The benefits of riding on your heels

[TheBladeOfHades]

I’m not sure who might ride with there weight on their heels if anyone at this time, but I’m going to try and change that. 
if you have tried out and we’re maybe successful in implementing a foot forward stance into your ride, here is the next step for you. 

now that your centre of gravity is more aligned with the pedal you can do some amazing things, first on the list is riding with your weight on your heels.

heel riding is very easy to do with a centred heel to ball foot placement, once you are comfortable standing tall on the wheel at low speeds, simply squat slightly to use your knees as a weight hanging off the front. This can be with a vertical placed spine or diagonal one balanced anchor to helmet. 
Here is a wheel scenario I would like to play out. 
rolling down the road with whatever stance you are comfy with

(|)____,____ ___

let this represent your wheel with its ability to keep itself upright as the vertical mark inside the "wheel". Coming up there is a little bump and a pothole. 
 

_____(/)____ __

as you hit the bump unprepared you wheel axis dips forward slightly before it recovers, same can be said for the pothole coming up.

so what happens to a rider should they get caught unawares. 
I will start with the worst case scenario, if you ride with your weight on your toes the pedal drops away from you slightly but you are disconnected from the wheel for an instant. Even the most seasoned rider will have their heart rate speed up. 

now with a heel weight the footplate acts to save you instead. 
if the front of the pedal dips down and back then the back tilts up and forward, this is the more natural way to hit a bump sending you up and forward just like a bike, scooter, skateboard etc. You take each shock in the knees and your weight is always behind the bump at point of impact. 
potholes, speed bumps, curb transitions all become worries about the wheel hitting hard and no longer the thought of slowing down and paying attention when you go over those unexpected obstacles. 
 

I honestly cannot with greater words express the amazing feeling and control you can get from a foot forward/heel weight, style of riding.

in the past two month since actually looking into the dynamics of the unicycle, I have progressed from a confident rider to someone who can do anything land based on a euc. 
everything becomes so natural and all aspects drastically improve except for acceleration (if you need it you know how to get it) you can still easily reach top speed with ease but not at Kuji or Fantomas speeds but you will get there safely and comfortably. 
bumpy ground is truly the shining star of this style, to prove my point I rode beside my son while making eye contact down a 300 foot stretch of bulldozer and dump truck ruts going different angles. 
he immediately looked away to watch the chaos Ruts in front of him as I sped off looking back over my shoulder on a V10. I honestly could of done the entire stretch eyes closed. My only scare was a 6” chunk of earth I bounced over but my heel pressure instantly slowed the wheel as I hit and cut through/bounced over Kuji style, but my eyes were fixed on the horizon to prove to myself what was happening. 
I now ride either duck foot or out on the edges if I’m out on smooth pavement, I can carve like VT and break as fast as Fantomas or Wrong Way and truly haven’t had a scary moment except for running the mountain bike jump tracks hidden in the woods in my city. I have suffered sliding on sand littered in the corners of turns on the trail, hitting unsuspected bumps while carving and at speed, every time I recovered instantly and naturally on my heels. Potholes are still a bit scary because the wheel drops away from your feet before hitting hard in the front, gives me the most amount of instability but I still recover before I knew it happened. My main concern every time was for the wheel rim.

in conclusion please learn to ride with your weight based in both or at the least One of your heels at all times, after my couple months practice I have move from a three point style, to using a heel to ball of foot stance but still riding on the ball of my foot or three point stance, while riding slowly chatting one day it all clicked as I squatted in my stance and felt both heels still tight to the footplates as I accelerated away.

since that point I have switched to a squatting style of riding I call my SasSquat 😜 mainly because of the sticker on the side of Bigfoot on a unicycle. 
I have tested myself against most YT EUC personalities and my only barrier is the 45kph top speed on my V10.(tiltback is comfy when you ride heel weighted, but I pushed the limits for science and safety) 

please understand just because you can push the limits, doesn’t mean you should. I pushed my wheel to every limit it had to make sure I had a solid solution to safety for other riders before I tried to implement it. 
best of luck to everyone, stay safe.

 

 

[Wayne Rosa]

I am 57 and today was my 3rd attempt, previously I had done 2 15 minute training - by myself. 

Today in a more open area, I tried just that, putting my feet a little further forward and low and behold I went 60 meters. 

During the session of 30 minutes a travelled a few times 100 meters, going from bitumen to grass, 20 meters bitumen 60 meters grass and back to bitumen. Yes I am excited. Will go out again this afternoon, weather permitting. By the way I have rediscovered muscles I had forgotten about 20 years ago. :-) 

[Violinfun]

On 5/31/2020 at 6:12 PM, TheBladeOfHades said:

I’m not sure who might ride with there weight on their heels if anyone at this time, but I’m going to try and change that. 
if you have tried out and we’re maybe successful in implementing a foot forward stance into your ride, here is the next step for you. 

now that your centre of gravity is more aligned with the pedal you can do some amazing things, first on the list is riding with your weight on your heels.

heel riding is very easy to do with a centred heel to ball foot placement, once you are comfortable standing tall on the wheel at low speeds, simply squat slightly to use your knees as a weight hanging off the front. This can be with a vertical placed spine or diagonal one balanced anchor to helmet. 
Here is a wheel scenario I would like to play out. 
rolling down the road with whatever stance you are comfy with

(|)____,____ ___

 

I will give this a shot.  I am learning on an Airwheel and getting a fair amount of pain and learning to shift my feet around and was learning a little duckfoot riding.   I hope this style helps with the pain.