So you want to learn to unicycle?

Welcome! You can do it!

2010-03-08T20:56:00.006-05:00

To learn to unicycle you really just need three things; desire, persistence, and a unicycle, but the first two are the most important! It takes the average person 5 to 10 hours of practice to be able to balance on a unicycle for more than one pedal revolution, so only the most determined souls stick with it. At first, progress is measured by the half revolution or by the sidewalk square, not by the mile or even the yard.

I learned to unicycle by clinging to the chain link fence in an empty tennis court. Since I didn’t know any other unicyclists at the time, I didn’t have anyone to demonstrate new skills to me. Instead, I found tons of helpful unicycling tutorials on sites like Youtube. I compiled the most helpful video tutorials (in my opinion at least) on this website in an effort to help others learn to ride and experience the fun of unicycling.

Need some motivation?
Most people learn to unicycle in their teens, but mature learners can get inspiration from Terry Peterson (aka the Unigeezer) who (re)learned to ride at 50 and is a huge advocate for the sport of mountain unicycling.

Most unicyclists may be males but that doesn’t mean women don’t get obsessed with the sport, too. Here are two examples:
An interview with a team of female unicyclists who are preparing for a relay race from one end of Nova Scotia to the other.

A young female unicyclist who can knock the socks off just about any guy I've ever seen a video of.

So once you learn to unicycle what can you do with it?
One of the great things about unicycling is that there’s always something new to learn or try so it will never get boring. Here are some of the more common activities:

Mountain unicycling (aka Muni or rough terrain unicycling)
Dan Heaton is a pioneer of Muni and explains its appeal in this clip.

Kris Holm is perhaps the best known Muni rider in the world, and he is a huge advocate for the sport. He even has his own unicycle brand. Here he explains what he likes about off-road unicycling.

Street/trials/freestyle/extreme unicycling
I admit that as a intermediate level unicyclist I haven’t figured out where one of these unicycling styles ends and another begins. They all basically have to do with jumping, dropping, hopping and spinning around on pavement and over obstacles. Dan Heaton and Kris Holm show some of these techniques in their videos above, and here is another entertaining video highlighting 3 extreme unicyclists.

Unicommuting
Why not save some gas, turn some heads and unicycle to work?!

Unicycle hockey
That's right -- hockey sticks and unicycles (no ice though)!

Unicycle racing
You've got to see it to believe it. These guys are moving at speeds approaching 20 miles per hour!

You’d be surprised at the things that have been done on a unicycle. Many of those brave enough to admit their escapades are enshrined in Unicycle.com’s “Been there done that” page.

Ill-advised unicycle stunts have also been archived here for your amusement.

Wheel walking and gliding

2010-03-08T20:47:00.006-05:00

One of the coolest uni skills (in my opinion) is gliding down a street with your feet on the forks and the pedals spinning madly. I can't do it yet, but the progression outlined in this comprehensive tutorial seems like the best way to learn. The clip gives tips for learning to wheel walk, advancing to one footed wheel walking, and finally gliding.

In this clip Kevin Foster shows how to wheel walk.

Once you've mastered all these skills, you can start making up your
own cool tricks like the one below.

Riding one footed

2010-03-08T20:41:00.002-05:00

One footed riding is a fun skill that can be learned early on. If you learn to idle with one foot first, you may find it easier to learn one footed riding. Here Kevin Foster shows some tips on the subject.

Learning different mounts

2010-03-08T20:17:00.003-05:00

It seems that unicyclists are always looking for some new way to get on the unicycle. Why? I'm not sure, but it is an inevitable part of building your unicycling repertoire. Here Asperjg demonstrates 18 different mounts you might consider learning.

One cool mount for which there are a couple of good tutorials in the kick-up mount. Here's Kevin Foster's explanation:

Here another helpful step-by-step tutorial for the kick up mount. The captions aren't in English but the footage stands on it's own anyway.

Still want to know more about mounts? Click here for a text explanation of many different mounts.

Riding Backward

2010-03-05T21:23:00.005-05:00

Once I learned to idle, I felt like the unicycle really became an extension of my body. For example, I found myself instinctively back pedaling to catch my balance if my center of gravity drifted back. Capitalizing on that new-found proprioception it wasn't that difficult for me to learn to ride backwards. I found the best way to stretch myself was to pedal forward, then back 1 revolution, forward, then back 2 revolutions, forward, then back 3 revolutions, etc.

Plenty of unicyclists have learned to ride backwards, and you can too. Here's some advice on the topic from Kevin Foster of Expert Village.

If you're your looking for a new challenge after learning on your 20" or 24" uni, try riding backwards on a 5 foot tall giraffe unicycle!

I haven't found too many great video tutorials for learning to ride backwards. If you know of one please add it to the comments section. Here's a great webpage that explains 6 different ways to learn to ride backwards.

Idling

2010-03-05T21:10:00.005-05:00

Idling is the skill of expending a tremendous amount of energy and going nowhere. It may sound illogical, but then again if you've advanced this far in unicycling, your logical thought processing is already in question. Idling is useful if you're riding amongst lots of pedestrians, waiting for a light to change before crossing a street, or simply juggling knives or flaming torching atop a unicycle. Idling is also a useful, if not necessary, skill to learn before learning to ride backwards (more on that in the next section).

In this first tutorial Megan Rouch explains the basics of idling:

More from Megan Rouch on idling:

Here's Kevin Foster's all-in-one idling tutorial:

You can learn to idle one-footed, too, as explained here by Kevin Foster:

Drops and rolling hops

2010-03-05T20:30:00.008-05:00

Once you can stop and hop, you'll quickly see the value of being able to ride off obstacles without stopping. That skill is called "dropping" and can be a simple as riding off a curb or as exciting as riding off a 3 foot (or more) drop. The flip side of the same coin is learning to hop up or hop over something without coming to a stop. That's called a rolling hop.

