New rider with trouble moving forwards

[Funky]

11 minutes ago, ShanesPlanet said:

I simply don't understand why the insistence on using crutches? FInd a nice soft flat yard, grow a pair and just keep trying. IN a soft yard, you dont even need to wear gear. It aint like GRASS is gna shatter an elbow. Gear aint gna keep you from twisting an ankle. My first 'crash' was in a yard. I decided to jump off and realized you cant run as fast as you think. I hit the ground and rolled. It was grass tho, so I learned a lesson, stained a tee shirt and was no more than a little sore. The amount of time spent thinking about it and finding tools, is more than the time it would take to free mount. Seriously guys and gals. Im not a whizz at learning. IT took me 3-5 15minute days in soft grass, then onto a deserted street. I still suck, but getting moving, shouldnt be THAT big a deal. WHen we learned to walk, we pretty much had to let go and go for it, didnt we?  What I lack in skill, I made up for in 'not give a sh*t'. Dont dip your toes in, jump in the pool. This aint an activity for the timid.

 

8 minutes ago, Funky said:

Simply start riding..

No hand holding, no wall, no carts, no nothing. It's easy using those as leverage.. Simply go on grass/sand (or somewhere if you fall it will be softer), and start riding  

That's what i did, no gear or whatsoever. (Had my first face plant, but at low speed simply "Belly flopped")

Heck at home it was easy using wall.. The problem started when you released the hand. 

If you always use a leverage. You generally aren't learning at all? Same thing as standing, you just stand on wheel, no balancing at all. Easy peasy lemon cheesy.

Getting on/off wheel you could use some leverage, but in long run, it will take more time learning that way.

Lol same time post, same mind. Brother is that you?

Edited January 3, 2022 by Funky

[RayRay]

Less (or maybe more) intense version: Shia LaBeouf - Just Do It (Make Your Dreams Come True) [Ultimate Remix]

[Old Glider]

Hang in there and keep challenging yourself and try to be as relaxed as possible. Take little breaks until you are calm and give it a go again and repeat.

I found that aids/crutches really slowed down progress. I found wearing boots kept my ankles from getting banged up when I fell off and the wheel “spazzed out” and smashed into me trying to right itself. 

Try to just keep challenging yourself a little for more time, distance each day and try turns and eventually figure eights whenever you get to it and your subconscious will start taking over and you’ll wonder why you were obsessing over certain things.

Before you know it you’ll be zooming around with confidence and looking for new skills to learn.

Above all relax and enjoy and remember where you were last week! You can do this!

[OldFartRides]

For some (read old fart who really wasn’t sure this euc thingy was a good idea in the first place), four short sessions with a shopping cart was just the ticket. One size/ method does not fit all. My yard is still challenging to ride in. 
 Your mileage may vary.

[Paul A]

Shopping cart is the easiest way to start off.  Forward movement straight away.

Think there have been some members stating they are 60+ years old beginners.  They might not be as agile, or have the ability to roll upon impact.  

Others may be different in their physical abilities.  Not everyone is the same, they might have different circumstances.

[.....]

If you're too fragile to risk a slow speed tumble on soft grass, you may want to rethink the entire 20mph on one wheel thing. Fwiw, riding in grass IS tough to roll on but much easier to fall on. I only suggest yards until a person can step up and roll 5'. Its on to harder objects then.

Edited January 4, 2022 by ShanesPlanet

[Paul A]

Some people want to use a shopping cart, training wheels, strap, handrails, a wall, or what ever.

They find it beneficial and helpful.

Suggestions made by members are trying to assist and encourage new beginner riders.

[mrelwood]

7 hours ago, ShanesPlanet said:

If you're too fragile to risk a slow speed tumble on soft grass, you may want to rethink the entire 20mph on one wheel thing.

Being “fragile” is not a clear cut distinction. For some people using a little more time for learning it’s worth it if it lowers the risk of tumbles.

I learned with a wall. Yes, letting go was a huge step that I pushed onward for a few days, but once I was ready to try, I already had some sense on how to steer the thing. Since no-one has at first, it doesn’t make much sense to me to just go and try to “figure it out” without having the required tools for the process. That’s why we are helping people here after all, so that they wouldn’t just have to figure out something that has already been figured out by others.

 I’ve seen a few learning videos where they do just that, step on the wheel next to a pole and just give it a go. The amount of tumbles and retries it seems to require is hugely discouraging to me. My precious new toy might’ve tumbled once or twice, but falling down oneself during learning is definitely not required!

 I also saw one regular in our group rides teach a dozen people the past summer, with his Sherman. None of them took more than 12 minutes for the newbie to learn to free mount and ride, and only half of them made the Sherman tumble at all.

