Foot placement

[TheBladeOfHades]

 

 

Best tips for foot fatigue and advanced riding. 

 

With a EUC every tip boils down to foot placement. 

Having only foot plates to join rider and PEV the placement of your mass is key to your abilities. 

The pivot of your foot should align with the pivot of your euc, for many of us that leaves toes hanging into the void, a scary sight to look down on riding a one wheel machine. 

The further back you place your feet the further forward you need to lean over the axis of the wheel to provide balance. This has many side effects such as foot fatigue and speed wobble. 

Keeping your centre mass over the axis instead of balancing your mass over the axis is the key to becoming a more confident rider.

Your agility at low and high speed will immediately improve along with hill climbing skill. 

From this groundwork learning to ride with one heel off the foot plate is next. Lifting the weight off  of your heel will essentially improve your reaction time to sleight changes in the trail surface. 

Riding with two flat feet will localize reactions to your knees, lifting one heel spreads that movement across your entire lower body allowing your muscles to work as a group. 

To advance from this point the ability to switch between both left and right as a control foot along with the confidence to move your feet around at any speed on the foot plates will put you among the elite riders. 

Hope this helps anyone looking to improve their experience. 

 

 

 

[mrelwood]

Welcome to the forum, and thanks for the tips. Although, I might’ve misunderstood some since I disagree with a few.

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Keeping your centre mass over the axis instead of balancing your mass over the axis is the key to becoming a more confident rider.

Your agility at low and high speed will immediately improve along with hill climbing skill. 

A human being can only lean backwards very little since there is nothing to stop you from falling. Or forefoot does that when leaning forwards. On an EUC, the ability to brake fast is extremely crucial, much more important than to accelerate fast, climb hills etc. That’s why the neutral posture must already be a small lean forward. Ideally so that you can brake at least as fast and with the same amount of confidence and control that you can accelerate. This places the CoG behind the axle when standing in a neutral position

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Lifting the weight off  of your heel will essentially improve your reaction time to sleight changes in the trail surface. 

Riding with two flat feet will localize reactions to your knees, lifting one heel spreads that movement across your entire lower body allowing your muscles to work as a group. 

I’m not sure how lifting the heel would do that. What it does quite quickly is cause foot fatigue and a collapsing of the wheel control. Even before that it makes the wheel tilt on bumps and other obstacles, since your feet will offer a different amount of resistance for the wheel to bounce upwards.

[TheBladeOfHades]

Confidence in your ability is key, Along with your own personal CoG. The act of bending your knees pushes your CoG forward, so ankle in the middle of the footplate is not exactly where you want to stand but having your heel hanging off the footplate will only hinder your progression as a rider (smaller pedals excepted) regular breaking is still easy and any emergency braking should be done by squatting behind your wheel. 
lifting a heel off the pedal is not just something to make advanced riders look cool, it is a proven tactic for riding an euc at speed and cornering with confidence. 
But this is by no means the only way to ride, just tips to help those looking to advance their abilities beyond just commuting. Obviously muscle control is a big factor in learning any new skill so practice makes perfect. 

[mrelwood]

 

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The act of bending your knees pushes your CoG forward

Only if you bend beyond the range of movement of your ankles, lifting your heels up.

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having your heel hanging off the footplate will only hinder your progression as a rider

Kuji rides with equal hang at the heel and at the toes. I can’t see much hindrance in his riding skills and abilities.

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emergency braking should be done by squatting behind your wheel.

Which is not possible to do if you fall backwards. I’d suggest you align your ankle at the center of the axle, as well as centering your shoe front to back, and compare the braking you are able to achieve on each. The difference will be obvious.

[TheBladeOfHades]

This is fun 😀 

any bend in your knees moves your CoG forward, you can test it easy enough by just squatting slowly as you feel the pressure move from heel to toe as you bend.  

Kuji is an elite rider who can easily move his foot placement and can switch between flat foot and control foot. He also rides with one foot forward and one foot back. If you pay attention to his videos you will notice his flat foot more forward on the pedal and his control foot goes wherever as it only needs to balance the wheel left to right. almost every elite rider On YT does this from Fantomas to Wrong Way. 
 

