How Long Did it Take You?

[IronGoos3]

I know this has been asked before but not in this way... So hopefully more realistic expectations 

 How long did it take you to feel confident on the wheel. I know this is very subjective but I'm trying to quantify it a bit better so it's not so vague.

 I define confident as moving and feeling comfortable without any fear of dropping your wheel. Based on the below questions let's hear your journey!

 

Able to move forward 100 yards

Able to free mount without issue

Able to make an emergency stop

Able to execute 5 circle turns 

Able to complete 5 figure eights 

Edited May 23, 2021 by IronGoos3

[OldFartRides]

Referring to my ride log that I started on 3/2 of this year, I see that on my ninth day I rode about 15 miles in the morning and 8 miles in the afternoon. The two previous days I was riding for an hour at a time. So while it seemed so challenging four or five days in, I must have been feeling fairly comfortable to ride across town to pay my phone bill and then go to the store for a few things.

Best,

[.....]

I'd say about 3 months to get most of the list. Maybe a year+ (1000miles) to get 'emergency' stopping. TBF, I just ride, I typically don't make a point to practice anything in particular. Oddly enough, I can stop so fast on my sherm, I get overpower beeps, yet I still wobble like mad when I try emergency braking on my beloved 18XL. As for being comfy, it was definitely a year.  I'm nearing 2 years and 1500 miles now(hey, some of us have OTHER hobbies too), still not perfectly comfy every time I ride. I think it's WAY too subjective, as I've seen too many adults with no athletic or balance background, pick it up in mere minutes. I can say this, Im the best damn rider in MY neighborhood! I made a vid of the reverse mten challenge and its fun to see how terrible I was, yet still having so much fun! I honestly don't compare myself with others, nor do I keep track of how long or how much progress. Once I was able to ride at all, I just quit worrying and started enjoying. My most recent favorite task was when I attempted something on a whim, with no real hope for success, and it worked! I guess if you aren't focusing on developing and merely enjoying the ride, youll eventually surprise yourself. Personally, I won't ruin the joy of this hobby, by placing much for goals or trying too hard. My initial goal was to ride to a gas station down the street. Conquered that, now my goal is to simply ride to another town. No timeline, loose agenda, perfect!

Edited May 22, 2021 by ShanesPlanet

[Roadpower]

Probably about two years due to some critical mistakes on my part when starting out such as wrong wheel choices and not taking on the learning of the core skill of mounting dismounting. Then again I'm pretty critical of most things including myself until I see proofs fully fleshed out. Choice of wheel is a huge starting factor, the right size and weight can make or break your starting experiences.

[RockyTop]

Me -Getting it done? two weeks. Feeling confident? Three months. 

My wife - Two years, Just riding around comfortably - 3 months 

[Rehab1]

Comfortable is a bit subjective. Everyone gains their own sense of riding confidence at different intervals, some faster than others. Enjoy the learning curve. There is no standardized time frame. 

As for myself I avoid becoming too comfortable riding on unfamiliar roads or trails. 

[Unipsycho]

Totally depends on your existing balance and skills with new sports.  I have mountain unicycled my whole life, so I had those things listed in first 5 minutes of riding and comfortable in 30minutes except, emergency braking, took about 2 hours of practice to get that (I also very purposefully practicing max breaking, accelerating, skidding and backward riding in first hour).  That is all from muni skills for me. 

HOWEVER, I also taught my 71yr dad in about 30 minutes to be comfortable to ride 100yrds with NO muni skills, so it doesn't take long if you really practice, it also helps to have someone who KNOWS how to teach to ride (I've taught dozens and dozens to pedal unicycle over the years).  He wasn't doing figure eights or circles in that time though yet, hopefully next visit with him.

I've taught another friend (no muni experience, but tons of active sports and balance) to ride it comfortably over 100m in just 10 minutes.  Circles and figure eights, maybe after another hour of practice or so, not there quite yet.

 

[Carl Svanfelt]

I hope you never get too confident with your wheel. Technology can always fail. You can also make mistakes when you ride it. It pays to always expect the impossible to happen.
If you maintain a feeling that something unpleasant can happen, this emotions will help you to also consider other peoples safety in the traffic. It helps you predict what kind of move a pedestrian or cyclist may do next.
Being too confident opens the way for an accident, as we can see in many videos produced by the members of the zigzag riders community.

