Turning a corner

I spent ten or fifteen minutes getting back up to speed today. That seemed pretty good, considering the fact that I'd had a couple of days off. Then I had a few rides in the 50'-100' range. Then I had a nice long 100'+ ride, and from then on I started riding the longer distances fairly regularly.

At about 110'-120', there's a fork in the path that I'm practicing on. Tuesday, I took the fork that veers gently to the right to ride down to my car. Today I made it to the fork relatively early, and was planning on practicing for awhile longer, so I took the fork that veers gently to the left to see how far I could go (the path, which is basically a wide sidewalk within the park, simply meets up with the actual sidewalk at the street corner, which is probably a couple of hundred feet from my launch point).

After about an hour, I rode all the way out to the corner. I didn't want to attempt turning the corner at that point, so I had a PD. I kept practising and made it most of the way to the corner several times, then all the way again; I started to attempt the left turn to stay on the sidewalk, but bailed out before I was able to complete it. But on my third or fourth trip to the corner, I attempted the turn, made it, and kept going. Unfortunately, I didn't go more than a few feet: the sidewalk sloped upwards about one-tenth of a degree, and at this point, tiny changes in grade still throw me off easily. But I was happy with making the turn. I had a few more long rides, then rode to the car at the end.

I had some nice comments today. A woman walking her dog, who I'd spoken with before, saw a long ride and said, "if you need anything for your unicycling resume, you can use me, because I can remember when you couldn't leave that post!" And on my second or third ride to the corner, I grabbed the "yield" sign as I was dismounting, and a guy down the street shouted, "yeah!" and waved. I think he's seen me practicing many of the times I've been out there. Always nice to get a little unexpected support!

One wheel to four wheels

I finally accomplished something today that I've been hoping to do for the past week or so: I rode my unicycle from my typical launch point to my parked car, which was about 150' away. This happened at the end of my 2-hour-plus practice session, which included lots of intermediate-distance rides, and a couple of longer ones. I was dead tired when I was done.

I continue to be encouraged by my ability to correct out of potential UPDs, which seems to be improving steadily.

The only downside to today's practice session was one UPD which resulted in a new scratch on my right calf from the pins on the right pedal. But after washing it off, SpongeBob took on the job of covering it, and I'm sure it will heal nicely thanks to his efforts.

More control

No major distance achievements today, but I noticed quite a bit more control. I still have plenty of very short rides before I fall off, but I'm having more and more longer rides where I'm able to correct out of potential UPDs. I finished up the day with another ride of 100+ feet.

Today the kids started running around the park after I'd been there for about an hour. Instead of leaving, I decided to try to squeeze in a few rides in between runners, and spoke with several of the kids as they were running (and walking) by. I didn't get any negative comments, which was nice. Most of them asked if I could ride yet, one of them observed that he'd seen me there "almost every day," and one of the boys told me that his uncle was in a circus and could ride a unicycle. His advice for learning how to ride: "learn how to turn." Thanks, kid, I'll be sure to work on that.

New milestone

Yesterday marked a new milestone in riding my unicycle: I hit 100' for the first time!

It's only taking me 10 or 15 minutes now to "warm up" and get back to where I'd left off the last time I practiced. After warming up I hit a few 50-footers, and soon after that I kept riding until I'd passed 100' (the exact distance was probably around 120', but after 100' I'm not too concerned about exact distances). I had a few more good rides in the hour and a half I was out, and I finished up with a ride that was around 90'.

The best part about the longer rides is that I know that my body is internalizing all of the things I need to know to be able to ride, even if I'm not aware of it. When I can get going and keep going, it's starting to feel a little more natural, which I view as a very good sign. And during the longer runs, I have more of a chance to correct out of potential UPDs, and it feels great to actually correct and keep going.

Hopefully this coming week will bring sunny skies and plenty of opportunities to practice. If it does, I'm hoping to start practicing freemounting (getting on the unicycle and riding without any type of support) by the end of the week.

Ho hum

No real progress today, aside from hitting a decent run 15 minutes after starting instead of 60. I had several 20-40 footers, and I continue to feel like something inside is understanding what's going right, even if I'm not able to duplicate the experience automatically yet. But no major breakthroughs.

