Beginner's question about freemounting: Would a brake help?

I am a 55 year-old beginner (Level Zero). I am having difficulty learning
to freemount. I am wondering if having a brake on my unicycle would help.
With the pedals horizontal a brake would lock the wheel from moving. Weight
placed on the back pedal would not move the wheel backwards. Consequently,
I think it might be much, much easier to mount the unicycle.

Would someone with a brake on their unicycle please confirm or discredit
this idea?

Thank you for your kind attention to this speculation.

--
Fritz Lott
220 Sunnyridge Lane
Golden Valley, MN 55422-5300

"Fritz Lott" writes:

I am a 55 year-old beginner (Level Zero). I am having difficulty learning
to freemount. I am wondering if having a brake on my unicycle would help.
With the pedals horizontal a brake would lock the wheel from moving. Weight
placed on the back pedal would not move the wheel backwards. Consequently,
I think it might be much, much easier to mount the unicycle.

I've never ridden with a brake, but I have a suggestion that might
help you. Try placing the wheel against an obstacle like a curb or
block of wood before mounting. After you get the hang of that you can
try free mounting without any aids.

It has been a while but as I recall, 90% of my difficulty in learning
to free mount was overcoming various fears (that I'd do harm to the
boys as the seat rolled over my crotch; that the unicycle would bite;
that I'd fall and look like a fool; or that I'd be attacked by aliens
- I still haven't overcome that last one). But once you can reliably
get both feet on the pedals and your seat on the saddle the fear
subsides and it's mostlyy a matter of timing.

By the way, I learned to do a jump mount two days ago. I was worried,
what with having to coordinate both feet at once, but found I could
jump into a position like that in the middle of a normal mount (rear
foot hitting first). From there, it was a piece of cake and I'm
practically 100%! Yee Haw!

Ken

On Tue, 02 Mar 2004 20:54:47 GMT, "Fritz Lott" wrote:

Would someone with a brake on their unicycle please confirm or discredit
this idea?

Jason from Alaska, who has a knee problem, posted some time ago about
using a brake to help him freemount with less stress on the knee.
While he does have a brake on his MUni, I'm not sure whether he
speculated or actually spoke from experience. AFAIK, he is not yet
riding again after knee surgery. The people on the forum cannot see
posts made to the newsgroup right now, so he can't respond.

Along the lines of Ken Cline's response, his freemounting tip and a
few others are in a Word document "Learning to unicycle" that you can
download from my Tips for beginners page at
www.xs4all.nl/~klaasbil/uni_beginners.htm. I learned to freemount at
age 47 (3 years ago) and found it terribly difficult; it cost me
months to get it near-reliable, and that is still where it is: good
enough but occasionally fails.

Klaas Bil - Newsgroup Addict
--
"Heck, even my toes were aching from trying to grip the soles of my shoes! - Tommy Thompson"