First thing to know is that it isn't, in some sense, all that difficult. There are a few things you need to know, a few things you need to learn, and then it's deliberate practice that does it for you.

You need to learn a single, new reflex, and here's how.

Some people ask about what unicycle is easiest to ride. That's actually a different question than asking which is easiest to learn on. I think it's easiest to learn on a 20" standard. You have power to correct the fore/aft balance, it's easy to step on and off, and it's not far off the ground. However, it is easier to ride a giraffe. Getting on is more difficult, getting off is easy - anyone can manage that (although avoiding injury requires some practice) - and riding is actually slower. But you really can't ride a giraffe until you can ride a standard, so that's what you learn on.

Step 1: Getting comfortable in mounting and dismounting

• Find a wall or a pole with a flat, smooth surface around it.
  • I will assume you're using a wall.
  • A sturdy outdoor handrail will also work.
  • Different people prefer different props - experiment.

• Put your unicycle upright with the wheel parallel to the wall, and with the wall on the left.
  • I will assume you're right-handed. Transpose instructions as required.

• Stand behind the unicycle, facing along the wall with the wall on your left and the unicycle in front of you. Hold the front of the saddle with your right hand.

• Adjust the unicycle so the right pedal is at the bottom of its travel, and the left is at the top.

• Tip the saddle back towards you and put it in "the appropriate position"

• With your left hand on the wall, put your right foot on the right pedal.

• Lean forward, you can put both hands on the wall if you like.

• Put all your weight on the right pedal.
  • The wheel will try to twist, probably to the left. That's why you have your hands on the wall. With your weight on the right pedal, the wheel can't turn.

• If you really had leaned far enough forward, you can now get yourself into an upright position.
  • KEEP YOUR WEIGHT ON THE RIGHT PEDAL!
    • Sorry for shouting like that, but people seem to forget.

• Using the wall, and keeping your weight on the right pedal, re-twist yourself to get the wheel parallel to the wall.

• Try to sit there,
  • weight on the right pedal,
  • left foot resting lightly on the left pedal,
  • mostly upright,
  • facing along the wall,
  • balance maintained with the left hand on the wall.

• You can try transferring some of your weight to the saddle, perhaps around 75%, so you are sitting there with enough weight on the right foot to keep it at the bottom.

• Now dismount by
  • putting all your weight on your right foot,
  • lifting your left foot off the left pedal,
  • putting your left foot behind you, and
  • stepping backwards onto your left foot.

Equally, though, don't over practise it. You need to be able to do it reasonably comfortably, but allow that you'll have a wobble one in five times or so. Not a problem, it just needs to be under control.

Step 2: Getting into the launch position.

OK, so you are comfortable getting on and off reliably with the wall or a pole to help. Make really sure you can do that 80% of the time without problems.

Now we need to get the pedals horizontal. Currently you have a lot of weight on the right foot, and the right pedal is at the bottom of its travel. The left, of course, is at the top.

We need to get them to the same level. Here's how we do that.

A quick word here about unicycle saddle height. When learning, with your foot at the bottom you want your knee to be slightly bent - you don't want a straight leg. Many people, especially cyclists, tend to have the saddle too high when learning. You can adjust the height more later, but with the leg bent you can apply rearwards force more easily. That's important.

Step 2a: Get the pedals level

• Control
• Lifting the weight a little from the right foot
• Control
• Allowing the right pedal to go forward
• Control
• The cycle will more backwards a little
• Careful!
• Use the wall to prevent twist.

Step 2b: Get control of the unicycle

This is an element of control that you will need to master, but you won't get complete control just like this. Nevertheless, it is an important step in the learning process.

Once you have the pedals level with each other, rock back and forth very gently, never letting the pedals get more than 30 degrees above or below the horizontal. Feel the unicycle moving back and forth just a few inches each way.

Rock back and forth, just a little. Do it fluently, back, forward, back, forward, ticking like a clock.

