Earlier this week, I practiced for a bit on my 36-er, practicing both assisted mounts and riding around, as it’d been a while since I’d ridden it.

Here’s a video of me, doing an assisted mount:

And here’s a video of me, riding around, for a bit:

Today, the weather was a super nice 20° C, and the sun was out, so I decided to practice outside. After some riding in the park opposite my apartment, I decided to practice for a bit, riding up the sidewalks. Both the park and the sidewalks have a variable gradient, making it slightly more interesting than going around in circles in the underground parking lot. I could make out that I’m improving, as I was able to compensate actively, both for the terrain, and the mistakes I made.

The ability to compensate for the mistakes one makes allows one to continue rolling, instead of having to immediately dismount. The cane also makes it possible for me to get 100% of my mounts right, with 0% of the fuss, saving me lots of energy which would have otherwise been wasted on repeatedly hopping up and down for each freemount, while not having to rely on a wall or a fence to get the supported mount. I’d seen a video of a guy using two ski-poles as he tried to learn, but using two poles probably makes a bunch of things harder, such as catching a unicycle as you come to a sudden, unplanned stop, as you’d have to choose between catching your pole or the unicycle. My style of using a single pole gives me the best of both the worlds; the ability to an assisted mount just about anywhere, while not losing the ability to catch the unicycle with my other free hand, when I do a sudden stop.

Here’s the video of the the other rider, who uses two poles: