Contents

1. Hopping

   1. Static Hopping
   2. Rolling Hopping

2. Riding Down Stairs

3. Riding Long Distance

   1. Preparation
   2. Clothing
   3. The Ride

4. Unispins

   1. Jump Mount
   2. Unispin Mount
   3. Unispin

5. Riding Backwards

6. Wheel Walking

7. One Foot Wheel Walking

8. Gliding

9. Coasting

Hopping

Static Hopping

Hopping is one of those most basic skills you will learn. It is used in almost all styles of unicycling and for some is the base of the style itself. Here is a very simple guide to hopping.

• When riding come to a stop with the pedals horizontal.
• Then hold and lift the handle on the seat and stand up straight on the pedals.
• Start to hop using your ankles to create the momentum, not your knees.
• With more practice your hops will get higher.
• It's all a matter of how you want to learn and what style your interested in as to how high you want your hop to be.

Other exercises to try are:

• When freemounting, once mounted stand up on the pedals, hold and lift on the seat and go straight into a hop. This is useful if you are starting in a small area and need to line up on a drop for example.
• When riding come to a stop, and do a single hop and carry on riding. Then when comfortable, stop, hope twice, and carry on riding. Gradually increase the number of hops, and before you know it you will be hopping all over the place.
• As you land after hoping practice lowering your upper body in order to lessen some of the impact on your feet, ankles, and knees. Simply drop your upper body over the unicycle, and push your arse out. This is useful when going off larger drops where the impact of the landing can place a lot of stress on your knees, and will be useful for keeping your crotch from hitting the saddle (which will be painful).

Remember if you fall off thats fine just get back on and do it again. Rome wasn't built in a day.

Rolling Hopping

Rolling hops are useful for hopping up onto and off curbs and pavements, hopping over and obstacle in your way, hopping over a gap/drain, jumping down/over stairs etc.

A few things to remember when attempting a rolling hop:

• Check your tire pressure, a lower pressure will help absorb some of the impact. You do not want it too low however as you risk buckling your rim if the tire bottoms out.
• You need to be able to do a 10-15cm (4-6") static hop before attempting a rolling hop. This is not an absolute, but rather a guide to make sure that you are comfortable with doing a hop.
• Try to ensure that your pedals are horizontal as you attempt the rolling hop, as you would if you were doing a static hop.
• If for any reason your pedals are not horizontal when you take off, spin your cranks in the air to get your pedals horizontal for when you land.
• Concentrate on where you will be launching yourself from, and where you plan to land.
• Go for it !! Remember a lot of being able to unicycle is getting over the fear and going for it. A lot of tricks require an all or nothing attitude. Either go for it, or leave it alone.

Now to attempt that rolling hop:

• If you are attempting an obstacle for the first time position your unicycle at the point you wish to launch yourself from, make sure the pedals are horizontal with your favorite foot forward. Walk the unicycle backwards up to a distance you are comfortable with. Freemount and ride up to your launch point. Your pedals should then be exactly horizontal at your intended launch point.
• As you are about to launch, push your weight down on both pedals in order to compress the tire, and drop your upper body slightly.
• As you launch stand up straight and pull the handle on the seat.
• Lift your free arm up in order to help stabilise yourself in the air and lean slightly forward.
• Pull the unicycle up in front of yourself, use your legs to help you do this.
• Just before you land the unicycle should be slightly ahead of your body.
• As you land straighten your body, start pedaling.
• You have just landed your rolling hop.

The movement you should be trying to mimic is that of a person doing Long Jump as in field athletics. The launch, movement in the air, and the landing all follow the same movements.

When you start practicing the rolling hop, start small with a small curb or ledge. Do this until it feels natural and comfortable. Then try 2 stairs or 2 pallets, practice until you feel as comfortable when doing a curb. The just keep gradually increasing the height and distance you are attempting. Remember if you get stuck attempting a certain height or distance, just try something a few centimeters smaller/shorter. Have fun with your hopping.

Riding Down Stairs

One thing that is very important is seat height. As you ride down the stairs, it helps a lot if you're not sitting on the seat. By this I mean that not very much of your weight, if any, is ever being supported by the seat. In order for this to be true at all points during your descent, you have to ensure that the seat is low enough so that you can stand on the pedals no matter where they are. If you go down enough stairs, you will inevitably pop down one and land in a position with the pedals straight up and down.

Try riding off a curb with all your weight in the seat and you'll understand why you don't want to try it on a bunch of stairs.

OK, so now your seat is down. The next things to try are:

• Stand in the pedals.
  • This should be obvious from the discussion above.
• Ride quickly.
  • Is important as the faster you go, the smoother your trip will be (until you reach the bottom). Don't go so fast that you skip stairs though, otherwise you may experience extreme unsmoothness. In the ideal descent, your wheel will lightly touch each step. The recommended speed depends on the angle of descent. Of course for some sets of stairs it will be impossible to lightly touch each one, but for most normal flights, you can do it. Knowing the right speed for each staircase is a matter of practice.
• Ride at an even pace.
  • Keep the pace the same as you go. This means you have to pedal. You should try to remain in control of the unicycle and not let things get out of hand.
• Lean forwards.
  • If you lean back, you wont make it. You need to commit to doing the trick. It's just like skiing in this respect - if you don't lean down the hill you'll lose it backwards off the unicycle.
• Keep pedaling.
  • Keep the pace the same as you go. This means you have to pedal. You should try to remain in control of the unicycle and not let things get out of hand.
• Hold on to the seat with one hand at the front.
• Lift the seat upwards.
  • This is a great stabilizer. Another thing to try (highly recommended) is pulling the seat up towards yourself. Pull hard. This will keep the pedals on your feet for longer. One problem you'll initially encounter is your feet getting bounced off the pedals. This helps to solve that.

Apart from all this, just try it. As mentioned with the Rolling Hop, once you have committed to do it, go for it. Don't try pull out half way through. If you have to bale, do it forwards so that you can land on your feet. Leaning back to bale will only result in some pain as you land on your arse, also the unicycle will go flying out in front of you and depending where you are someone could get beaten by the flying unicycle.

Riding Long Distance

This seems like an easy thing that shouldn't need much explanation but there are a few things that will make your ride much more comfortable and less stressful.

Preparation

You'll want to make sure you have the following with you when you ride a long tour:

• Multi Tool
• 1/2" + 9/16" wrench for pedals
• Crank puller/wrench for crank bolt/nut
• One size larger cranks than you're used to riding
• Extra Tube
• Tire Levers
• Pain Pills
• Water
• Food
• More Water
• Emergency Contact Means

The multi tool will be nice for adjusting your seat. This is especially important since you will be riding far and repeating the same motion for several hours. If your ankles ache or hurt after some time, you will want to lower the seat and watch how you are pedaling to be sure your stride isn't awkward or crooked. If the knees hurt you may want to raise the seat so your knees do less moving. The extra crank set is very helpful if you are riding new terrain and run into some rough hills. A 36" unicycle will not fly up hills as easily as smaller wheels with small cranks and you will thank yourself if you need to switch them out. Its probably a good idea that you know how to do this before you leave so you don't have to guess when the time comes.

The extra tube and tire levers should be a given to all of us. No matter how thick your tire is, there is a chance that you'll end up needing to change it.

Water is a must. That is all I'm going to say about it. You will hurt yourself without enough of it.

A phone is a good idea in case you need help. Riding alone isn't the best idea but if you choose to do so the phone will be a nice fall back option if something happens.

Clothing

Bike Shorts, Bike Shorts, Bike Shorts, Bike Shorts

Your assets will thank you later regardless of your sex. Also, many bike shops will sell lubricant that you can place on pads inside the bike shorts to prevent discomfort. This will be a good idea. Cycling shirts/jerseys are a good idea and are very handy with the pockets for items you need to carry. A helmet is always a good idea as well,just don't ride without one. Turns out that landing on your head is easier done than said.

