gina wrote:
> I am a long-time couch potato. When I first started practising I could
> only try to ride for 20 minutes a day.
That sounds so familiar.
I'm not quite 45 yet, with almost another year to go. I started trying
to ride a unicycle a couple of months ago.
7 years or so ago my son wanted to try my old stilts. They broke soon
due to their age and I made some new ones for them out of metal
conduit. So before you know it he would walk 4' above the street
through the neighbourhood. Then came the Pogo-stick. After a couple of
weeks he would do thousands of bounces in place and would bounce a
couple of miles on the streets. So when I thought it was time for a new
challenge for him, I got him a 24" Torker unicycle for Christmas. Kids
will always surprise you; he didn't touch it at all.
So now he's in college and I saw the unicycle in the garage. What the
heck, why can't I try that? So I did. I read up on what to do and what
not to do online and tried sitting on it in the garage. That worked,
but letting go of the wall did not. Then I found a pedestrian bridge
over some wetlands with railings on both sides and I tried riding along
the railing, holding on for dear life. That sorta worked. Every day I
would be more stable (funny thing, forward-backward stability came
first. Sideways stability is still a much bigger problem) and be able
to ride without holding on for longer stretches. So far, I've managed
to ride some 200' without too much problem and somehow I can correct
myself when I go in the wrong direction. I don't know how I do that,
but apparently, my body does. But I have to keep telling myself to look
straight ahead and keep my weight on the saddle. I still get
ridiculously tired in no time. Specially on the top of my thighs. I
have to work on my endurance too; a couple of long stretches and I'm
exhausted. Hopefully, that'll come with practice too. Free-mounting and
short turns are still hit-and-miss. I can do a stationary mount 1 out of
5 tries. Rolling the wheel backwards, as is suggested in some howtos,
will always result in me on the floor with the unicycle behind me.
Now I'm wondering if I should get a 20" to make progress a little bit
faster. I don't want to try distances for quite a while and I like to
just goof around a bit. And if I do get one, what kind of one?
--
de.bengel
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