I was through after an hour and a half. At that point, the school kids started running around the park for some sort of "recess run" that I've seen them do before, and I just wasn't up for waiting for them to finish. I guess one of them recognized me, because as I was wheeling my unicycle to my car I heard someone ask, "Did you get it yet?" My response: "Almost, give me a few more weeks."

Distance and control!

Today I spent two and a half almost uninterrupted hours getting on, riding, and falling off my unicycle. It seems to have paid off!

A nice poster in the unicyclist.com forums saw my pictures, and he suggested that I sit up straighter, because bending at the waist -- as I'm apparently doing in both of my pictures -- is a sure sign of an impending UPD. So today I concentrated on that as much as I could (while still concentrating on the other 78 things that I've learned I have to concentrate on in order to ride this thing), and it really helped. When I was able to remember to sit up straighter, I usually went farther; and regardless of how far I went, I could usually feel why it was "right" to sit up straighter.

So although today brought its share of frustration -- plenty of UPDs after only a few feet, a couple of new scrapes (that were my own fault because I'd accidentally hit myself with a pedal as I was walking back to my launch point), and little annoyances like dropping the unicycle right after picking it up after a UPD -- it also brought some progress:

• Many runs in the 20'-40' range
• Two or three runs that were as far as my longest rides last week
• A final ride of about 70'
• Probably most importantly, a more frequent feeling of being in control of my unicycle, and understanding how to make minor adjustments to avoid a UPD.

All in all, a good day!

More control, if not distance

Not much to report today. A couple of runs in the 45'-50' range, several in the 30'-40' range, and lots and lots of UPDs.

It was encouraging to feel the slightest bit more in control during the longer runs. The hardest part right now seems to be the first revolution of the wheel: if it goes well for the first 6 feet or so, I can usually get 20'-30'; if the first 6 feet go badly, I'm lucky to make it 10'. I look forward to the day when I can correct out of most less-than-perfect situations.

It was a little discouraging not getting any runs in longer than I got in yesterday, but not terribly. I've got time.

No spectacular UPDs, though watching the unicycle shoot out in front of me 10 feet or more makes me glad that I moved to the park to practice, and away from my sliding glass doors. During one UPD, I somehow got stuck to the unicycle, and we both went crashing to the ground. I'm not sure how that happened, since I'm not wearing a seatbelt, and I don't have clipless pedals on the thing. Too bad I don't have it on video. I'll remember it for a few days, though, every time I touch my ankle.

It's supposed to be cold and rainy for the next couple of days, and that's okay with me. I need a couple of days for my current round of bruises and cuts to heal! It'll also give me a couple of days to watch the videos that I got today: one learning video, and "Defect," a video of all kinds of unicycle riding, tricks, and stunts. I've really enjoyed the video clips that I've seen online so far, in the same way that I've always enjoyed Warren Miller ski movies: I know I'll never attempt 95% of what's shown, but I love watching other people do it!

Farther and farther

There must have been some problem yesterday with the blogspot server that my blog is on, I couldn't get on to post this. Better late than never!

It took an hour to get back up to speed again. I guess that'll be the pattern, a frustrating hour where everything is quite difficult again before making any progress. But that's okay, because then I did make some progress: several runs that were about as long as my longest run on Monday, and, to cap off the two-hour practice session, a nice 55' wobble (I thought it was over 50' but I wanted to make sure, so I took Molly for a walk to the park in the afternoon with my tape measure; it turned out to be closer to 60', so I'm going to settle on 55' for a nice, round number).

In response to my first post in the unicyclist.com forums, I received a couple of pieces of advice: don't ride until you think you're going to fall, ride until you actually fall, and don't grab the seat. Those two pieces of advice, combined, have proven to be my biggest bugaboo: every time I'm about to fall, I instinctively grab the seat. I suppose it's some sort of survival instinct kicking in, although my brain must be pretty feeble if it thinks that grabbing onto a moving unicycle seat is going to provide some sort of support. Ah well, as I progress hopefully that habit will gradually disappear.

More Progress

Today was a great day: great weather, time to spend on my unicycle, and progress learning to ride. What more could I ask for?

I moved to the park today. I ended up finding a better post than any of the ones I photographed last week to use as a support: it's closer to the path, and the ground is level.

It took a few minutes to get back into the swing of mounting, starting, and UPDing, but once I did things started falling into place. The time it took to hop on the unicycle and get ready to pedal decreased substantially. In fact, freemounting doesn't seem all that much like a faraway dream anymore (though it'll still be a long, long time before I've got that mastered, I'm sure). After a little while, I made it the 15' that I'd made a couple of times last Friday.

There are quite a few dog- and child-walkers that make use of our local park, so there were quite a few opportunities to take a short breather and get some water. And at one point a group of school children ran by during an organized "recess run," or something like that (hearing a little boy say, "cool!" as he passed was sort of fun).

After about an hour, I had a nice run that was about 30'. It felt great! What felt almost as good were the few times when I'd start to lose control, during that run as well as shorter ones, but then regain it as I figured out what was happening and correct for it. By that time, Jenny and Molly had shown up, and Jenny was able to get a couple of "action shots":



By the end of my two hours, I was getting much more consistent in being able to hit 15' to 20'; I figure I was getting a few crank revolutions in at least 50% of the time, maybe more. There were also a few runs that were slightly farther. I had wanted to end on an "up" note, and I did: another run of 30' or so in which I actually felt in control for much of the distance.

We're supposed to have more rain tomorrow, but that's okay. Although I'd like to learn quickly, I'm having fun with the process, so taking a day or two off in between learning sessions will be fine. I'll be riding around the park soon enough!

Fifteen feet!

Back out in the backyard today, and I was able to ride for 15' several times. Woohoo! I'm sure 15 miles is just around the corner (though that doesn't help me much, since I haven't learned how to turn yet).

I might have been able to make it farther, but after fifteen feet the fence in front of me was only about ten feet away, and given the distance I've travelled during a couple of UPDs (that's UnPlanned Dismounts to you), that seemed too close. So I guess it's time to move to a new practice location -- again.

I took Molly for a walk to a park that's close by yesterday, and found that there were several promising walkways with various posts that I can use for support:
I like this next one the most, since the post is right in the middle of the sidewalk. Unfortunately, I'd be starting out uphill, so I think I'll have to wait to use this launch point until I have a bit more control.

As the cranks turn

Finally! A day without rain! Not only that, but we actually saw the SUN!!

So there I was, in the backyard, hopping on my unicycle, pedaling, and falling off. Well, not actually "falling," it was more like starting to fall and then stepping down, I never actually made contact with the pavement with anything other than my feet.

I started by using my good friend the patio chair for support. Then, after getting tired of hearing my nutty neighbor yelling profanities at me, or her other neighbors, or the voices in her head, I decided to move to the other side of the patio. This turned out to be a good move, as I started out using a different chair, but soon found that the narrow gate in the middle of our yard made for a better starting point: since there are supports on both sides, I could get up and balanced more quickly, and since it's farther away from the fence, I'd have a little more room to ride (if I was lucky).

I ended up progressing, if only slightly: on several occasions, I got through two full crank revolutions before falling. That was just enough time/distance to actually feel like I was "riding," if only for the briefest of moments. But that feeling was great! I look forward to encountering it more often in the days and weeks ahead.

Assuming I continue to progress, I'll be looking for a better place to practice soon. I think I'll only be able to make about three revolutions before hitting the fence going the direction I'm going. I could turn around, but the walkway I'd have to stay on is somewhat narrow (besides, that would also take me onto the side of the yard next to Nutty Nora's house). So I'll be investigating a couple of local parks soon. While I'd rather be comfortable riding before riding in public, I don't think I'll be able to reach that level in my backyard, and the only other option is waiting until I buy a house with acres of land -- which translates roughly to "never."

Rain, rain, and more rain

Today, all day, it looked like this outside:

(It's hard to tell, but it's not just wet, it's raining.) So, given my weather-weenieness, it looked like this inside:

(That's Molly in the lower left, who's quite fascinated with this whole unicycling thing.) I don't think I really need the pads inside, but I thought I'd put them on to see how they felt. The wrist pads were too stiff to use in the doorway -- they didn't allow enough flexibility to put my hands in the position that felt most comfortable -- but I think I'll like having them on outside (especially if I hit the pavement). The knee and elbow pads were also a bit stiff, and the straps weren't terribly comfortable; wearing my longer bike shorts might help.

"Riding" in the doorway isn't terribly realistic, but I feel like it's getting me used to several things: keeping my weight in the seat, looking forward instead of down, and turning the cranks smoothly. If nothing else, it gets me sitting on my unicycle even when it's too wet to practice outside.