The Ride

Obviously, you have trained for the ride you'll be taking. I personally suggest the following pattern as I fall into it on most long days. Keep in mind that this outline is on a 36" wheel for a 70 mile day:

• Leave Origin
• Ride 5-7 miles
• Break/coffee/etc
• Ride another 5-7 miles
• Breakfast
• Ride 7-10 miles
• Break

This will put you 17-24 miles into your day depending on how you feel that day. This would be a good place to let breakfast settle and get yourself off the seat for a bit. After this I usually end up taking breaks every 5 miles and after 20-25 more miles of that it gets down to every 3 miles but with shorter breaks except for food.

Handlebars will help you out a lot on long tours. They provide something to lean into for leverage on headwinds, uphills and flatlands while running a high cadence as they will improve your stability. They also have the benefit of allowing yourself to lift off of the seat to reposition yourself or give your saddle a break. The T7 has bottle cage mounts but requires a rail style seatpost. The GB4 is smaller and mounts directly to your seat bottom. Both are available from unicycle.com.

I'm skipping over most of the "make sure you and your unicycle are in good shape to ride" type items just to avoid sounding like the booklet from [insert bike tour name here]. The only other thing I can suggest is to find another unicyclist or three to go with you as it makes things a lot more fun .

     Thanks go to Mouse from the Unicyclist.com forums for this tutorial.

Unispins

Everyone says "Oh, just learn the unispin mount"… However, this is not an easy feat to accomplish either my friend. For starters, it helps to learn this with plastic pedals, because aluminum and pedal pins can be very painful.

The first step in learning how to unispin, is the jump mount.

Jump Mount

A mount in which you hold the unicycle out in front of you, and jump up, while placing your feet on the pedals/cranks. It will be challenging to do this without confidence. With confidence, the jump mount can take a simple 5 minutes to learn.

• Hold the unicycle out in front of you with the pedals in a horizontal position.
• Be sure that you actually go for it. Often times, you will find yourself jumping, then backing out of it last second. It is okay to do this, because everyone is human. However, eventually you will have to man up and go for it if you want to have any chance at successfully landing a jump mount. A good technique is to stare at the front pedal while you jump onto the unicycle. This will help you get your foot succesfully on the pedal, and even if your back foot misses the back pedal, the unicycle will slowly pedal forwards, giving you plenty of time to get your back foot on.
• Be sure you practice this for about a good 30 minutes total until you have determined that you can land it at least 90 percent of the time.

Unispin Mount

A mount in which you spin the unicycle 180 degrees, while jumping onto the unicycle.

• Be sure you have the jump mount down almost perfectly. Practice repeatedly, to ensure you don't get seriously injured when it comes time to do the unispin mount.
• Only put the unicycle at a slight angle, and see if you can jump mount, while turning the unicycle a little bit. Be sure you can do this at least 3 times in a row, before moving on.
• You turn the unicycle at a 45 degree angle, and jump onto the unicycle, but be sure that the unicycle is turning, and not you. You should not have to turn to meet the unicycle. Instead, turn the unicycle towards you.
  
  
  
• You will turn the unicycle at a 90 degree angle. This is where intimidation comes into place. Do not back out of this, or you will fall. Just go for it. It will be much easier to you, now that you have pretty much mastered the jump mount. It helps if you anticipate where the pedal will end up, rather than staring at the pedal while you jump. Once you have landed this, you must keep practicing. As you may all know, practice is what makes you improve.
• You will now hold the unicycle in a 180 degree position, and then go for it. Don't worry, you'll be fine. Just keep in mind everything you practiced, and you should roll away with the unispin mount.

Unispin

A semi - advanced trick, where you jump, spin the unicycle around, and land back on the cranks/pedals successfully.

