently I guess, and that's great because otherwise we'd all be too similar and life would be boring.

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So I tried this experiment several times. I loose interest after about a minute and go full speed. I can only slow down to 3 mph with intermittent slight pauses. 

This has helped me see I have a long way to go to become proficient. But I'm not falling as much as I use to!

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On 5/3/2020 at 4:04 PM, Boofheadeu said:

5km is not reasonable. 1 kilometer as slow as u can ride. that is the challenge!!!!!

Even that will take like half an hour. Nah, no thanks.

An earlier challenge was to ride a 6m (20ft) distance as slowly as possible, and measure the time. I'd start with that!

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3 hours ago, atdlzpae said:

Only half an hour? Please don't tell me your lowest speed is 10km/h, that's a jogging speed. :-)

I'm fairly certain an average unicyclist can sustain 2 or 3km/h without problems.

I was talking about the revised challenge of 1km.

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When you practice motorcycle driving to become a licensed driver (Europe), 50% of the time you're doing snailpace in a parking lot. That's what you need to stay safe in traffic. It gives you time to pick the right lines and go with the flow without abruptions.

I used the same principle when I started learning euc riding 4 years ago. When my wife walks to/from work I sometimes accompany her and try to ride alongside without twitching and moving around too much. 

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On 5/9/2020 at 5:18 AM, mrelwood said:

Even that will take like half an hour. Nah, no thanks.

An earlier challenge was to ride a 6m (20ft) distance as slowly as possible, and measure the time. I'd start with that!

Does coming to a balanced stop disqualify you immediately? I could see the hardest part, is trying to ride that crawl (that just barely constitutes rolling), w/o stopping. I could see it now... anything under 60fps on video, aint good enough. :roflmao:

Edited by ShanesPlanet
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6 hours ago, ShanesPlanet said:

Does coming to a balanced stop disqualify you immediately?

That would be awesome: balance motionless for 20 seconds then race off, and still go the slowest per short distance. 

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When we talked about the pros of a wider tire with my brother a year ago, just for laughs he tried if he could stay on a stopped 16x2.5” wheel. It took quite some acrobatics (at which he’s very good at) and hand throwing, but he was able to stay on for several seconds!

 But no, unfortunately the rules for the 20 feet contest do not allow stopping or reversing.

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