The forecast for tomorrow looks slightly better, at least in the morning. We'll see.

Happy New Year!

More bad weather today. If it keeps up tomorrow, I'll just sit in a doorway for awhile.

In any case, happy new year to all, unicyclists and non-unicyclists!

New Year's Eve

Due to rain (and bruises), this seemed like a good day to recuperate.

Day 6

Taking my cue from the pain in my thigh and the palms of my hands, I geared up before going outside today: bike shorts, knee pads (one down around my left shin, take that, you stupid pedal!), helmet, and leather gloves. Then I practiced: hold onto chair; hop up on the unicycle; put weight on seat, not on pedals; pedal; fall; repeat.

The process was a little discouraging, in that the farthest I ever got before bailing out was about 5 or 6 feet. But it was encouraging as well, because I started to feel "ready" sooner: when I started, it would take me 30-60 seconds to get on the seat and feel "centered"; by the time I stopped and came inside, it was only taking 10-30 seconds.

Later that day, I went to Big 5 Sporting Goods and bought a set of BoneShieldz wrist, elbow, and knee pads. Hard stuff, designed for skaters. Since the thought of falling tends to make one more cautious, but sometimes caution can inhibit learning, I figure anything I can do to feel more comfortable with the thought of falling will be beneficial.

One of the highlights of the day came later, as I was sitting at my desk typing: for a split second, I felt like I was balancing on my unicycle. I remember this type of feeling from when I was learning how to snow ski: all of a sudden, at some random time, I would feel as if I was skiing. I believe this is known as "kinesthetic memory," or "muscle memory," and I believe it's a very good sign that something is taking hold.

By this time, someone who I think is around my age posted at unicyclist.com that it took her six weeks to learn how to ride. Knowing that I'm not the only one who couldn't just hop on and ride away was comforting.

Day 5

We have a short hallway in our house, so I thought, "Instead of sitting in a doorway, maybe I could use the hallway walls for support." So I did. I wobbled back and forth for several minutes, still feeling for balance. More wobbling, more balancing. I decided to try to pedal a stroke or two.

This proved to be unwise. Just past the small hallway, we have a small cabinet that holds CDs and whatnot. For the festive holiday season, Jenny had decorated the top of the cabinet as a "snowman convention," complete with a soft, squishy snowman, a snowman serving plate on a stand, various small snowmen bobbles, and the Swarovski crystal snowman and snowwoman that I'd given her on two different Christmases. When my unicycle decided to shoot out in front of me (I thought I heard an evil laugh, but I can't be sure), the tire nicked the edge of the cabinet just outside the hallway, and I heard things fall to the floor. Fortunately, the Swarovski snowpeople decided to just lie down and wait out the earthquake, and the only breakable snowman that fell to the floor miraculously stayed in one piece.

First lesson of the day: take it outside.

So I took it outside. I used a patio chair in the backyard for support. This particular chair isn't nearly as big as a door jamb, so it took some getting used to. My left shin took a lot of abuse, as I held onto the chair, stepped on the right pedal, and didn't get my left foot up and onto the left pedal quickly enough, allowing the pedal to hit my shin. But eventually I'd get on. And every time I tried to move at all, I'd start to fall over. At one point, I did fall over, and landed on my left side.

Second lesson of the day: don't carry a cell phone and a Swiss army knife in your pants pocket when doing something where falling over is likely. They're hard. When jammed into flesh, they don't compact. Fortunately, they both still work. Even more fortunately, my left thigh still works as well, though somewhat painfully at the moment.

I went into the garage and hacked off another inch or two of the seat post, since I still felt uncomfortable. I've since raised the seat back up a bit, based on advice from other unicyclists, and based on the fact that being lower felt better until I started to pedal, then it felt worse. I also grabbed a couple of pieces of PVC pipe that I had lying around to use as poles. They only helped marginally; I've since given up on that idea.

By this time, I'd registered on unicyclist.com and posted about my new toy and my experiences so far. I got many encouraging replies, and many good tips on learning. Two of the most important tips seem to be: 1. ride until you fall, not until you think you're going to fall, which just gets you used to bailing out instead of learning how to correct; and 2. keep your weight on the seat, not on the pedals.