Be sure you have SIF (Seat in Front) pre-hops dialed in. You can't learn rolling hops right away. All you have left to do, is try to land a unispin.

• With both hands on the seat, jump off of the unicycle.
• It is up to you whether you decide to lift your legs up, or spread them apart, to give the wheel space to turn.
• Once you are airborne, note it is not necessary to lift the unicycle. (At first, you can just let it rest on the ground. Eventually, you can lift the unicycle, but thats once you are better).
• Spin the unicycle as with the Unispin Mount.
• Land on the cranks/pedals as with the Unispin Mount.

     Thanks go to Beeper (Brendan Roman) at the Unicyclist.com forums for this tutorial.

Riding Backwards

Backwards riding is pretty much the same as forwards riding except in the opposite direction.

There are two ways most people learn backwards riding.

• Learn to idle first.
  • If you can idle, you can learn to go backwards in steps. Do an idle and then let the wheel go one whole rotation backwards into another idle. Once you've got that, practice doing 2 rotations back, then 3 and so on. After a while you'll be going backwards.
• Just go for it.
  • Grab onto something to start off from, let go, ride backwards, repeat. It might help doing this beside a rail or a wall to hold onto to start off with, or with a helper.

In both methods, there are a few important things to know.

• It's easier to ride backwards without looking behind you. When you're learning, look behind and check it's clear before you ride. Once you've learnt to ride backwards, you can practice looking behind while riding backwards.
• If you're scared of riding backwards into the unknown, stand off the unicycle and practice running backwards through your practice area to help your confidence. Also if the area is limited in size, have visual clues on the ground so you can see before you get to the wall.
• Playing hockey is a great way to learn riding backwards.

Back to basics:

• Reversing is the first of the basic skills which is genuinely dangerous, it presents a real risk of falling backwards. You could crack your skull, or damage your spine or coccyx (tail bone!).
• DO wear a helmet. Gloves or wrist guards recommended too.
• Find somewhere smooth and level, and be confident that the area behind you is clear of obstacles.
• Riding backwards and idling are very closely linked skills. Practicing one automatically leads to practicing the other. Develop one skill, and the other improves.
• Start by riding forwards, then stop, allowing the bottom pedal to pass bottom dead center and start to rise behind you.
• Allow the unicycle to tip back ever so slightly (i.e. the wheel is in front of you an inch or two).
• Pedal back a half turn, stop, and ride forwards.
• The first and biggest hurdle is pedaling back so that the pedal passes over top dead center. It's a psychological hurdle, as there's a moment when you feel you have no control.

Soon, you should be confidently doing this:

• Forwards, stop, reverse half turn, ride forwards.
• For idling, the development is: Forwards, stop, reverse half turn, forwards half turn, reverse half turn, ride forwards. And then build up into 3s, 4s and so on.

For reversing, the development is obvious:

• Forwards, stop, reverse a whole turn, stop, ride forwards, then
• Forwards, stop, reverse 3, 4, 5 (etc.) pedal strokes, stop, ride forwards.

For idling, you can practice by holding onto a post or steadying yourself against a wall. I think it's better to learn in the open. Look a fair distance ahead and focus your eyes on a specific object. You should idle with your head almost completely still, and the unicycle swinging beneath you. For reversing, look quite a way ahead of you. At first, focus on a specific object, as with idling.

Now here's the breakthrough:

• As you reverse further and further, what do you do with your eyes? If you look at one particular object, it gets further away, and also it doesn't help if you want to turn!
• If you look at the ground, it whizzes past you in a blur, and eventually your mind becomes boggled and you fall off.
• If you look over your shoulder, you balance is all wrong.

