Speed isn’t everything, but this will help you get that extra ‘Oommph’ into your riding!  Here is a list of go-fast-advice from some of the worlds fastest unicyclists.

1. Stay Relaxed
It is impossible to go fast if you are tense.  If you are not relaxed, you will use energy by holding your body in an unnatural position.  When you hit a bump, a tense upper body is unable to soak it up.

Your upper body, hips, head, arms should be feel floppy.  The only things that should be move are your legs.  If you look at some of the top riders, there is little upper body movement.

You can also tell how relaxed a rider is by how straight their wheel tracks.  A unicycle wheel should track in a straight line, not a wiggly one.

2. Float on your pedals

This is related to staying relaxed, but in relation to your pedaling style.  Keep just enough pressure on the pedals to make micro-adjustments to your balance.  Unlike bikes, most unicyclists do not ride clipless pedals, so pulling up is a very bad idea.  We also pedal at much higher cadences with lower resistance.  Putting too much pressure on the pedals slows down muscle contraction/relaxation, and therefore cadence.

Instead of thinking about pedaling in circles, think about floating your feet on the pedals.

3. Lower your riding position

Ever seen Tour de France bicyclists ride in an upright position?  It’s not just about aerodynamics, it helps increase power to your quads.  More importantly for unicycling, it lowers your centre of gravity so makes a unicycle much more stable at speed.  Lowering your position also spreads the load (to your hands as well as buttocks), so you won’t get saddle sore as easily.

The best way to achieve this is with some handle extension, although the longer they are, the weaker the design.

4. Use shorter cranks

This mainly applies to ungeared unicycles.  Geared unicycles tend to be more bike-like in power/efficiency, particularly for 36″ Schlumpfs.

However, for the classic ungeared unicycle, you are generally pedalling very fast at low resistance.  Shortening cranks not only improves cadence, it also improves comfort and fatigue.  If your legs are going through smaller circles, your muscles are contracting less.  Legs are heavy, and takes effort to move over a large pedalling circle.  Having less leverage also means you are pushing on the pedals harder.  This relieves pressure on your crotch over long distances as each pedal stroke pushes your body upwards and ever slightly off the saddle.

It takes a while to get used to shorter cranks, so don’t give up on it straight away. With the right technique, you can ride up surprising steep hills with short cranks.

5. Lighten your wheel

36″ wheels are horrendously heavy.  Even the lightest 36″ wheelset is more than twice as heavy as it should be, if you compare it with an equivalent racing bicycle wheelset.  Some riders estimate that every 250g lightened is like going up a virtual gear (eg 110mm cranks will feel similar to 125mm cranks previously).

See the separate tutorial on lightening your wheel.

6. Pace yourself

Often when we are racing, we it is easy to go out much faster than we should.  If you start going faster than your aerobic capacity can cope, you’ll start building lactate in your legs.  It slows you down even more on a unicycle than on a bike or running, because it stops your legs from ‘floating’ or feeling relaxed enough to spin at a high cadence.

7. Eat

Don’t wait till you get the ‘bonk’ or ‘hit the wall’ as our bicycling and running cousins call that ‘so dead I can’t stand up anymore, let alone ride’ feeling when your glycogen stores are depleted.  On a long ride, it always pays to carry food as bonk insurance.  There aren’t many things worse than bonking and not having food out in the middle of nowhere.

8. Drink

Keep up your fluid intake.  By the time you feel thirsty, you’re already dehydrated and losing performance.  You’re also more likely to cramp.  A camelbak is often a good option for unicyclists as it’s difficult to carry unicycle mounted water bottles.

9. Have the right tyre pressure

There is no right tyre pressure for unicycling. Much depends on the terrrain, rider weight and riding style.  Traditionally, higher pressures were thought to reduce rolling resistance and increase speed, at the expense of comfort.  However, there are some very fast riders (Sam Wakeling is one example) who run pretty squishy tyres.  The reasoning is that it smooths out the bumps and therefore helps you spin faster.  Other riders (Chuck Edwall and Dustin Schaap springs to mind) argue that harder is faster.

10. Draft off other riders

Drafting is not just for bikes.  Unicyclists are getting faster, and at 25km/hr and above, the effects are quite noticeable.  Particularly because we are about as aerodynamic as a flying brick wall!  Tuck in as close behind the other riders wheel as possible, but stay slightly off to one side.  Try and look beyond the rider in front, and anticipate any changes in speed or turns beforehand.