One of the surfaces I’d not ridden on a unicycle, was grass; moist/wet sand has a lot of resistance, but grass, particularly grass with moist earth underneath is particularly challenging thanks to the greatly increased resistance. Grass doesn’t seem particularly hard to bicycle on, as it’s easier to lay more power down, but when our point of contact is one wheel, we need to ensure that we use our weight to stay on the uni while maintaining a forward tilt, to keep plowing through. The reason I’m interested in riding on grass is that it can serve as a gateway to riding on other kinds of challenging and uneven surfaces.

There are large grass-covered sections near my workplace that I thought I could start with. I first tried with my 20” unicycle with its skinny tire, and realized straight away that the thin tire was sinking too much into the soft earth, and becoming impossible to ride away. As soon as I switched to my 24” unicycle (which had fortunately for me been sitting in my car’s boot), I was able to make some progress. From the snaking tracks I left, I could make out just how much I was turning left and right as I struggled to keep goingg. My heart-rate too rose quite a bit with the workload. I must try and do it more regularly so I get used to the workload.

After a few minutes, I decided to ride on tarmac again, and this time, try and push the pace a little bit. I pushed as much as I dared, and rode around the campus, without a single UPD. I rode just over 4 kilometers and hit a top-speed of 13.8 km/h, which is close to the max speed of 14 km/h that I’ve been able to manage on the 29-er recently.

The 110 mm cranks on the 29-er make for a smoother less jerky circle, and should technically make it possible to extract a lot more speed, if I ride with fewer inhibitions. I’ve managed speeds of upto 17 km/h in the past, and it ought to be possible to go even faster. For now, I’m looking to get an average speed that’s 10-12 km/h with a top-speed around 15-17 km/h. The average of 10 km/h is almost already in the bag, so it remains to be seen how much I can push it in the days to come.