So do this:

• Look at a specific object on the ground and focus your attention on it. It might be a leaf, a pebble, a crack in the pavement, anything. But focus your attention on it and ride away from it.
• After 5 - 10 metres, a new object will come into sight on the floor. Make a positive effort to refocus your eyes on that object, and ride away from it. Keep picking new focus points every 5 - 10 metres or so.
• The idea is that you balance with your brain, not your mind. The mind is an obstacle to learning complex motor skills like balancing. Keep the mind out of the way, and let the brain do its job! If your attention is focussed on a particular mark on the ground, the brain is receiving clear signals about speed and position, relative to a fixed point, so the calculations it has to make are much easier. Also, by making a conscious effort to choose an object and focus on it, your mind is kept busy, so it doesn't get under your brain's feet.

Have fun, be careful, good luck.

     Thanks go to Mike Fule at the Unicyclist.com forums for this tutorial.

Wheel Walking

There are 2 generally accepted methods for learning to wheel walk:

• Start next to a wall.
• Go for it.

Either method should work well, however some say that just going for it forces you to learn quicker. This is dependent of course on your current skill level. If using a wall or friend as support you will need to do the following:

• From an idle when your dominant foot's pedal reaches the top of it's arc, move your foot from the pedal to the crown of the unicycle with the front of your foot on the wheel.
• Move your other foot from the pedal up to the crown of the unicycle, this is the foot that will become the initial pushing foot.
• With the pushing foot, push the wheel forward. If this is the very first stroke, the other foot remains on the frame, letting the wheel slide past it. Otherwise, the other leg is stretched forward, and its foot must be lifted up and moved back toward the frame.
• As the foot pushes forward about 12" the leg straightens and the front of the foot must rise up off the wheel, but the heel remains in firm contact with the wheel to the end of the forward stroke. The front of the other foot just begins to make contact with the wheel right next to the frame and becomes the pushing foot in the next step. Go to previous step and repeat.

If you are starting from a mount you will need to do the following:

• As you step up onto the unicycle as you start the mount, move your foot straight up to the crown of the unicycle with the front of your foot on the wheel
• Push the wheel with this foot.
• As wheel moves, move the other foot from the pedal to the crown of the unicycle.
• Follow the last 2 points as with starting using a wall, and repeat.

Suggestions and hints:

• This is probably going to be harder than anything you have learned so far, but stick with it. It is very satisfying once you can do it, and it opens up the door to other cool tricks like one-foot wheel walking and gliding.
• Using a wall for support, allows one to learn forwards, backwards, and balance without worrying about sideways balance. A possibly better support than a wall, is a friend or two holding one's hand on one side or both. Another possibility is a chain link fence, like at a tennis court.
• A pushing stroke should be 12-15" on a 20" wheel. There should be several inches between the feet whenever they are on the wheel, since both feet are on the wheel at the same time only when one foot is starting its stroke and the other is ending its stroke. To achieve a long stroke, start the stroke with the toes as close the frame as possible; as the toes push, the rest of the foot can actually slide across the frame until the heel slides off the frame onto the wheel. Doing this actually allows to add 6" to the stroke vs. placing the foot flat on the wheel just in front of the wheel.
• Once comfortable wheel walking along the wall, try veering away from the wall, and next try wheel walking 45 degree away from the wall immediately.
• If you get stuck at about 15-25 steps and aren't making any progress, try starting in the open rather than against the wall. Idle slowly with small arcs. Put your first foot on the wheel while it is stopped at the end of the arc. Use the foot to push the wheel and follow with your other foot. Since you are starting from a position of balance you will get a better start.
• Lean back more than you think you need to. It feels very precarious at first but if you lean too far forward, you end up going too fast and wheel walking needs to be relatively slow.
• You may find yourself making progress by stepping real fast a number of times until you fall forward. This will give you some more distance, but it is not how you ride once you are good at wheel walking. When you are proficient at wheel walking you will find that your feet move relatively slowly, and that you have a lot of control over the wheel.
• Your arms are very important! You don't have the pedals to help you correct your balance. You may think it looks stupid riding with your arms out and fingers together, but it's what you need to do. Start with both arms horizontal and fingers together, arms out to the side. If you start to fall to the left, slowly move your left arm out in front, keeping it horizontal. Do the opposite if you start falling to the right.