 People learn differently, no way around that.

Edited January 4, 2022 by mrelwood

[Julian Lo]

12 hours ago, Paul A said:

Shopping cart is the easiest way to start off.  Forward movement straight away.

Think there have been some members stating they are 60+ years old beginners.  They might not be as agile, or have the ability to roll upon impact.  

Others may be different in their physical abilities.  Not everyone is the same, they might have different circumstances.

Well said.  I am 73.  I've got all the safety gears, waiting to upgrade my helmet to a full-face one.  I don't plan to fall like I did with the skateboard.

[Paul A]

Julian Lo, that is fantastic to hear.

Welcome to the Forum, and look forward to hearing about your experiences, thoughts, ideas, views and opinions in future posts.

[.....]

Be sure to remember to remove your dentures and watch your mouth when using a shopping cart

[OldFartRides]

Don’t mind Shane Julian, he’s like this pretty much all the time.

[RayRay]

Topic has been hilariously derailed and it's not Crumbuns fault. So many opinions on this; but, to each his own. 

Just ride Crummyummy, and ignore all the conflicting advice. Ride on, ride true, & ride like the wind... 

[Julian Lo]

CrumbsAndYum,

While your memory is still fresh, could you help me with a couple of questions.

1. As you hop on the wheel with your back leg, do you grip the wheel tightly with both legs?

2. The wheel can never stay perfectly balanced vertically. It has the tendency to tilt to one side or the other as you ride it at any speed.  If it tilts to the right, do you use your right leg calf muscle to push the wheel back to the upright position?  Vice versa for the left tilt.  So, in essence, a) do you constantly use alternate legs to correct the wheel to the upright position?  Or, b) do you twist and ride the wheel in the direction of the tilt, in order to right the wheel?

Others, please feel free to chime in.

Thank you.

[.....]

1) No. I lean the wheel towards the foot that is on the ground. YOu can use the outter leg and wedge it over to keep it solid. WHen you step up, you merely increase the pressure on the outside leg to offset it from falling towards that leg as you unload the foot that was on the ground.  Try to ride for 2 feet with one foot on the wheel. YOu will get what Im saying as if you dont wedge it, it simply falls towards the foot that is on the wheel. You should feel some serious pressure in the knee and/or hip. If your joints arent too old, you should eventually be able to do a slow motion start and roll off WHILE you calmly place the second foot exactly where you want it. It took a LOOONG time for me to learn to slow mount and not have to HOP on, then micromange foot placement. I cant tell you how many times I hopped up with bad position and ended up jumping off as I tried to move my feet. Wedging with one leg teaches you to unload the other, so you can move it. Until then, youll be doing the hop foot shuffle.  Gripping a wheel tightly is a common noob action. You will learn to ride looser most of the time. Dont concern yourself too much about it now tho, as it just comes (looseness). Be mindful to not make the habit of curling your toes under the plates to try and 'grip' them. Loosen the feet too, or youll find yourself cramping soon.

2)No. I usually only need use the leg to hold an angle during fast turns or steep turns or steep climbs. You should be able to maintain a fair balance with foot pressure only.  Yes, I do sometimes ride with a twist. Typically when I am hauling ass and NEED to keep a tighter grab for impending turns or Im maxing out speed and the wind is being a total pita ( I duck lower too). For most case tho, I ride loose. At speeds of 20mph+, the wheels tend to stay fairly upright (once you quit being a wobbler). Once comfy, you should be able to ride around in circles, bowlegged. its the same skill you need when you ride seated. Its all in the feet

Edited January 6, 2022 by ShanesPlanet

[Tawpie]

3 hours ago, Julian Lo said:

could you help me with a couple of questions

The only time I clench the wheel is when I don't have power pads on and am climbing a very steep hill... in that situation I'm trying to lever the wheel forward by gripping it between my knees. Otherwise the wheel is floating freely between my legs. In the beginning, it would flop side to side banging my legs and if I didn't have a roll.nz cover I would have probably bruised my shins pretty well. The flopping around gradually went away as I got better with the very fine balancing—and that only came with miles-on-wheel. In time you will be able to ride dead straight without flopping or clenching the wheel. When I started off roading, it was very nice to be able to actually flop the wheel to one side or the other to avoid pedal strikes. You should go off pavement as soon as your mind will let you—it does something to accelerate your balance skills that I can't put a finger on.

I do push a leg into one side of the wheel when turning "at speed", partly because in general as you go faster the wheel wants to stay upright and needs encouragement to lean, and partly because it just feels more balanced. But it's always one leg in contact with the wheel (the outside leg), never both, and never below about 22-23 mph or so. I am extra careful in high speed turns though, having one leg in contact with the wheel seems to make it want to get all skittish when you hit a bump. I'm only leaning with a leg when I'm very sure of the road ahead.

