Suicide mount

“Hold the unicycle upright on front of you, pedals level. Let go of the unicycle and, before it falls over, jump up into the air and land evenly on both pedals, then ride away”.

That’s a no-handed jump mount, aka the “suicide mount”. There’s a rather large psychological barrier to get over here. On all my early attempts, I’d manage to bounce slightly on my toes before some deep-seated self-preservation instinct kicked in and I bottled it. It’s a fully committed jump onto, err, a wheel.

Learning to hop, and riding in/out of hops teaches you how to keep even pressure on the pedals, even when slightly off-balance – an important precursor to doing the jump mount. But, after that, you just have to “go for it”. Strangely, I found that I had more time than I expected in mid-air to find the pedals. Landing is a teeny bit more stable than I’d anticipated. Even if you land on one pedal a millisecond before the other one, your weight pushes the other pedal up towards your feet, creating somewhat of a platform to land on.

So, that’s five different ways I can get onto a unicycle: standard (left & right foots), reverse/rollback, side, jump and no-hands jump. I think I could probably manage all the level 2 skills on a good day, plus hopping and a bit of idling, and I can ride for half a mile in one go. Solid progress.