Rolling mounts

Woo, I just figured out rolling mounts, and they’re pretty easy! Rolling mount is where you’re rolling the unicycle along the ground on front of you, and then you jump onto it .. without stopping it .. and ride off. It’s the antithesis of my first attempts at freemounting – I remember trying to keep everything precise, steady, measured. But actually unicycles are hardest to handle whilst stationary. So a rolling mount makes lots of sense.

Getting the timing right is the only hard bit. You’re watching for your favoured pedal to come round to about 6’oclock, and then you go and step up on it. The sudden introduction of your foot onto the pedal slows the unicycle down a bit, whilst you carry on up and over into a forward tilt. Then you ride away.

I tried this a few weeks ago, and came up with a hack to make it easier. If you start with your pedals in the optimal position for getting onto the unicycle, then walk backwards three paces (rolling the uni with you) then you’re set up perfectly for three-steps-then-mount. Doing that let me focus on the mounting part rather than the timing part.

Tonight, I nailed the timing part. You’re watching your target pedal as it comes round. Sometimes you need to do a quick little dance to get your feet into sync. But then you just hook up with the pedal as it comes round. It almost seems like the faster you go, the easier it is – the pedal carries you up and over more. I’ve just spend a while banzai’ing up and down my corridor, jumping onto the uni mid-run. Lots of fun!

I’ve also been trying seat-out riding. The difficulty is keeping an even amount of weight on each pedals through the pedal stroke. Easier said than done! But I’m starting to get the hang of it, and making less and less use of the seat as a steering-device / force-compensation-lever.