 

Edited January 6, 2022 by Tawpie

[CrumbsAndYums]

3 hours ago, Julian Lo said:

CrumbsAndYum,

While your memory is still fresh, could you help me with a couple of questions.

1. As you hop on the wheel with your back leg, do you grip the wheel tightly with both legs?

2. The wheel can never stay perfectly balanced vertically. It has the tendency to tilt to one side or the other as you ride it at any speed.  If it tilts to the right, do you use your right leg calf muscle to push the wheel back to the upright position?  Vice versa for the left tilt.  So, in essence, a) do you constantly use alternate legs to correct the wheel to the upright position?  Or, b) do you twist and ride the wheel in the direction of the tilt, in order to right the wheel?

Others, please feel free to chime in.

Thank you.

In my personal experience:

1. When hoping onto the wheel, I really press my dominant leg into the wheel to keep it upright as I try to step on with the other foot. Once both feet are on the EUC, I keep my legs in contact with the wheel, but it's not a tight grip. Something that helped me mounting wasn't to just push with my back foot, but to also consciously put some weight the toes of my dominant foot so that the wheel picks up some speed.
2. The tilt/twist question depends on the speed I'm traveling at. Slow speeds I twist to ride the wheel in the direction of the tilt. I also use something similar to tightwire for balance, waving my hands/arms for small corrections or shifting my torso over the wheel centre of the wheel. It's easier to make small corrections than big corrections. At faster speeds, I correct it by shifting my weight left or right (switching bent/straight legs) to tilt the wheel back.

[Paul A]

Angular momentum.

 

 

[rcgldr]

9 hours ago, Julian Lo said:

1. As you hop on the wheel with your back leg, do you grip the wheel tightly with both legs?

2.  balance

1.When hopping on, the back leg is not touching the EUC, so the rider needs to tilt and|or apply pressure with inside of upper calf muscle towards the back leg side to keep the EUC from falling away from the back leg when hopping on. It may seem like a lot of pressure, and you may show some bruising due to the pressure. Learning to ride using support to mount and launch before learning to free mount reduces how much time you'll spend learning to free mount. Gripping the wheel with both legs can't occur until after you hop on.  Most beginners will grip the wheel with the insides of both upper calf muscles, to keep the wheel more stable.

2. Balance - there are two basic methods and a speed where an EUC becomes mostly self-stable, as I posted on the first page of this thread. Yaw steering - the EUC is literally steered into the desired direction by twisting it, and tilt steering, tilting the EUC so that due to camber effect, it steers you instead of you steering the EUC. You can also use a combination of both tilt and yaw steering, mostly for quick tight turns at slow speeds.

Similar to a bicycle, at sufficient speed, an EUC becomes stable due to tilt steering response. Assuming the rider doesn't make any relative foot movements, the EUC tilts as much as the rider leans sideways due to a small imbalance, causing the EUC to steer enough to correct for small imbalances. My V8F became stable at around 6 to 8 mph, but I needed to learn how to balance at lower speed, where I used arm flailing to yaw steer. I posted about my experience on the first page of this thread.

https://forum.electricunicycle.org/topic/26080-new-rider-with-trouble-moving-forwards/?do=findComment&comment=397962

Following Kuji Roll's and Wrong Way's advice in their how to ride EUC videos, I learned to ride using support to mount and launch first (and how to stop and step off), before I tried to free mount. When I did my first attempts at free mount, since I already knew how to ride, I just did 1 or 2 steps and hopped on, my only time on grass (between soccer fields). Note that Wrong Way's (Adam) girlfriend Monkat (Kate) had ridden using Wrong Way (a "Pole" - they live in Poland), for support to mount and launch and had ridden for about 60 to 80 km before trying to free mount as seen in Wrong Way's how to ride video. Despite her being leery of it ("... I"ve got a bad feeling ..."), she got it on her second try (on a Veteran Sherman). Learning to ride before free mounting may not be a faster way to learn, but it is less tiring.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qW-y5RiecMc&t=634s

Although Wrong Way and others mention using toe | heel pressure to accelerate | brake, I only focus on leaning forwards | backwards, without paying attention to toe | heel pressure. The process of leaning forwards | backwards will apply the pressure needed on the pedals without the rider having to think about pressure on the pedals. Technically in order to lean forwards on the ground or on an EUC, you initially press with the heels, which causes the EUC to brake a bit, shifting the contact patch behind the center of mass, and leaning you forwards. Once leaned forwards, you put pressure on the toes to limit or reduce the forwards lean, in the same manner as you would do on the ground to limit or reduce a forwards lean, so again, you can just focus on leaning more forwards or less forwards rather than thinking about pedal pressure. The same principle applies to braking, to lean backwards, you first press with toes, then press with heels to limit or reduce backwards lean.

