My unicycling goals

While I’m primarily interested in being able to ride longer endurance-style rides on a unicycle, there are some ‘tricks’ that interest me enough to want to learn them, and hoping is perhaps right up there on that list.

Why hopping?

Hopping is a skill that’s useful in many different scenarios; it can, like idling, be used to loiter within a small fixed area, and therefore useful to wait out a traffic light, or a crossing vehicular or human traffic. Another super-neat application for hopping is being able to execute a bunny-hop, in order to transition from a road onto a pavement, by hopping up a kerb, without having to dismount, get up onto the pavement and remount.

The how

The mechanics of a hop on a unicycle is quite similar to that of a bunny-hop on a bicycle; one executes a jump by pushing down onto the pedals and grabs the unicycle and carries it as one rises. Multiple hops can be strung together by timing the jumps just right; if the jump is too slow, there is no advantage one gets from the previous jump, but if timed correctly, the strength of the jump can be amplified by taking advantage of the rebound from the wheel hitting the deck. If one wants to string many hops together, one should try to cluster the impact point of the wheel in a tight grouping while ensuring one continues to sit straight. Leaning forwards or backwards can result in losing control.

Current progress

2021-04-05: I managed to hop twelve times in a row. It helps to keep the upperbody straight, instead of leaning forwards or backwards. Leaning is perhaps good to add direction to the hops, when one is more experienced, but is best avoided when learning to hop. It’s also important to remember that one doesn’t hop by pulling up on the saddle, but only to ensure that we continue to hold the unicycle in the right position relative to our rising body. Holding the arm rigid while keeping the upperbody relaxed seemed to work best for me, and I’m going to continue to practice more along the same lines.

2021-04-03: I’m currently only able to jump a small number of times before I get out of alignment or lose control, forcing me to either start rolling again, or to dismount. The longest sequence I’ve been able to manage is six times, thus far, and I find it hard to train for longer than an hour at a time, so it’ll perhaps be a few sessions before I can start to note progress.