best way to learn rolling hops?

[october]

i can hop from a stillstand, with my cranks horizontal. but any tips on hopping onto or over things while moving? crank position? what's the best approach?

thanks

[mornish]

roll slowly but steadily, when you cranks are almost horizontal but not quite, hop up, land and keep rolling. It just takes practise, you should be able to learn pretty quickly.

[october]

what if you're trying to get up on something, like a curb? how would you time it so the cranks would be in that position?

[carsonpalooza]

put the unicycle with the cranks in the right spot where you want to start the jump then roll the unicycle backwards untill you have enough room to start. It's in one of the unicycling podcast, the first one I think.

[Jerrick]

With curbs, you can turn and swerve or ride along it until your cranks are at the right position.

Watch these videos to get a pretty good description of rolling hops, they are from www.UnicycleTips.com (http://unicycletips.com/), they have a great section for everything, Trials, Street, Muni, Freestyle

One Video (http://gallery.unicyclist.com/albums/tipsandtutorials/Tutorials_Rolling_Hops_Long_lowres.wmv), this video (http://gallery.unicyclist.com/albums/tipsandtutorials/heaton_car.mpeg), and look at this (http://gallery.unicyclist.com/tipsandtutorials/heaton_up) to better understand the second video.

[maestro8]

I started learning rolling hops by jumping over cracks in the sidewalk while riding along. After a while you should start getting a feel for the pedal position(s) from which you can do your rolling hops.

Keep working the sidewalk, trying to increase the length of your jump. This will help set the pedal positioning into your mind as well as your muscles. Once you've practiced enough, you'll just know when the right time is to jump, even before you get close to the object you want to jump on. Practice makes perfect!

For getting onto curbs, ride at an angle to the curb (~45 degrees) then jump when the pedals are in position. As you get better you'll be able to increase that angle until you're riding head-on into the curb. Once the curb becomes easy, work on stairs, benches, etc. to increase your jump height.

[thejdw]

It is harder and takes practice but try learing with you cranks in difrent posions. So ride up to a curb and just jump!:)

[monkeyman]

I learned the basics of rolling hops first...my friend and I were practicing and we were trying to jump over sticks...what we ended up doing is basically flailing ourselves over, and normally UPD-ing...from there, we soon figured out "Hey, we can only jump if our pedals are horizontal", so from there, we progressed to only flailing at the right time.

When you're in the air, make sure to keep your pedals horizontal and then roll out of it as you land....don't think of it as hopping as you're rolling, think of it as stalling for a VERY short time, hopping forward, and then landing/rolling out of it in one motion.

The way I've found that seems to help a lot with timing is 'snapping' your front pedal as you hop. For instance, I hop right foot forward. So, as I'm getting ready to hop, I've got rhythm of the pedals in my head, and a littlee bit after my right pedal starts its descent (after it passes vertical), I push extra hard on that pedal to 'snap' it into horizontal position as I'm jumping. If you get the 'snap' down, you basically catapult yourself and the unicycle up.

Hope that helps...feel free to PM me with any questions.

[october]

monkeyman,

i understand what you're saying...
and i can do it...when i'm not trying for an obstacle.
my problem is the timing of getting the position of my pedals to be right when i approach my target.

[maxisback]

try it until u learn it ? I only asked help on unispins.. and it dint help.. u cant rlly use the help from ppl on hoping.. its something u develop..

[dudewithasock]

monkeyman,

i understand what you're saying...
and i can do it...when i'm not trying for an obstacle.
my problem is the timing of getting the position of my pedals to be right when i approach my target.

For timing, it all boils down to adjusting your distance relative to your displacement. In laymans' terms, that just means learning to make very small-angled turns as you approach the obstacle so your tire makes little extra fractions of revolutions, and it takes a lot of trial and error to know just how much extra distance you need to put in. Just keep practicing.

[Heydeech]

Just out of curiosity, is it possible to hop from more (or any) pedal position other than your most comfortable. It seems like having 1-2 comfortable hopping position really limits your ability to make spontaneous obstacle jumps.

[delta 224]

i think so because thats what i can do . i just learned how to hop 3 days ago and skipped the practice stuff and went pretty much right to a 1/2 inch high board that i could roll onto and started hopping onto it from all different positions. you just roll up to it and bounce and pull the seat up under you.

i tried lowering the seat and that also gives you a little more height.:)
hope it helps
delta