Falling down in public.

[fluxusmaximus]

I'm clumsy enough to have a lot of really good ones among which include...

- We rode cross-country once which means about 40km and I was on my 20" trials uni. At the end of it, I attempted to hop up a 5cm curb not knowing that my legs were rubber. Sure woke a lot of people up at 5am.

- It rained one day and I was cycling too close to a curb. My uni skidded and I flew.

- I thought I'd race down a straight path one day on my 29" uni. A crank fell off, I flew one way and my bottle another, right in front of some stunned pedestrians. They weren't impressed by the blood.

[redwelly]

Originally Posted by samwii

The worst bit however; Didn't get twenty.

Ouch, that's the painful part

I've had a few slams like that from hitting unseen bumps. One was actually a speed-bump (at the rowing lake in Nottingham) and I was riding fast and not looking. Smash. Bruises. Blood. Broken phone screen (in shorts pocket).

Sam

[mikepenton]

Originally Posted by redwelly

Ouch, that's the painful part

I've had a few slams like that from hitting unseen bumps. One was actually a speed-bump (at the rowing lake in Nottingham) and I was riding fast and not looking. Smash. Bruises. Blood. Broken phone screen (in shorts pocket).

Sam

Sam, what about the fall on the cattlegrid on your first LEJOG?

[hansc]

I was riding to the university. In a narrow section I met a pedestrian, so I rode closer to a small "curb"/stone wall. Too close, I realized later.

My unicycle stopped suddenly, catching me totally off guard. I flew forward, but the stone wall prevented me to do a rollout. A person standing by a nearby bus stop wondered if I was OK, and I quickly told her that I was. I picked up my unicycle and examined it, looking for what had caused it to stop.

When I arrived to the lecture I felt pain in my shoulder and knee. Upon a closer look, I discovered that they were covered in blood - not a nice sight Well, it gave me a good excuse for being late.

On the way home I saw that there were some spikes sticking out of the curb/wall - I probably hit one of those with my pedal.
The worst part of my story? My iPod (that I had in my pocket) was destroyed in the fall.

[evil-nick]

When I was still a uni padawan, I skidded out on loose sand in a Walmart parking lot, falling straight back on my elbows and back. I lay there for a second and slowly started getting up (it hurt!), and a customer asked if I'd hurt anything. "Just my pride" I answered, "Just my pride..."

[blueharmony]

Unicycling is really controlled falling when you get down to it. So if you are not falling you are not riding, nor pushing yourself to learn.

As far as falling in public it happens to all of us. I hate when it happens in parades but you can turn that into something positive by simply acknowledging to the stunned crowd that you are ok and it's "part of the show". They usually snicker along with you knowing it's both part of the show and inherent in the skill. Making them part of the process eases the embarrasment.

[osmundo]

So I was commuting to work during my first year as a Coker owner. I was passing by this big construction project about 6:30 in the morning. There was a line of workers getting set up for the job, drinking coffee and getting their tools ready. Everyone stopped to watch me roll by and I was cruising fast trying to give them a sense of what freak on a Coker with short cranks can really do when in my excitment my foot slipped off the petal and I bit really hard. The pack on my back burst open and my work clothes, lunch, papers, notebook and thermos of coffee splayed all over the pavement, stopping traffic in both directions. There were quite a few chuckles and I definitely felt rather small. I cut up both knees pretty badly and even after getting bandaged up I bled through gauze and tape, ruining my tan slacks and gaining some notoriety among my high school students as a rather hardcore commuter.

[Crazy Stares]

Originally Posted by osmundo

So I was commuting to work during my first year as a Coker owner. I was passing by this big construction project about 6:30 in the morning. There was a line of workers getting set up for the job, drinking coffee and getting their tools ready. Everyone stopped to watch me roll by and I was cruising fast trying to give them a sense of what freak on a Coker with short cranks can really do when in my excitment my foot slipped off the petal and I bit really hard. The pack on my back burst open and my work clothes, lunch, papers, notebook and thermos of coffee splayed all over the pavement, stopping traffic in both directions. There were quite a few chuckles and I definitely felt rather small. I cut up both knees pretty badly and even after getting bandaged up I bled through gauze and tape, ruining my tan slacks and gaining some notoriety among my high school students as a rather hardcore commuter.

That sounds terrible! I would cry if I stopped traffic or spilled food or papers everywhere. The three together, I'm not sure what I would do.

[stag]

Since taking up the 36er a couple of months back I've had quite few UPDs on the road and sometimes with cars directly behind me. Thankfully nothing too serious but I usually find failing to free mount afterwards the most frustrating thing, especially when people ask, "Do you need some help to get on?"

[stag]

Originally Posted by stag

Since taking up the 36er a couple of months back I've had quite few UPDs on the road and sometimes with cars directly behind me. Thankfully nothing too serious

Looks like I spoke too soon. This evening I was was riding quite fast down the road and I got the feeling that my left foot didn't seem to be sitting on the pedal properly. I looked down at it and then I went right over and hit the ground with force, causing a deep graze on my left palm and other smaller grazes on my bum and right hand. If only I had been wearing my gloves... I stopped wearing them recently because they didn't grip the touring handle well
I adusted the uni and decided to go back home to dress the bleeding wound. On the way back a group of teenagers started laughing hysterically at me as I went passed. Feeling a bit shaken by the previous event I flipped them the bird, which wasn't nice and totally un-unilike.

[poofengle]

I've only had 2 really big falls while unicycling, and they were both while riding my 36er

The first one was a total accident, but it was still very embarrassing/painful. I was riding downhill in the wintertime, and there was a light dusting of snow on the path I was on. I was going pretty fast because I was going downhill, and I rode over what looked to be a patch of hard packed snow. Turns out, it a was a huge patch of ice. The uni slipped out sideways, and I went flying down the path going easily 15mph. When I finally got up, I'd cut my hands and bruised almost my entire left side. The best part was that there was a man walking his dog just staring at me as I got up.

The second time I fell really hard, I was riding along a street when I felt a tugging on my shoe. My shoelace had gotten snagged in the pedal, and was completely wrapped around it when I finally noticed. I couldn't get my foot off the pedal, and I couldn't slow down before I fell. I aimed at the side of the road and completely crashed, face down and everything. I then spent 5 minutes on the ground trying to free myself from the pedal while several cars drove by staring at the cut up kid attached to the unicycle... it was pretty bad.

[hobo_chuck]

Pedaling full speed on a unicycle and wearing a heavy backpack do not mix.

It's one of the few ways that you can dismount off of the front and not be able to run out of it.

[Crazy Stares]

Originally Posted by hobo_chuck

Pedaling full speed on a unicycle and wearing a heavy backpack do not mix.

It's one of the few ways that you can dismount off of the front and not be able to run out of it.

Is that what happened? It was very odd, as I was falling forward, I felt kind of paralyzed, I couldn't get my legs off of the pedals or my butt off the saddle, and just had to wait until I was completely flat on my stomach and my backpack had pummeled me into the ground before I could stand up, and I haven't been able to figure out why since.

[hobo_chuck]

Yeah, that's happened to me twice while I was wearing a backpack, but it's never happened to me when I wasn't artificially top-heavy.

(...not to say that I haven't fallen in other ways )

[DoctorPunch]

I eat it hard if/when I fall. My friends tell me that I have something to prove because
UPD's suck and I'd rather not have a part of them. I try to ride it out if I think I'm gonna fall but yeah, I embed myself into the ground hard when I fall.