How to learn to unicycle

Why I learned to unicycle

Recently I learned to unicycle. The main reason I like the idea of unicycling, is it is personal mobility sport that is lower impact compared to skateboarding, but more minimal and mobile than cycling: it is much easier to throw a unicycle in a car or even hike with it while you aren't riding. Finally, unicycles can be a great tool to help develop handling skills that can be used in cycling or skateboarding, such as wheelies, manuals, riding fakie, and more.

Skills you can practice before getting a Unicycle

A unicycle, while relatively affordable, still is a unique single function item that people may want to hold off on until they are confident they are committed to learn it. For those people, I have some suggestions on more accessible and practical skills they can work on, before they commit to buying and learning to ride a unicycle.

While learning to unicycle is much easier than people often suppose, it still takes some practice and dedication, and for that reason it may be a good idea to practice some other helpful skills, before committing to a purchase. Often you can find used unicycles for cheap, so this shouldn't be too much of a concern if you really want to learn.

• Ice skating: learning to fall, and balance
• Pogo sticks: learning to fall, balance and hop.
• Skateboarding: learning to fall, balance, and building confidence.
• Fixed gear bike: smooth continuous pedal stroke.
• Riding Fakie on any bike: learning to step off, balance, and build confidence.

Like a fixed gear bike, a unicycle is a direct drive pedal powered wheeled device. A fixed gear bike is closest tool to a unicycle without actually getting a unicycle. Even though a fixed gear bike is more expensive than a unicycle, I think it is more useful tool, and more accessible. So if you are unsure that you want to invest in a unicycle, a fixed gear bike is an alternative you can start with, that you can be sure you will be able to learn and benefit from. It is not really necessary, this is only for people who are on the fence about learning a unicycle, and need to save money by buying something a bit more practical first. A fixed or single speed bike is useful because it is low maintenance.

I had been riding fixed gear bikes semi-regularly for 3 years before learning to unicycle. Riding fixed will teach you how to keep a constant consistent cadence and to vary your power and torque according to the rhythm of the bike. This likely makes it a lot easier to ride a unicycle, as you need a really consistent cadence.

Don't worry if you don't want a fixed gear before you learn to ride a unicycle. A fixed gear bike will teach you how to maintain a smooth steady cadence, but this isn't a particularly difficult skill to master.

Aim for a Minimum Training Time

Most people will take about 10 hours to learn to unicycle, potentially up to 30. This is not that much time in the grand scheme of things. If unicycling is a hobby you do intermittently over 5 or 10 years, then 30 hours is just 3 hours per year of investment. It's really small compared to the total enjoyment and benefit time.

If you reach 30 hours of practice without managing to be able to ride around, it's likely you are scared to commit. I would recommend practicing stepping off or falling, attempting freemounts, working on other skills more(skateboarding, ice skating, or riding fakie on a bike). There's not much use in hitting your head against a wall, you want to take a break and work on other things if you manage to hit the 30 hour mark without being able to ride.

Other than that, a constant cycle of practice and instruction(youtube is really good for this), will help. A lot of the challenge of learning new things is to break a challenging skill into intermediate skills: riding next to wall or fence for support, etc.

Where to learn

Anywhere you have something to hold onto to help you get upright. The first thing I used after buying a used unicycle, before even going home, was my own car. I first practiced pedalling a tiny bit backwards and then falling forwards to catch my self on my car. It is a pretty good idea to practice falling forwards, because it is much safer than falling backwards. New riders should wear a helmet as they learn.

It also helps beginners to also be able to ride along a wall or fence, but you will make the most progress once you practice moving away from the wall or fence and learning to fall off.

Learning to ride on the unicycle is not the hard part. The hard part is learning to fall off so you have enough confidence to commit when you try to ride.

Practice Freemounting to learn how to fall

Freemounting is a very challenging skill for beginners, and not really necessary for learning to ride and having fun. As of this writing, I still haven't mastered freemounting, even though I can ride slowly and in circles.