A normal slowdown to stop at a light or for pedestrians is easy no matter where your feet are, putting your CoG behind the axle is a simple maneuver that foot placement does not change. Your speed and stopping power are all controlled by upper body placement over the wheel. Having your feet back on the pedals might make you feel you can break better because you can add more downforce to the back of the pedal but your movement from accelerated to breaking is a slower process to start stopping. 
 

I understand every rider is as different as their style. Your own use determines how you ride. As a commuter or path rider your skills are never tested past a smooth ride, if you push the limits in the woods, over jumps, around obstacles and up and down steep inclines the faster reaction time and better maneuvering is key to success. 

I personally have taught two people how to ride, and both were comfortable enough after 15 minutes to go on a ride with me around the city. So my technique worked for them and has brought both close to my skill level very quickly. 

In conclusion anybody can ride a euc and have fun and like any sport there will be players and pros, the original intention of this post was to help those looking to excel and take some pressure off your toes by putting your body in a more natural/neutral riding position.
no one has to ride this way, but the pros far out weigh any cons. 
riding with two flat feet compared to riding with a control foot and a strong foot is exactly where the skill gap resides in the EUC community, moving your strong foot forward takes your body weight off your toes and allows for longer rides without your toes aching.

i suggest to anyone looking to improve their skill watch some video’s of others riding, watch how they ride and what they can do on a wheel, then decide what type of rider you want to be. Take some time to understand the physics of not only riding but your own body mass. For every person it will be different, from shoe sizes to body type. 
 

 

 

 

[mrelwood]

 

9 hours ago, TheBladeOfHades said:

any bend in your knees moves your CoG forward

When I squat while riding, my speed stays the same. If the CoG would move forward or backward, the speed would change.

9 hours ago, TheBladeOfHades said:

a control foot and a strong foot

Oh, you didn't mention earlier that you were talking about offset foot positioning. It's of course a totally different game.

Your posts seem to concentrate on techniques that you feel are the "key to success" and "confidence". As you also mention, every rider is different, so I don't believe these to be aspects that could be labeled as universally better. They seem to have done a lot for you, and that's great! Finding the steps to improve one's personal style is a great richness of this hobby!

[TheBladeOfHades]

Pretty sure I talked about a control foot in my first post, but that is irrelevant.

i appreciate your help in refining my post. no technique is perfect or universal, those that excel have pushed their own limits to achieve personal goals.

my personal goal is to provide others with my own experience to help the community grow in mass and skill. 
having a library of ideas and techniques is the best thing is as riders can share with those looking to learn. 

[TheBladeOfHades]

I would like to share a great video showing a great rider using a foot forward style. 
In the first part of the video you  can see his feet forward on the pedals with toes off the front, after he starts hitting jumps his feet float around a bit. 

 

[Violinfun]

On 5/22/2020 at 1:53 PM, TheBladeOfHades said:

 

 

Best tips for foot fatigue and advanced riding. 

 

With a EUC every tip boils down to foot placement. 

Having only foot plates to join rider and PEV the placement of your mass is key to your abilities. 

The pivot of your foot should align with the pivot of your euc, for many of us that leaves toes hanging into the void, a scary sight to look down on riding a one wheel machine. 

The further back you place your feet the further forward you need to lean over the axis of the wheel to provide balance. This has many side effects such as foot fatigue and speed wobble. 

Keeping your centre mass over the axis instead of balancing your mass over the axis is the key to becoming a more confident rider.

Your agility at low and high speed will immediately improve along with hill climbing skill. 

From this groundwork learning to ride with one heel off the foot plate is next. Lifting the weight off  of your heel will essentially improve your reaction time to sleight changes in the trail surface. 

Riding with two flat feet will localize reactions to your knees, lifting one heel spreads that movement across your entire lower body allowing your muscles to work as a group. 

To advance from this point the ability to switch between both left and right as a control foot along with the confidence to move your feet around at any speed on the foot plates will put you among the elite riders. 

Hope this helps anyone looking to improve their experience. 

 

 

 

 thanks for posting this...new rider here having issues with foot pain and this really helped a lot.  As you stated the wheel feels much more planted and less squirrly.  Airwheel x8 so already kind of twitchy.  Still experimenting with this a bit but when my feet are in the sweet spot it is much less painful.  the only thing I noticed it is a little more difficult to carve than before because my legs don't have as much contact on the body because of being more forward.  I did notice on steep downhills I need to shift my feet back to get better braking.  Hope this helps others that may be trying this.