Once you learn to wheel walk, the next trick is learning to return your feet to the pedals. You can start on this when you are comfortable enough riding that you can look down and see where the pedals are and wait until they are where you want them to be.

• The most common approach is to put your dominant foot on the pedal while it is forward before putting the other foot on the pedal behind. This means you can push down on the pedal to maintain the momentum until both feet are on the pedals. If you find that the unicycle shoots out in front of you, try putting your dominant foot on the back pedal first. Either way you will then place the second foot on the pedal while your first foot follows the pedal along.
• An alternate approach is to 1 foot wheel walk for at least a couple of paces. Then hang the other leg down so it meets the upcoming pedal. As this pedal goes over the top, you can push it down, and meet the other pedal with the foot you were 1 foot wheel walking with.
• If you try to look for the pedals over the front of the seat and between your legs you will find that you have to lean too far forward and that will throw off your balance. The trick is to look to the side over the outside of your leg rather than between your legs. You just need to tilt your head to the side and look down while keeping your upper body mostly straight. You'll be able to get a glimpse of the outside edge of the pedal. You won't be able to see the entire pedal, just the outside edge. But that's enough.
• As you get better at remounting after a wheel walk, you will find that you can return your feet to the pedals no matter where they are.

One Foot Wheel Walking

Although there are some exceptions, people generally find one foot wheel walking more difficult than wheel walking with both feet. One method of learning to one foot wheel walk is to start beside a wall (or some other support) with one foot planted firmly on the crown of the frame and the other resting on the top of the tyre. You should always have an upright posture when one foot wheel walking as it is generally done pretty slowly and you'll have more control this way. This skill requires reasonably fast foot-work which will only come with practice.

• While holding your support, push the tyre forwards about 10cm or 4" (a longer push may be necessary if you're trying it on a wheel that's larger than 20").
• Then lightly and quickly drag your foot along the tyre back to it's original position.
• Eventually you'll want to be able to drag your foot back lightly enough that the wheel still rolls forward the whole time.
• This will result in a much more controlled and impressive technique and can also lead to gliding.
• You should only really have the front half of your foot in contact with the tyre.
• One foot wheel walking requires not only fast 'paces', but also for these paces to come in reasonably quick succession.
• Always keep your arms out wide for balance.
• Once you feel comfortable one foot wheel walking beside a support, try leaving the support after a few meters, then riding into a one foot wheel walk unassisted.
• To do this, you should reasonably slowly, then lean back a little and pause on the spot while stepping up.
• Generally it's easiest to pause with your dominant foot down and back and the pedals somewhere between horizontal and about 45 degrees.
• Then you must quickly step up directly to the tyre with your non-dominant foot, and follow with your dominant foot (which goes to the crown).
• Then you're ready to kick the tyre forwards again and start one foot wheel walking
• Once you've got the hang of this you can also try going into the one foot wheel walk without the pause by doing a little glide (allowing the wheel to drag forwards under your foot) with the non-dominant foot.

     Thanks go to Andrew Carter for this tutorial.

Gliding

Gliding is when you have one foot on the crown of the frame and one foot placed on the tyre to control speed and aid balance. Gliding is seen as a natural progression from One Foot Wheel Walking, which is a natural progression from Wheel Walking. It is advisable that you are able to Wheel Walk and One Foot Wheel Walk before you attempt to Glide.

There are no real skills to practice in order to be able to glide other than balance, and controlling the wheel with one of your feet that is resting on the crown. Some tips are:

• Try to wheel walk one footed down a hill and you'll end up gliding.
• Also practice going from one foot riding directly into gliding, especially on flat ground, and eventually from riding directly into gliding.
• Try to apply as little pressure as possible on the tyre, and lean back.
• When wheel walking one footed lighten the pressure of the foot on the tyre and stop in the middle of a stroke allowing the tire to slide (glide) an inch or two.
• In gliding, one controls forward / backward balance by varying the pressure of the foot on the tyre.
• The key to gliding long distances is applying almost no pressure on the tyre, varying pressure very slightly and quickly in response to any forward/backward imbalance.
• If one minimizes the gliding pressure to zero, one would actually be coasting (although the foot would be too close to the wheel for anyone but the unicyclist to tell).