Day 4

More time on the rollers. Time with hands spent off the door jamb: around 8.9 seconds.

Day 3

Several years ago, I got some money for my birthday, and I bought something I'd been wanting to get for quite a while: a set of rollers for my bike, so that I could ride inside in inclement weather (what can I say, I'm not an extreme cyclist, if it's below 70 and cloudy I'd rather be inside). So I got a set of Performance rollers.

Setting up the rollers in a doorway is also a tip for learning how to use rollers, but I figured, "I can ride a bike," so I just set them up in the living room. The first time I got on, I said, "Oh, this is--" and promptly fell over.

I decided to try sitting on my unicycle on my rollers, so that I could actually turn the pedals. In a doorway, thank you very much. So I did. It still felt very weird, but I was starting to see how it might be possible to actually ride the thing. Someday. Maybe in 2007. During the 10-15 minutes that I was sitting on the thing, I think I had my hands off of the door jamb for a total of about 3.2 seconds. But what 3.2 seconds! The balance! The freedom! The possibility of falling over! Hands back on the jamb.

The seat felt too high, but the seat-post was as far down as it would go, so I called my brother-in-law to ask him if I should get a shorter seat post, or if it wouldn't damage the integrity of the seat post if I just hacked off a couple of inches. He didn't think that would be a problem, so out came the hacksaw. I knew I'd still be able to raise the seat back up to the original height, since I was only taking off a couple of inches.

Day 2

I finally had a chance to do some unicycle riding the day after Christmas. Or rather, sitting.

As suggested by my brother-in-law, I set up my unicycle in a doorway, put a step-ladder next to it, and climbed on. Although I knew it wouldn't be the same as riding a bicycle, it had a seat, a wheel, pedals, and forks, so how much different could it be?

Very. Very, very different. So far I've decided that they're only related in some sort of seventh-degree-of-separation kind of way.

So I sat, and I pretended to balance, doing my best to release my white-knuckle grip of the door jamb as often as possible.

Day 1 (Christmas Day)

As usual, Christmas was a busy day filled with driving and visiting with family. But I didn't let that stop me from searching the web for interesting information on unicycling. I found lots of information at http://www.unicycling.org, including a link to the website for the Unicycling Society of America, which I've now joined. I also found http://www.unicyclist.com, which has forums where many, many knowledgable unicyclists from all over the world post dozens (or hundreds) of messages a day.

Although I didn't have enough time to do more than hop on my new machine once or twice, I was well on my way to becoming a unicyclist.

The Adventure Begins

Happy New Year!

Well, here we are in 2006. A new year, and, for me, a new toy. And to share with my friends the experiences I'm having playing with it, a new blog.

About a month ago, Jenny (my wife, for those of you who don't know her) told me that her boss was taking unicycling lessons. Now, I know her boss Regina. And the news didn't surprise me all that much, since Regina has a lot of eclectic interests, and is just, well, a pretty eclectic person. I thought it was great, and I said something along the lines of, "That's great!" I also added that I'd wanted to learn how to ride a unicycle for as long as I could remember. I don't know if it's because I'm a clown at heart, or very cool and hip, or an uber-nerd, or just wired funny, but I've always thought unicycles were very cool.

A couple of weeks later, Jen took a couple of calls from her brother Geoff, who works in a bike shop. Nothing all that unusual about that, except for the fact that when she got on the phone, she went outside to talk to him when it was about 60 degrees and overcast outside, which, for my wife, is stay inside weather. I became happily suspicious.

On Christmas Eve, I got back from my final performance as Bob Cratchit in "A Christmas Carol" to find my recording booth (a closet with a microphone in it) tied up with a ribbon. I was sternly instructed to leave it tied until Christmas morning. My suspicion grew, as did my internal smile.

On Christmas morning, after finding a SpongeBob SquarePants yo-yo and a set of juggling beanbags in my stocking, I opened the clos-- er, recording booth to find a huge bag tied up with a ribbon. I carried it out to the living room, and, after almost getting lost in the bag:

I pulled out my first unicycle:


So just in case anyone is interested, I thought I'd try to keep track of my experiences while I'm learning to ride this thing that I've been wanting to learn how to ride for as long as I can remember. I'm starting this blog on New Year's Day 2006, but I'll recap the the first week in separate posts.