[Edidas]

You should add another on your list 

"Able to free mount without issue"

Which I'm still struggle from time to time, and you do lot of mounting / dismounting at red lights, sometimes you didn't step on the pedal at the right spot, and I find it's harder to mount on a steep slope as well. 

[IronGoos3]

Great advice and I thank you all for your insight!

I don't want to go down the subjective rabbit hole as I know we all come from different experiences and skill levels  but should have made a point to add this disclaimer.

I like to think I'm realistic about things and most of us on this forum are early adopters and fascinated by new tech so we all understand how things can fail. Appreciate we can never be fully confident but again just looking to set a baseline for averages. If I'm quicker to pick it up, great! If later I know I'll get there. 

 

[Camenbert]

IMO every 100 km is a significant step.

Also your brain do some analyze about how to ride during the sleep.
At the beginning, every next day riding was looking easier.

Better do 5km every day first month, than 30km each sunday then..

[Rehab1]

3 hours ago, Camenbert said:

Also your brain do some analyze about how to ride during the sleep.

So true but I’m not exactly sure my brain works that way. 

 

Edited May 23, 2021 by Rehab1

[EUC Sharkman]

I learned on a Ninebot One E+ and it took four 1 hour sessions spaced out over 4 consecutive weekends.

 

• Session 1: Just standing on the thing with my wife supporting me for balance. I would hold her arm as she walked alongside me, and we basically just did little laps around an empty parking lot.
• Session 2: Similar to session 1, but in times that I could muster up the courage, I would let go of her arm. Usually ended up traveling about 5-10 yards before just hopping off. The E+ has really low pedals and the moment it scraped on the ground, I would bail for fear of falling.
• Session 3: Trying to free mount and smashing my shins. Honestly, this session was less about actually riding, and more about summoning the courage to get on the wheel and trust that it won’t just cause you to face plant! Occasionally, I’d go back to just doing laps again like in Session 1. On the very last attempt of the day, I decided that I wouldn’t bail. Just stay on it no matter what and do what had to be done to not fall, pedal scrapes or not. I finally was able to stay on and ride for a good 5 minutes. Finally it clicked. Every time it pedal scraped, I would do a fierce howl and twist my body in the direction I thought I’d fall, and it got me back on balance. Probably looked and sounded ridiculous, but I didn’t care...I was finally riding the wheel unassisted.
• Session 4: Putting it all together. Free mount and ride. Once I did it, I felt much more confident that I could do it again and maintain balance and try these other things like figure eights, braking, all that. After this session, I felt good to leave the parking lot and go on paved bike trails. I could turn, brake, speed up, dismount and mount enough, and at that point it was just about getting more experience so that it felt more natural.

 

Learning on my own was challenging but very rewarding. When I taught my daughter, I set up folding chairs on our street and had her do specific drills to practice aspects of balance, acceleration, braking, turning. I do think it’s much easier to learn with someone instructing you, observing and pointing out what you’re doing right, and what you need to correct. Also, having a wheel with a wider tire helps a lot with stability. 2.125” on the Ninebot vs. 2.5” on the MTen3 is a noticeable difference. My daughter learned in three 1 hour sessions spread over the course of 3 days.

Edited May 23, 2021 by TheSlyGiraffEV

[IronGoos3]

@TheSlyGiraffEVyour experience sounds very similar to mine in grasping some concepts, good to hear everyone’s unique learning curves and styles to riding.

43 minutes ago, TheSlyGiraffEV said:

Learning on my own was challenging but very rewarding. When I taught my daughter, I set up folding chairs on our street and had her do specific drills to practice aspects of balance, acceleration, braking, turning. I do think it’s much easier to learn with someone instructing you, observing and pointing out what you’re doing right, and what you need to correct. Also, having a wheel with a wider tire helps a lot with stability. 2.125” on the Ninebot vs. 2.5” on the MTen3 is a noticeable difference. My daughter learned in three 1 hour sessions spread over the course of 3 days.

How old is your daughter? Curious what the average young age to get a child on the wheel. Thinking about teaching my daughter but expect she’s too young.
 

 

[EUC Sharkman]

24 minutes ago, IronGoos3 said:

How old is your daughter? Curious what the average young age to get a child on the wheel. Thinking about teaching my daughter but expect she’s too young.
 

