The reasons for uni-cycling and tips for safety

More and more people find unicycling is interesting and beneficial for health and it could improve our competence of coordination and balance. In addition to these obvious reasons, people choose unicycling as traffic vehicle because of various factor. These article is going to summary some reasons why people addicted to unicycling, and by the way, give uni-cyclists some practical suggestion on unicycling safety. We hope that many of you could enjoy the entertainment of unicycling.

Reasons for unicycling

Health Benefits
Riding a unicycle could bring you health benefit. For instance, it could burn calories and train your leg muscles, which could help you build a perfect physique. Unicycles have no handlebars, so you have to strive to balance yourself on the unicycle, which helps you build a healthier core. According to some professional medical survey, uni-cycling not only could help you keep fit, but also is beneficial for your cardiovascular system. Uni-cycling belongs to aerobic exercise, which could protect you from being attacked by cardiovascular diseases. Comparing with other aerobic exercises, unicycling is low-impact, which means that it would not do harm to your joint. Thus, even those people with keen, leg injury also could ride the unicycle.

Besides, unicycle has no handlebars, so you must totally rely on your legs to control the unicycle and move forward. Therefore, riding a unicycle could strengthen your leg muscles.

Moreover, riding unicycle could train your coordination and balance of your body. As we all know, the coordination of our body has profound effect on your movement. If you are weak at coordination, you might easily lose balance when walking or riding a bike. And you might have terrible performance on the other exercise programs such as climbing or dancing. Therefore, if someone wants to perform well in other exercises, he or she would like to choose the effective exercise such as unicycling to improve coordination.



Taking up few spaces when riding
Unicycle is a one-wheel vehicle, and its size is much smaller than other vehicles in the road. Therefore, when riding a unicycle, you don’t make wide space to control it. For example, when you have to turn the direction, you don’t need to deliberately make wide space.



Saving storage space
Because of the small size, Unicycles would not take up a lot of storage space. The normal bicycle sometimes is too large to be stored inside, and it might be hurt by sun and rain, which makes it become vulnerable and easy to break down. If you own a unicycle, it is unnecessary to concern how to store it or how to carry it because it is small and light. If you don’t have enough space for your exercise equipment storage, a unicycle is a good option.



Free your hands
Nowadays, everyone pursues efficiency no matter in work or in life. For example, many people are required to do two or more things at the same time. When cycling a normal bicycle, it is impossible for you to do anything else. Your hand has to be placed on the handlebars to control your bicycle and keep its balance. Therefore, if you want to free your hand from the handlebars, you would better purchase a unicycle. When riding the unicycle, you just need to use your legs to move forward and control the direction, so your hand could be release from handlebars. Therefore, you could hold things and do other things with your hand. For instance, you can hold a book, eat food, or even scratch your arm because unicycles totally free your hand, your legs and feet doing all the work.



Environmental friendly
Similar to the normal bicycle, unicycle also very environmental. When riding a unicycle, you don’t need to use any fuel and what pushes it forward is your force. Riding unicycle would not release any harmful gas. Therefore, riding a unicycle could protect the environment, which is beneficial for the establishment of environmental friendly society. And it also saves fuel resources. Therefore, many people who determine to contribute themselves to environmental protection would like to select unicycle as their traffic vehicle.



Improving your mental health
According to the studies conducted by Japanese, unicycling could improve your mental health. The studies show that unicycling could promote the abilities of concentration as well as coordination. When you riding a unicycle, you have to concentrate on keeping the balance of your unicycle. Therefore, practicing riding a unicycle is a good way to improve your mental health. In reality, the Japanese Educational Department has incorporated unicycling in their curriculum.



Unicycle is controllable
If you have the experience of riding the unicycle, you would find that the speed of unicycle completely depends on how fast you pedal. Therefore, if you want to stay on the unicycle or move forward, you must keep pedaling. This is a good thing for the safety of cyclists. The reason is as follows. The normal bicycle could move forward on its own especially when it comes across a slope. So it is riskier for cyclists when they ride a normal bicycle. The normal bike sometimes is out of the control of cyclist. On the contrary, this kind of situation would not happen on the unicycle and it is always controlled by cyclists.



Social Benefits
In reality, unicycling is not a common activity. Not too much people addicted to unicycling. For this reason, among unicycle riders, a sense of unity prone to emerge. Many riders travel significant distances just to go riding and spend time with other unicycle riders. Thus, if you participate in some unicycling activity, you could make some friends who share the same interest with you. Besides, unicycling is often a family activity, and riding together could make your family relationship more intimate.



Economic Benefits
Some cyclists choose unicycle as their transportation vehicle because it would not ask for any fuel. Thus, they don;t need to spend money on the fuel. Besides, unicycles also only a few moving parts that might break. This means that it is easy to maintain or you also won't need to spend much money in repairing it.



Safety tips for unicycling

On the above article, we mentioned that unicycle is safer than the normal bike in some specific situation because you could control it all the time. Nevertheless, there are always some risks existing in exercise, and unicycling is no exception. Therefore, it is essential for cyclists to know some safety tips to protect yourself during the process of exercise.



Choosing appropriate unicycle
If you determine to practice unicycling, the first thing you should do is to purchase a unicycle appropriate for you. When purchasing a unicycle, there are several things that you should take into consideration. You must pay attention to the inseam length, the size of the wheel, as well as the performance. Besides, You should also confirm that the seat is comfortable for you.

Before riding, it is significant to check whether the tire is inflated properly and adjust the seat height to suit your height.



Wearing protective gear
It is encouraged to wear protective gear especially for beginners, who probably fall from the unicycle during their first attempts at riding. Nevertheless, since there are risks existing in every exercise, no matter how skill level you have reached, you should still wear protective gear. Some beginners might be confused about what kind of protective gears to wear. Let’s show you some example.

For instance, Helmets is necessary because it could protect the head from being hurt badly on the ground when you fall from the unicycle. Besides, Gloves are also essential. Although you don’t have to use your hand when riding a unicycle, you need to find some support from walls or fences to keep your balance. Therefore, your gloves could protect your hand from being hurt when you touch the uneven surface. Gloves also protect your hands when you lose balance and fall on the ground. Moreover, Elbow guards protect your elbows and wrists from scrapes. And shin guards protect you from being hurt when the pedals hit you.



Wearing appropriate clothes
When uni-cycling, you’d better choose appropriate clothing. Appropriate clothing would make you feel comfortable and allow you to move your arms and body freely, which is quite important for you to keep balance on the unicycle. We encouraged you to wear the clothing made of the material that allows you to stretch and extend your body when necessary. Besides, You could wear pants which could protect your legs from scratches if you do not have knee pads.



Wearing comfortable shoes
It is necessary for you to choose a pair of appropriate shoes when unicycle. And sandals or slippers should not be worn when unicycling because you would easily slide or slip wearing them. Therefore, we suggested you wear appropriate and comfortable shoes and you should check whether the laces have been tied before riding.



Practicing on a clean and even surface
If it is the first time you ride a unicycle, you’d better choose clean and even ground to practice your skill of unicycling. Before riding, you have to pay attention to remove all the stones or other obstacles on the road so that you wouldn’t be affected by bad road condition. At the beginning, you might found it difficult to keep balance on the unicycle and you might easily fall because of the obstacles on the ground. To accomplish this step, you need to find a place where the ground is clean and even to practice. Moreover, we suggested that you choose the place where there are few people and other vehicles to avoid hitting people or being hit by other vehicles.



Following the safety tips we mentioned above, we believe you could enjoy the entertainment of unicycling.