If you try to freemount with the expectation that you are going to figure it out, you will get extremely frustrated. But it is very useful to attempt, because this teaches you how the unicycle is unstable. Attempting to get on the unicycle will teach you how to step off.

When I say "learn how to fall", there are really two ways this can happen. One is to actually fall so your body hits the ground. This is what you learn to do in parkour or martial arts, with what are called "break falls". They help to reduce the impact and protect parts of your body like your head, neck and spine.

Break falls typically either involve rolling out of the fall, or using limbs, not to brace yourself, but to distribute the impact across a larger area. Don't worry too much about this, as falls are much more common with skateboarding or parkour than unicycling, but it helps to know how this works. If you try to brace a fall by extending your arms and catching yourself, it is very likely you will get injured. While it can be preferable to break a wrist or arm, compared to a head or spine injury, you can learn to avoid both. Tucking your head and tightening your core, while staying relaxed elsewhere, is a good start. Think of yourself as a ball or egg, that when you hit, breaks apart, meaning your arms and legs relax to spread out the impact. I won't go into much more detail, because this skill is much more important for other sports, like martial arts, parkour and skateboarding. But even with a helmet, it is very useful to learn how to fall. There are plenty of resources and coaching for parkour, martial arts, and skateboarding.

If you are older or very risk adverse, I would recommend a knee and elbow pads, as well as shin guards, because the pedals can hit your shins. If you actually fall, you want to fall forwards, slightly sideways and roll to one side.

Most of the time, falling off a unicycle is just a matter of stepping off the pedals and waiting for the ground to come to you. It actually requires patience to let yourself fall to the ground before you step, rather than quick reaction speed. You have to be willing to let yourself fall to one side before you freak out and try to stop yourself. This can be difficult for new people, who will get scared by the falling motion and instantly try to stop themselves, often by pointing their "tippy toes". This is a bad idea and it will actually make you more likely to trip or injure yourself.

The time between when you lose your balance and are unable to recover, and when you actually touch down stepping off, is typically longer than you expect. As you get close to balanced, this time becomes even longer. While slams are possible, where you slip quickly and fall hard, they can mostly be avoided by learning to fall forwards and step off.

It is important when to fall to one side to wait for your foot to come to ground naturally, rather than try to reach out and stop yourself early. Your leg should be loose and preferable slightly bent to absorb impact, although that is typically very small. Don't over think it!

Again, this is why you want to practice riding faking on a normal bicycle, like a balance bike. It will help you practice stepping off on one side or the other, and letting the bike come to you.

How to practice riding a bicycle fakie

Normal bikes do not actually allow you to pedal backwards. The freewheel will provide no resistance, and you will just spin the pedals. The way around this is to find a parking lot with a slight downward grade, and so you are naturally pulled downhill as you ride backwards. Then you can use the pedals to control your speed, rather than to generate speed.

So I would recommend lowering the seat, and maybe even removing the bike pedals, and using it as a balance bike, with your feet on the ground. You can practice next to a curb, to make it easier to reach, or use tippy toes reaching backwards.

You can use tippy toes for stepping, but you should not use them for catching your fall, when you become unbalanced. It is very important to wait for the ground to come to you, when you lose your balance and start falling to one side or the other. This is the primary benefit of attempting to learn to ride a bike fakie: it will teach you how to step off when you lose your balance, and wait for the ground to come to you.

Don't worry if you don't actually learn to ride fakie on a bike! Riding a unicycle is much easier than even riding fakie on a bike, but the exercise will teach you how to practice balance, and more importantly, how to practice falling off the unicycle. Merely the act of trying to ride a bike fakie, will help train you for riding, and falling off a unicycle. It teaches you to wait for the ground to come to you when you step off.

The unexpected squiggle

Youtuber "hobodan" has a great video how riding a unicycle naturally involves a curved path of travel. This was unexpected for me, being used to a bicycle, but you quickly can adjust to it.