 

She is 7 years old, about 65 lbs. She first learned riding a OneWheel, then the MTen3. She prefers the MTen3 for the agility, but likes riding both.

[Rehab1]

1 hour ago, TheSlyGiraffEV said:

My daughter learned in three 1 hour sessions spread over the course of 3 days.

Very happy for you! Great family hobby. 

[FlyingWigs]

I'm on day 6 and just got home from my longest ride yet of 3.29 miles! I am doing better at mounting, but I really don't like being on the sidewalk close to a busy street (our sidewalk is only about 36 inches wide and attached to the street curb!) however when I got to the bicycle path it is so nice! 

I'm taking it easy and trying to get a little farther each time and get familiar with the paths along the streets I will be using when I can finally get all the way to my work. My apartment is up on a hill, so I will probably have to be sure to recharge at work so I have enough juice to get up it. 

[AtlasP]

I maintain that most riders can "learn to ride" basically within a week, and actually achieve core competency with reliable consistency/confidence (consistent mounting/dismounting/turns/etc, never dropping their wheel) within a few weeks to a month or two, or hundreds of miles but not requiring thousands. Of course there's always room to keep getting (much) better beyond that, but most people should be perfectly fine/confident within a few weeks to a month or two at most.

Edit: I do agree with others that riding context is an important consideration here. The above is written from the perspective of what it takes to use an EUC as a bicycle-class device/where and how most average people would use a bicycle (which according to metrics is the most common use case). If someone expects to ride an EUC more like a spandex-warrior or moped at higher speeds interspersed with traffic, doing so responsibly would have higher thresholds of at least several months and a thousand+ miles.

Edited November 12, 2021 by AtlasP

[yoos]

Beside confidence being subjective in general, it is also situation- and risk-dependent. I would be quite confident doing tight turns and eights in a maze of folding chairs, but I would never try these moves to filter through pedestrians. I am confident jumping off curbs, but I would not risk jumping a curb onto a road with cars in sight.

To me being confident does not mean I can 100% guarantee the intended outcome, it means that the chance of failure (multiplied by the severity of its consequences) is negligible. 

And to answer the original poll: I was confident doing your list of tricks on the empty, fenced basketball court after 3-4 hours of learning. I was confident riding on the countryside (no cars, rare pedestrians and bicycles) and deserted motocross trails after some 8 hours/ 30-40kms of experience. I was confident enough to slowly and defensively ride in the city (sidewalks and bicycle paths) after ~150 kms of offroad/contryside experience. 

I still refrain from joining traffic (or even bicycle lanes on streets, that are not physically (by some kind of barrier) separated from cars -- too often such bicycle lanes are violated by ignorant and sleepy cab drivers and illegally parked cars). I am not yet confident enough to circumvent such misparked vehicles by diving into regular traffic lanes. And the car traffic in Moscow is still too wild: fast (typically 40-60kph in the city center), wide (8 lanes in some places!) and hectic (cab drivers are the biggest danger!)

Edited May 24, 2021 by yoos

[Planemo]

3 hours ago, AtlasP said:

I maintain that most riders can "learn to ride" basically within a week, and actually achieve confident core competency (consistent mounting/dismounting/turns/etc and never dropping their wheel) within a few weeks to maybe a few months, or hundreds of miles but not thousands. Of course there's always room to keep getting much better beyond that, but most people should be perfectly fine/confident within a few weeks or months at most.

Agreed, I was in that bracket, as was my daughter. I would say we did about 50 miles each in total on grass in the back garden and park over say 10 hours (trying to keep  (V5F). There was no way either of us would have been confident hitting the pavement or even cycle lanes during this time. We practiced starting/stopping/mounting/dismounting/moving the wheel around whilst one foot still on the ground and eventually (still on grass) took the wheel up to it's max of around 15mph. I maintain that learning on grass was the best thing we did - more difficult than hard surfaces but meant no damage was caused to the wheel or us, and it meant that when we transitioned to a footpath (still within the park, and with no one around), it felt sooo much easier and confidence inspiring.

