Bending knees while riding causes wobble... normal?

[Glock43x]

Kingsong 16S. New rider. Only a few months. According to some videos, you're supposed to bend your knee slightly when riding. I swear, I have tried every foot position and angle and the EUC still wobbles bad when I bend my knees slightly. The more I bend my knees, the worse the wobble is. 

So yeah, I ride standing up almost entirely straight unless making tight turns or going over bumps.

[UniVehje]

Wobbles are mostly caused by muscle fatigue and common for new riders. Changing position causes you to use different muscles. Just keep riding and they will go away. 

[yoos]

5 hours ago, Glock43x said:

The more I bend my knees, the worse the wobble is. 

Yes, that's normal. The more tired you are, the higher the speed, the stronger the acceleration/deceleration and the more bent your knees are - the more wobbles you will get. With time (experience and conditioning) wobbles will go away (to even higher speeds, stronger acceleration and very bent knees). At the beginning I had wobbles with bent knees or when going 15-20kph on my 16S. 2000km later I can ride it in a crouched position and no wobbles up to top speed. However, I experience wobbles above 30kph on the 18L, which I recently switched to.

[meepmeepmayer]

"Bending knees" just means "don't totally lock your knees". It does not mean you should be riding (more or less) squatting. Just "stand" relaxed without 100% extending your legs. Literally like relaxed standing. So, if a surprise bump or pothole comes, your legs automatically feather instead of moving the shock through your entire body.

5 hours ago, Glock43x said:

the EUC still wobbles bad when I bend my knees slightly. The more I bend my knees, the worse the wobble is.

These wobbles from tense leg muscles are completely normal. It will get better with practice and when you are more relaxed.

Wobbles happen because the wheel is constantly being imbalanced (sideways) by you, the ground, the wind, everything. Usually you automatically dampen these disturbances away, as part of your sideways balance. Basically your body is moving in a straight line while the wheel constantly bucks a little under you, but you (with your legs) just automatically absorb it, cushion it, so it does not go out of hand, and the wheel just follows your body's straight line overall. With tense (leg) muscles however, your body will react slower and fail to do that. So the oscillations amplify into the notable wobble.

The more you bend your legs, the less "flexible" your tense leg muscles are, the slower they react, so it makes complete sense that the wobble appears and gets worse like you say.

EUC riding is the art of being relaxed and cool in the face of the wheel bucking under you and trying to do its own thing, rumbling over the uneven ground. The more practice you have, the better it will get. Extra factors like being tense or tired or frustrated also prevent being relaxed (I literally ride worse when I'm in a bad mood), so it's easier for wobbles to appear then, too.

Ride, and enjoy (literally, so you are more relaxed), practice, and the problem will go away. It just takes time. That also is completely normal.

[mrelwood]

A tip for squatting:

Concentrate on keeping your ankles relaxed, and let your heels and the whole footbed lay flat, heavy and relaxed on the pedal. Keep yourself upright with knee, thigh, and buttocks muscles instead. Voilà, no more squatting wobbles!

[meepmeepmayer]

This is a good tip. If your lower leg/calf muscles are tense, your easy and automatic balance goes out of the window. Tense any other muscles instead.

[LanghamP]

On 2/6/2022 at 12:48 AM, Glock43x said:

you're supposed to bend your knee slightly when riding. I swear, I have tried every foot position and angle and the EUC still wobbles bad when I bend my knees slightly.

Yes, the "bend knees get wobbles" is a common problem but it's not caused by muscle fatigue. It's caused by bent knees.

Let me explain; by bending your knees you dramatically shift your weight backwards if you make no other changes, and this is the equivalent of moving your feet very far backwards on the pedals. Think about a shopping kart's wheels; they are almost impossible to push but easy to pull.

Hence, if you want to have bent knees without changing your present foot position, you need to bend forward at the waist. And not by a little, but by quite a lot. Do so, and your particular wobbles should instantly disappear.

[TantasStarke]

15 hours ago, mrelwood said:

A tip for squatting:

Concentrate on keeping your ankles relaxed, and let your heels and the whole footbed lay flat, heavy and relaxed on the pedal. Keep yourself upright with knee, thigh, and buttocks muscles instead. Voilà, no more squatting wobbles!

I'll have to try that. Nearly 3000 miles in and deep squats (near sitting) still cause to me wobble, I'll have to focus on what I'm doing and see what I can do to improve. Hoping to mount a seat and learn to ride seated by this summer

[yoos]

10 hours ago, LanghamP said:

by bending your knees you dramatically shift your weight backwards if you make no other changes, and this is the equivalent of moving your feet very far backwards on the pedals.

I think that's not quite right. The position of you center of gravity and the angle in your knees are mostly independent. Surely you can squat without falling back. You can squat on your toes even. When a sportsman is in an "alert" stance his knees are bent but his weight is closer to his toes. You can also accelerate on the EUC while bending your knees simultaneously. So your argument might apply to the sit-in-a-chair braking maneuver but in general it seems not about weight but more about the change of body geometry, stresses and tensions, which become more difficult for your muscles to handle and balance when you bend your knees.

[Darrell Wesh]

On 2/6/2022 at 7:55 AM, meepmeepmayer said:

Wobbles happen because the wheel is constantly being imbalanced (sideways) by you, the ground, the wind, everything. Usually you automatically dampen these disturbances away, as part of your sideways balance. Basically your body is moving in a straight line while the wheel constantly bucks a little under you, but you (with your legs) just automatically absorb it, cushion it, so it does not go out of hand, and the wheel just follows your body's straight line overall. With tense (leg) muscles however, your body will react slower and fail to do that. So the oscillations amplify into the notable wobble.

The more you bend your legs, the less "flexible" your tense leg muscles are, the slower they react, so it makes complete sense that the wobble appears and gets worse like you say.

I’d have to disagree. Wobbles happen because you’re trying to balance the wheel which needs to be unbalanced to move. If you balance a unicycle you aren’t going anywhere. It takes displacement of center of gravity to move the wheel forward, sideways, wherever. When you try to exert balancing and equal pressure on the pedals is when you get the wobbles. You’re fighting it. A unicycle needs to be unbalanced. Also wobbles can come from fatigue and also can be caused by cold/cold winds which cause you to shiver.
 

This is why carving is a natural solution to wobbles, it unbalances the wheel dramatically. 

Edited February 8, 2022 by Darrell Wesh

[Darrell Wesh]

The biggest learning mistake people have when riding these things is thinking they need to balance on it. It’s quite the opposite. You need to be comfortable being unbalanced on it to get them to move and do your bidding. 

[supercurio]

On 2/6/2022 at 7:48 AM, Glock43x said:

Kingsong 16S. New rider. Only a few months. According to some videos, you're supposed to bend your knee slightly when riding. I swear, I have tried every foot position and angle and the EUC still wobbles bad when I bend my knees slightly. The more I bend my knees, the worse the wobble is. 

So yeah, I ride standing up almost entirely straight unless making tight turns or going over bumps.

I'm guessing that when trying to bend your knees, you do so by opening your legs, increasing the gap between your knees which results in a bow-legged stance.

I've seen a new rider doing exactly that, which resulted in instant wobble just like you described. The reason was that the wheel would then oscillate left/right within the gap between the legs instead of being held in the center by them.

It's a very good idea idea indeed to ride with your knees lose in general, ready to bend actively or passively in case of a bump. But the legs, via your calves should still be aligned and nearly hold the wheel while doing so.
Do you see what I mean? Knees pushed forward by bending them, but not left & right.