Step 2c: Return to the mount position

So now you need to get back to the right-foot-down position. Under control, move the unicycle forward, getting your right foot to the bottom of its travel. Now you are back as per Step 1, and you can dismount.

As you rotate the wheel that quarter turn, it moves forward, and it can leave you behind. This is important to notice, to detect, and to control. If you let the wheel go forward without keeping up with it, you will step off backwards without control.

Remember that as we go to Step 3.

Step 3: The half turn

Now, before you get excited, this is a half turn of the wheel, not a half turn around a vertical axis. You're not riding yet, so that has some time to wait.

So what happens next. You are sitting under control, gently rocking the wheel back and forth about 4 or 5 inches (10 or 15 cm) in each direction. Now is the time to actually move forward by a substantial amount.

The problem is that if you simply pedal forward, the wheel goes forward, you stay where you are, and then you fall off. backwards. That's not really want you want. And yet you have to pedal forwards.

How do you stay on?

Here is the secret of learning to unicycle. It's a change of attitude, and change of perception, and change of the way you think about it. The secret is that you don't try to stay on the unicycle.

The "stopping pedalling to catch up" only works if you're already travelling forward. If not, you have other problems, and other ways to solve it. Stay with me for now.

See, if you're falling off forward, you pedal faster to get the wheel underneath you. If you're falling off backwards, you stop pedalling so you catch up with the wheel again.

So here's what we're aiming for. You want to pedal forward one smooth half turn. Currently your feet are level, right foot forward. We want to get to feet level, left foot forward.

But you can't just pedal, you'll fall off backwards. So you need to let yourself start to fall forward first.

Technical stuff A 20" wheel unicycle has a radius of 10", and a half-turn distance of about 30" to 32". You fall forward by 6", and while you pedal forward smoothly the wheel travels about 30", and you travel about 20". The wheel is now in front of you by about 6", so stop pedalling and you'll catch up with it, with zero residual speed.

Here's the timeline:

• Let yourself start to fall forwards.
  • Imagine you're setting off to walk
  • You fall forward, then put a foot out
  • Do the falling, but then ...
• When you're about 6 inches forward,
  • Pedal one smooth half turn forwards
  • Aim for this to take between 0.5 and 1.0 seconds.
• STOP
• Let your body catch up,
• Catch your balance

Now here is actually the most important part of learning:

This is the "deliberate practice" part of the exercise. If you analyse each failure and work out why it happened, you'll be in a position to correct the problem, and not just flail away, trying the same incorrect thing over and over again.

Try it - see what happens.

Step 4: Going over to the other side.

So now you can:

• mount and dismount comfortably and regularly
  with a support wall or rail.

• roll backward a quarter turn to get the pedals level,
  and then return to the up/down pedal position, and
  you can do that without flailing about too much

• make one, single, smooth, half-rotation of the wheel,
  stopping when the pedals are again level with each other,
  but now with the left foot forward.

As before, you need to let yourself fall forwards so that when you pedal, the wheel comes under you, then overtakes you, and then you catch up with it "on the other side".

The deliberation over the practice is so, so important. By thinking about what goes right, and what went wrong, you can start to nail how it should feel every time. Without that you just practise the same errors over and over again. This is where a teacher would normally be helpful, to see what single thing to think about next time, and stop you from getting into a rut. Without someone watching, you need to do that for yourself.

Again, the really important part is to analyse this every single time. Even when it goes well, ask yourself how it was different from times when it didn't go well. And if it didn't go well, ask yourself which of the mistakes you made.

And now is the time to review your progress.

• Make sure you can mount and dismount comfortably.
• Make sure you can roll back to get the pedals level
• Make sure you can roll forward again to the up/down position
• Make sure you can do a single, smooth half turn forward.

• Make sure you can do a second, single, smooth half turn forward.

You're nearly there.

Step 5: Moving on

(pending ...)

Quotation from Tim Berners-Lee