It took me as many as 17 sessions of about an hour each, before I could learn to ride backwards, details of which are here. Riding backwards and idling are two different skills, and while neither of the two requires the learning of the other, I found that learning to ride backwards can make it easier to learn to idle.

When I’d done a 16 kilometer unicycle ride earlier in the day, I knew that I’d be doing a bike ride with Shruti too, later in the day, so I’d ensured that I’d saved some energy by not riding too long in the hot sun, and that allowed me to enjoy a nice 20 kilometer ride, this time on two wheels, with Shruti, for company.

Today was Midsommar, a national holiday, and a day which is generally celebrated with far more enthusiasm and geity in Sweden than even the Swedish National Day. This year though, there were no official celebrations due to COVID-19. I decided early in the day, that I’d do a ride, and I didn’t want to ride particularly long, but would like to try and push the pace a little bit, so decided to do the shorted version of the route I’d come up with, when I’d made the route to Kaga kyrka. This was a 16 km ride and I estimated that I’d be able to knock it off within two hours, or just over it. It was a little past noon, when I left, so I could be back just in time for my lunch, as per my calculations. The temperature was in the high 20 degrees Celsius, so I took a lot of water with me, in the hydration pouch.

I rode my first 20k ride yesterday. The route was something that I didn’t have to spend any time planning, as it was just a ride to Vreta kloster and back, a ride I’ve done scores of times on a bicycle, a bunch of times even accompanied by my wife, and I knew that the surface was perfect. Since I’ve gradually built up the distances on my unicycle rides, I knew that I was capable of lasting the three hours or so it would take me to ride the 20 km, and so off I went, though it was a little late. Though the light is really good now, I prefer to leave before 1800, or at any rate 1900, but it was past 1930, and I wanted to try and focus a bit on my pace too, so I could finish as soon as I could. My current average speed is around 7.5 km/h, which makes for 40 minutes, every 5 kilometers. My aim was to try and keep my pace as even as I could, at or above that average, and I found that I managed pretty well. I rode some really long sections without any unplanned dismounts (UPDs) and I’m really happy about it. I now am really beginning to enjoy riding longer distances, without any breaks. I was able to steadily chug up the Bergsbacken climb, and on my return leg, I was able to negotiate the descent too, without incident.

Now that I’m getting more comfortable with riding straight and long, and mounting the unicycle, I started training today, to be able to ride faster. While learning, I’ve consciously tried to keep the speed of the wheel in check, to prevent it from accelerating to a speed I wasn’t comfortable with, and now, I need to consciously reprogram my brain to override this self-imposed limit. This affects the way I ride downhill too; at the moment, even if there is the smallest hint of a downward slope, I end up using a lot of back-pressure, to bring the speed all the way down to around 6-7 km/h, but I’m now trying to allow myself to increase the minimum speed from the existing 6 km/h to around 10 km/h, even while going downhill. Like other things on a unicycle, this too involves some mental rewiring and redefining of internal safeguards, so it’ll perhaps take some time, but like other skills I’ve learnt, I’ll perhaps suddenly be able to ride faster than I’ve been able to do so before. Today’s ride was a 9 km out and back ride, where I rode onto Bergsvägen, till the turnoff to Sättuna, before turning back. I tried consciously to pedal more forcefully and to piston down with the other foot just as soon as the driving foot was done, to ensure that I didn’t end up having any unintended breaking action. I found that I was able to push harder and with greater confidence up climbs, than one flats and descents, clearly reiterating that it’s not about power delivery itself, but about rewiring the limits in the brain, and to pedal freely and without hesitation.