How long would it take me to learn how to ride a unicycle?...
I need to come up with an act for a talent show at work. I can juggle, but that never seems to impress people. But juggling whilst riding a unicycle?! Surely that will turn heads????
Any idea where I can pick one up cheap?
might be easier to just convert a bike to a fixie and if you can already trackstand you're halfway there already.
I regularly see a guy commuting on one. Comes down Lothian Road and across the Princes Street/Queensferry Street junction every morning. Have to say, I expect to see him get knocked over one day ad he is very wobbly on it.
I see the same guy as he heads down Lothian Road - looks dangerous...
unicycles are great fun but it is years since I last rode one - even with limited success. The best I managed was about 100 yards. I fell off a lot! 
There were 2 boys on the Dragon Ride last year on unicycles.
an afternoon saw me riding
a month saw me riding consistently and for as long as i wish
2 months saw me free mounting
3 months saw me starting to idle and reverse. havnt ridden in the snowy period though ....
i did start on a 24inch muni though ! i occasionaly ride my old shops 20" and its soo much easier
start behind the unicycle by stepping on to the pedal with your leading foot (the one you would start climbing the stairs with) then put your bum on the seat and step over it so you end up with the other foot on the floor in front and dont forget to catch the unicycle with a hand behind you. This teaches you to fall off without falling or dropping the unicycle.
next you want to practice down a hallway or corridor where you can touch both walls, the just one wall.
then its sit on it with your back next to a wall and go for it in the open.
This is how i learnt and if you do it little and often it works.
Not especially hard to learn to ride one but if you're going to juggle whilst unicycling you'll need to master hovering which is quite a bit trickier, then master hovering whilst doing something else which I suspect will be quite difficult. (for what its worth, it took me only a few hours to learn to ride one in a forward direction but I've never progressed beyond that despite many more hours - however its not something I've dedicated serious time to)
Why not go for fire-clubs instead, not much harder than juggling balls, no harder than juggling ordinary clubs and yet always has the wow factor.
Agree with trail rat, one month practising every day should get you riding.
The hallway techique is a good one, I started with a doorframe to get used to sitting on the unicycle with the peddles in the 3o'clock / 9 o'clock position to get the feel of it.
I found that when riding you look straight ahead and almost go on auto-pilot when you have the balance point sorted.
Juggling is a whole different matter whilst unicycling as you tend to look at the arc of the balls and you are using your arms to juggle rather than balance.
If you can keep the juggling really tight, so that you know where the balls are going by the top of the arc that helps. I found that cycling along doing a short burst of juggling, hold the balls and then repeat the best technique.
If you have someone to pass you the balls that helps as its difficult mounting otherwise, also takes time picking them up and re-starting again.
just do a striptease, without unicycle or juggling...that'll get the wow factor! 
Go to Coker Cycles website and order one of their 36" Wheeled unicycles - then you won't even need to juggle - people will be impressed enough by your enormous wheel.....
http://www.unicycle.co.uk to buy a unicycle.
If you don't have enough time to learn to juggle on a unicycle (I found it was actually quite hard to get the two things down pat), then I've seen a fair few people make getting on a unicycle and riding in a straight line into a decent 4-5 minute act. The trick with that is a)make it look hard, and b)use volunteers to help you get on. Then you don't need to learn to mount, you can climb all over the volunteers and make people laugh, and as long as you make it look very very hard to ride, people will like it and cheer you once you manage to ride off. If you can do a trick (turn round or something) once you're on, all the better.
If you have space and can just about unicycle, then juggling whilst riding in a straight line is not too hard mind, it is only if you have to stop and juggle that it is really hard. A very bad unicyclist could probably do a couple of seconds juggling whilst riding in a straight line.
Joe
A little like the hallway approach, I practiced in the walkway over the local station, so there wasn't too far to wander off line. Probably took 3 or 4 nights of an hour each to get it, but then a month or two before I got the the point of not pushing too much pressure through the pedals. (At first you spend a lot of time getting the fore-aft balance right - I got rock 'ard quads over about a month or two).
I'd be inclined to leave any finesse over mounting/freemounting the thing 'til you've got the basic balance sorted, but YMMV.
Juggling balls never impresses anyone. Five balls, they want six. Six balls, they want seven.
Pick up a knife and a flaming torch however...
Or, if you cant ride the unicycle, juggle it. Hold unicycle in left hand. Throw two balls high up from right hand. Pass unicycle from left to right hand. Repeat. Comedy and skill.
Learning to ride a unicycle, might take you an hour or two to get 20 feet
once you understand that to pedal along on the flat you must be very gentle
with the pedals and sit up and look where you want to go.
Learning to actually control a unicycle will take a lot of time and effort.
Hovering on the spot is extremely hard work , juggling on a unicycle will take some real dedication if you want to make it last longer than 5 seconds.
Mine is in the loft, and 5 seconds juggling is as far as I got, hovering is great and feels really nice its just physically murder on the legs, trying to juggle at the same time makes you loose your balance, so is a pain ,
it also is not that impressive to an audience on its own.
As suggested above , why not try more interesting objects to juggle.
Champagne bottles are fun if you have the bottle 
(nasty if they break)
Tennis bat and balls mixed looks good if you can juggle with clubs?
Fire is always the best for a reaction.
My best man used to do a strip tease on the unicycle as an act, bloody impressive .
I learnt to unicycle years back, on a uni bought from a guy called Haggis the Clown. He was a raging alky and needed the cash (all true!).
Hadn't been on one for about 12 years - went into LBS with some mates, saw a uni and said, "I can ride that!". Got on, did a length of the shop and ditched into a large display of kids' bikes 
Mates haven't let me forget it....
Bit late but I have a good How to ride your unicycle book. email me your address if you want it and i will bung it in the post. mrvear@hotmail.co.uk
This topic has been closed to new replies.
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