This first tutorial shows how to ride off something the size of a curb.

Here Megan Rouch shows how to land a bigger drop:

Terry Peterson, aka the Unigeezer, is a 54 year old mountain unicyclist. In this tutorial he demonstrates 4 types of drops:

More tips on landing drops and gaps from the Unigeezer:

A Unigeezer signature tutorial on how to rolling-hop down a flight of stairs:

Here's a great rolling hop tutorial from an unnamed street unicyclist. The clip starts out with a 6 foot long hop but a step-by-step tutorial for us mere-mortals starts at 1:29.

When you think you've got the rolling hop down try hopping UP a flight of stairs like this guy!

Hopping

2010-03-04T22:45:00.005-05:00

Congratulations! You can free mount and ride around on level surfaces wherever you want. Now the fun can really start! One of the skills you'll want to learn next is hopping. Hopping is fun in and of itself but it is also the basis for other skills like hopping onto and off of curbs, hopping up stairs, hopping over rocks and logs on a Muni trail, and learning to do street tricks like spins. Just like any big task, hopping is best broken down into many smaller parts. The first thing to learn is how to stall, which Megan Rouch explains in this clip:

Next you learn to hop once after stalling:

Then, small bunny hops...

Practicing bunny hopping in a circle is fun...

Once you can stop, hop, and roll back out, you can practice directional hopping - like over lines or cracks on the pavement.

Now that you can predictably hop on a flat surface you can practice jumping over small obstacles.

Megan shows how to hop from stalling:

Hopping down stairs!

Hopping up stairs!

Kevin Foster shows some of the same skills in his hopping tutorial:

Kevin Foster gives his advice for hopping up and down stairs:

Free mounting

2010-03-02T08:15:00.005-05:00

Now that you can pedal forward and ride around the block you don't want to be limited by always starting out next to your favorite post or wall. You need to learn to free mount, which means to step onto the unicycle without help from anyone or anything else. There are many variations on how to do this. One way is to watch the tutorials by Megan Rouch on this website (the girl in the blue shirt). She uses her hand to steady the wheel as she gets up on the uni. A more common way to mount the unicycle is explained in this great step-by-step tutorial:

Kevin Foster shows how he free mounts in this tutorial. It is similar to the previous tutorial but you'll notice that he lets the wheel roll back slightly when he gets on. This variation is called the roll-back mount:

A technique that I found helpful as I learned to "free mount" was backing my uni against a curb so that when I stepped on the pedal the uni didn't rocket backwards. Here's a demonstration of that technique.

Picking and adjusting a unicycle

2010-03-02T06:49:00.007-05:00

If you don't already have a unicycle or if you just want to learn more about the different sizes and types, you can watch this short clip recorded by Kevin Foster for Expert Village.

Here's another clip with similar information recorded by Megan Rouch for Expert Village.

Megan explains how to set the seat height on your unicycle.

Besides the standard and giraffe unicycles mentioned in Kevin's video above, a recent innovation in mountain and cross country unicycling includes geared unis, which have a two-speed hub allowing you to ride faster on level terrain. The link will take you to a video of Pete Walsh, an Australian unicyclist, riding a geared uni.

Riding Forward

2010-03-02T06:24:00.011-05:00

You're ready to start! Don't let the steep learning curve discourage you. Just like any big task you can break unicycling into a lot of smaller manageable steps. First - getting on the unicycle!

Megan explains some common mistakes beginning unicyclists make.

Now you're on the unicycle clinging to a fence, handrail, chair or friend, but how do you start moving forward?? Here are some tips from Megan Rouch.

Some more great advice and footage from Kevin Foster to encourage you to pedal away from the wall.

Turning is all about twisting your upper body at the hips and translating that rotational energy to the wheel. Megan shows you how its done.

About me

2010-02-27T07:17:00.005-05:00

I first learned to unicycle as a teenager on my brother’s 20” schwinn. I never got very good at it although I do remember unicycling around my neighborhood to collect my newspaper customers’ weekly payments. I always seemed to get better tips ($$) from my customers when I unicycled to their doors, so that kept me motivated for a couple of years. That is, until I learned to drive.

Fast forward to my 34th year of life. I hadn’t been on or even thought about a unicycle in over 18 years. I was out with our 9 year old son looking to buy a used bike that was advertised on Craigs List. The man who was selling the bike had a shed full of old bikes he had fixed up. And there hanging on the wall of the shed was a 20” vintage schwinn unicycle exactly like the one I had learned on.

On the way back home I found myself fantasizing about riding the unicycle again – I could ride it on the university campus where I work; I could impress our kids and their friends; I could unicycle to keep in shape and get rid of the 30-something love handles that were beginning to emerge on my sides.

I had been bitten by the unicycle bug and there was only one remedy. I couldn’t get that unicycle out of my mind. I emailed the owner and offered to buy the old schwinn. No reply. I emailed him again a week later. No reply. Finally, in near desperation I called him to see if he would sell it and much to my dismay he said that the unicycle was not or sale – he was waiting to give it to his grandson.

So I quickly did some comparison shopping on the internet and settled on buying a new Torker LX 24” unicycle from NiagaraCycle.com. That was in August 2009 and since then not a day goes by that I don’t think unicycle!

If you’re wondering what I do when I’m not on one wheel or playing with my family, you can check out my LinkedIn page.