I added more information and two more links in another post on page 2 of this thread:

https://forum.electricunicycle.org/topic/26080-new-rider-with-trouble-moving-forwards/?do=findComment&comment=399275

 

Edited January 6, 2022 by rcgldr

[MegaObi]

hey bud - if you in melb hit me with a pm happy to spend some time trying to help with riding if need be

[Julian Lo]

Fantastic information from rcgldr, Paul A, Tawpie, ShanesPlanet, and Crumbs.  Thank you.  That really clarifies some of my misconceptions.

 

Angular momentum also reminds me of the spinning plates on sticks.  

It seems inconceivable that one can control a spinning wheel with just two legs (and the speed of course).  That makes me think that beginners are doomed to fail because they always start with a slow speed.   A higher speed means one will hit the ground harder if one falls.   My speed behind a rollator was measured at about 2.2 mph (not sure about the accuracy of the Inmotion App).  That will not cut it, will it?

 

So, what is the minimum speed that allows one to roll with a manageable balance? Can you estimate the speed at which Kuji Rolls’ girlfriend was starting?

[.....]

I havent kept up with Kuji, so I cant comment on that.

Just below as fast as you can run/joggin speed. 8-10mph(carefull, youll keep going faster and not realize it). It varies on rider height and wheel diameter of course. The slower you go, the more difficult it is at first. Think in terms of bicycles. After learning in grass JUST long enough to barely mount it. I was off to the street. Why? Because a smooth hard surface will get you up to 8-10mph easily and thats where I had planned on riding in the end. Going fast enough  is more a test of will than skill at one point. You just gotta go for it and be ready. Stretch your legs and get those feet ready. Stay below a speed that is too fast to run it out. Warning, you may think you can run faster than you can. There's no shame in jumping off a wheel at slow speed and saving yourself. A scratched wheel is superior to a mint wheel for beginners(RollNZ ftw). If you cant remember how fast you can run, perhaps stretch and do that first. Hell, if nothing else, itll be good for you. Fwiw, I LOVE riding my mten around at 5-7mph. Hot summer day, birds chirping, cigarette burning, wheel a spinnin'. These are things storybooks are made of.

MY minimum speed for control is about <1mph nowadays. I can literally 'walk' my wheel in a side to side motion and be nearly standstill. I am also riding backwards and am starting to handle the transition front to back, in style. I am assuming you were asking at what speed does the wheel help you and make it easier? THIS is how I answered you at first. The caveat is once you get speed to assist in staying upright, you begin to encounter....wobbles. I rode for almost a year, before I could comfortably mount and stop. Most of my very first vids were when I could barely get going('hop mounting' ftw). See, once you get going, its easier if you dont stop. I racked LOTS of miles without needing to stop often. Eventually I got better at it ALL, but it was not in a linear fashion. Yup, I'm an instant gratification type guy, so once I was on the street and rolling...... off I went. Real life street conditions forced me to learn how to stop and mount. WHew, I recall a horrid bobble start on a highway from a left turn lane. DONT try to mount when oncoming traffic is buzzing nearby at 60mph and you totally suck at it. Wait...

Edited January 6, 2022 by ShanesPlanet

[Paul A]

It is possible to roll at a very slow walking pace.

Slow enough to be in amongst a crowd of pedestrians on all sides.

Might be safer to dismount and trolley the wheel at that stage though, pedestrians are unpredictable.

They can change speed, direction, stop in an instant.

May take some practice.

[The Brahan Seer]

1 hour ago, Julian Lo said:

.   A higher speed means one will hit the ground harder if one falls.  

Technically its gravity that determines the force at which you hit the ground not your speed. Although forward momentum will make it more dangerous the faster you go. If you have fallen off your wheel very abruptly whilst learning say by hitting a pedal on something and felt the impact through your wristguards then this should be comparable to the impact you will experience in a cutout.

[Tawpie]

2 hours ago, Julian Lo said:

So, what is the minimum speed that allows one to roll with a manageable balance?

One new rider noted that he felt the wheel stabilize at (as I recall) about 5-6 mph. I'm pretty sure it's different for everyone and I don't remember getting that feeling, but when I was learning the bulk of my issues were mental. Getting my mind to believe what was happening and not bailing out was a real challenge for me. It still bothers me on occasion, but now I just call it 'prudence'.

Edited January 6, 2022 by Tawpie