Additional tips:

• It helps considerably to be able to ride 1 footed to do this as you will be momentarily riding 1 footed.
• Pedal reasonably fast and as your gliding foot that rests on the tyre comes up to the crown it comes off the pedal and into position.
• The wheel continues around and as the other foot comes up to the crown on the other side it too flips into position.
• Once you get the hang of this it is a really fluid motion.
• The advantage of going into gliding from riding is that you can get much more speed up than you can with wheel walking which means you can glide further on flat surfaces.
• Get shoes with a flat, ideally single piece sole.
• Finding a pair of really cheap skateboarding shoes is useful.
• Expect to eventually have a large hole in one foot, so don't get anything you wouldn't mind destroying.

Coasting

Coasting is one of the most enjoyable things you can do on a unicycle. For those who don't know the distinction, gliding is riding the unicycle with one foot on the wheel as a brake and the other on the crown (or extended) while coasting is riding the unicycle without contacting the wheel, pedals, or anything except the frame and saddle. Coasting is much harder.

To learn to coast, first get really good at one-footed riding, so that you can ride along smoothly, at a steady speed, and without accelerating or braking the wheel in any way. Actually you don't need to be quite that good at one-footed riding to start learning to coast, but after a little while working on this skill, you will have one-footed riding down this well. Although it would probably be advisable to learn to glide before working seriously on coasting, this isn't necessary, since the balancing mechanisms are quite different for the two skills.

Now you can move on to the actual coasting.

• From smooth one-footed riding at a not too fast or too slow rate, take the pedaling foot off and let it hang next to the spinning pedal.
• In all likelihood, you will fall off immediately.
• It is of utmost importance that at this point you do not kick the pedal or affect it in anyway.
• You need to coast off at the same speed, balanced in the same way which you were before starting the coast.
• Practice this step for a while until you are comfortable with taking your foot off the pedal and falling off.
• You will find that you sometimes coast short distances without trying very hard. It is a great feeling when it does happen.

When you are comfortable with this, you can start working on balancing in this position and experimenting with various postures. There are two basic ways to coast:

• Either with one leg extended and the other on the crown,
• or with both feet resting solidly on the crown.

It is recommend that you experiment with both to find which way works for you, keeping in mind however that most unicyclists seem to find coasting with both feet on the crown easier. Although it is harder to get into and easier to fall from improperly, it offers more stability. The basic balancing mechanism for coasting is a rocking motion that is rather difficult to explain. I suggest watching some videos or actually watching other unicyclists coast if possible so that you will know when you are balancing properly.

If you are falling off forwards:

• You need to lean forward by bending at the waist.
• This will cause your waist region to move back and the wheel to move forward also, thus correcting your balance.

If you are too far back:

• Lean back.

It is generally accepted that making forward adjustments are a lot easier. One important tip to balance yourself properly is to keep your arms straight and raise them nearly vertical. Some riders keep their arms farther down when they coast, but almost all extend them in some way. Experiment with various arm positions and find what works for you.

It is suggested trying to switch to coasting with both feet on crown after you have worked on the leg extended variation for perhaps a a while. Try to plant both feet solidly on the crown. It helps to squeeze the seat post tightly between our feet. This will probably work best if your frame has a nice solid square crown which offers a lot of support.

Coasting is an extremely difficult skill, and one which requires a lot of commitment to learn. But if you keep with it, you will have a highly enjoyably skill that is very satisfying and also impressive. It is worth it.

Once you can coast smoothly for a ways, try getting out of it. The easiest method is to switch to gliding, then to wheel walking, then to the pedals. Getting out of coasting is a relatively easy skill, which probably does not require much advice.