Only once we reached that point did we move onto 'regular' footpaths like beachfront promenades (nice and wide) and the occasional very quiet roads (back streets with likely zero traffic). After another 50 miles or so we were confident on those too. So around a 100 miles in I would say before we were confident to tackle all scenarios. Bear in mind that goalposts move as soon as speed increase, so when I got the Z10 I then had to take into account increased stopping distances etc and of course the wheel handled totally differently, to the point where it felt like I was almost starting again. After a few hundred miles on the Z I then got an MSX which again handled totally differently to the Z....you see where I'm going with this ....

Don't get me wrong, much of the basic core stuff learnt at low speed was transferrable across all the wheels, but I would say when things start going above 10 to 15mph you have to kinda re-learn stuff again. I have only ridden the Sherman around my garden and already it is indeed clear that is gonna be a bit of a learning curve after the MSX. Hence my speeds will be kept low and only gradually increase as and when I feel 100% in control at the current speed.

One thing I will say - smaller wheels are far twitchier than bigger ones. So if you can ride say a V5 or V8 with total confidence (including off road) you will be pleasantly surprised when you move up to a bigger wheel, discounting the 'adjustment' required as mentioned above. They will feel like a magic carpet even at speeds double what a V8 will do.

Sorry I realise I have rambled on waaay to much there, in a nutshell I would agree with AtlasP, around 100~300 miles on varying surfaces should make you proficient, along with say 20 hours riding. A lot of people will say they can 'ride' after much shorter periods, but I would question whether they are proficient. Not including kids who seem to nail it completely in about 3 minutes 

[5Cauac]

I've been riding for 5 months and can say I'm rather comfortable riding in all types of situations and terrain however, all that goes out the window if I am not wearing protective gear and wearing regular shoes.

I end up feeling like I'm back at week one.  

Gear has become my Super Suit. 

[Scottie]

I am the last one that would be considered worthy of preaching safety. After all, I am an old guy that refused to grow up ... at least grow up enough to pass on the fun instead of participate.

For me, I felt confident enough after a month of daily practice to be out and about riding around the town. But like others have said here, I controlled my risks by avoiding car traffic, and overly busy bicycle trails; choosing quieter back streets, etc. Now, it has been just under a year and a half, and confidence is reasonably high now that I know I can navigate most terrain obstacles, watch and listen for traffic, an so on. I don't drop the wheel anymore unless I deserve to by doing extra goofy things.

I like the way @That Guy spoke about confidence on another thread ...

On 5/20/2021 at 7:52 PM, That Guy said:

Riding an EUC requires a strange balance of confidence and concentration. If you are overly confident you may find yourself unprepared to what's coming your way, but if on the other hand, you think/stress too much then everything you practiced alone in the night (tennis court, football field, playground, etc.) with confidence suddenly becomes all too hard to repeat in the daylight at the traffic lights in the middle of the town... :-)

 

I do try to stay within self-imposed limits - mostly regarding speed, and at the same time finding and pushing on that delicate balance of risk - vs - safety in other areas of riding in order to progress (except speed or high jumps because gravity and inertia are not kind to an old 240 pound man) . I find myself agreeing with Duf here. You can jump to 10:20 to get to the meat of it.

 

Edited May 24, 2021 by Scottie

[IronGoos3]

Thanks to everyone some great baselines for me to measure my progress! 

 

I started another thread that asked for some tips and tricks and posted my progress here

 

Next thread to look for 'Upgraditis' although I know I'm getting ahead of myself 

[That Guy]

I think the progress is directly correlating with the distance travelled. My personal guess, there are following milestones (of a typical, unprepared/unguided learner - someone who got the wheel off the box and is now trying it):

1. Ability to ride 10m+ straight - 1km/0.7mile,

2. Ability to turn widely - 3km/2miles,

3. Ability to turn sharply - 15km/10miles,

4. Ability to step on and ride (50% success) - 50km/30miles,

(Here you will probably decide to leave your learning grounds and show to the world what you have just learnt.)

5. Ability to step on and ride (90% success) - 200km/125miles,

6. Ability to ride at 30km/h (20mph) confidently (safely) - 300km/200miles,

7. Ability to feel connected/"integrated" with the wheel - 1000km+/700miles+.

:-)

[KAY GEE]

18 hours ago, That Guy said:

7. Ability to feel connected/"integrated" with the wheel - 1000km+/700miles+.

That's the main one right there. 
That was my main goal, to be able to drink and smoke while riding effortlessly.