Does Muni provide exercise at all?

john_childs said:

The workout you get from unicycling is entirely dependent on the
terrain. If the terrain is easy (flat and/or smooth) you are not going
to get the same kind of workout you can on a bike. On a bike you can
change gears to make even the easy terrain a workout. Can't do that on
a unicycle.

Muni can give you a good workout if the terrain is good for it. You
can get the heart rate up and keep it there. On some trails even much
more so than the same trail on a MTB. On the types of trails I like to
ride I can keep my heart rate up higher on the muni than on the MTB
(but my MTB skills also suck so I can't ride the MTB aggressively on
singletrack). On the muni I often have to stop and grab a tree to rest
and catch my breath because I'm working so hard. I have never had that
problem on a MTB.

Smooth buff XC trails without a lot of elevation changes are going to
be bad for the workout goal. Rooty, rocky, and rolling trails are
going to give you a very good workout. It also has to do with how
aggressively you ride the trail.

There are some differences in the workouts though. On a bike you can
push yourself farther into energy debt than you can on a unicycle. You
can be totally beat on a bike and still keep pedaling and still keep
your balance. When you're totally beat on a unicycle you'll be falling
over little simple bumps in the trail because you'll be unable to
recover your balance.

Unicycling requires the sprinting fast twitch muscle fibers to keep
your balance when riding bumpy terrain. Those fast twitch muscles are
the first to go when you get beat. They're also the first to go when
you go anaerobic to make it up a climb. On a bike the fast twitch
muscles can go and you'll still be able to pedal and keep your balance.

I basically disagree with everything you said. I get a better workout
on a uni than on a bike no matter what. If it's flat, push harder. I'm
also able to pedal and keep my balance on a uni when I can't even stand
on my own two feet. And I've only been unicycling for 4 months total.
So, the answer to the OP is, HELL YES! The answer to you, try harder.

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habbywall said:

Don't know if anyone has said this yet because I am too lazy to read it
all, but in unicycling, especially muni you need to be peddling at all
times unlike mountain biking so it is alot more energy required.

Just because you're pedaling all the time on a unicycle doesn't mean
there is a lot more energy required. A lot of that time can be spent
pedaling with very little resistance. You're basically in granny gear
on a bike. That's not necessarily using a lot of energy even though
your legs are moving.

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john_childs said:

Just because you're pedaling all the time on a unicycle doesn't mean
there is a lot more energy required. A lot of that time can be spent
pedaling with very little resistance. You're basically in granny gear
on a bike. That's not necessarily using a lot of energy even though
your legs are moving.

It may not be using a lot of *force*, but it's certainly using a lot of
*energy*. There is no question in my mind that bicycling and
unicycling the same *distance* requires more work on the unicycle,
regardless of the terrain or type of unicycle. I also believe that in
general, unicycling for a specified *period of time* over a specified
type of terrain is more fatiguing than bicycling for the same period of
time over the same terrain. When I'm in shape, I can come back from a
seven-hour, 100-mile bike ride and not be particularly fatigued; if I
spend seven hours on a unicycle, I am wiped out, and I can't even
contemplate riding 100 miles on a unicycle.

There is one way that bicycling can be a better workout than
unicycling; if your goal is to get your heart rate to a certain level
and keep it there, bicycling will work better than unicycling, because
you can adjust your gearing to control the amount of work you're doing
at any given time, while on a unicycle you'll have peaks and valleys
based on the terrain.

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AscenXion said:

I basically disagree with everything you said. I get a better workout
on a uni than on a bike no matter what. If it's flat, push harder. I'm
also able to pedal and keep my balance on a uni when I can't even stand
on my own two feet. And I've only been unicycling for 4 months total.
So, the answer to the OP is, HELL YES! The answer to you, try harder.

You sure like to argue, but you ain't got the knack to pick up ideas
any too quick. One newbie just wrote in asking why he is so tired
(after 9 days fo practice). It looks to me like 4 months just might
not be enough for you...

Oh, yeah. It is more than a little amusing to see a newbie advising
JC to try harder. Thanks for the amusement.

Ken

tholub said:

There is one way that bicycling can be a better workout than unicycling;
if your goal is to get your heart rate to a certain level and keep it
there, bicycling will work better than unicycling, because you can
adjust your gearing to control the amount of work you're doing at any
given time, while on a unicycle you'll have peaks and valleys based on
the terrain.

If you have a Guni you can expand the terrain possibilities and still
keep your heart rate up. You may only have two gears, but that is
better than the one granny gear of most unicycles (the exception being
a Corker w/ 125 mm cranks).

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I agree with everything John said, and was going to post something
similar but then had to go away and he posted what I was going to say
in the meantime.

I've been a MTBker, Roadbiker and Unicyclist, and I feel far more tired
after riding the equivalent amount of time on a bike than I do on a
unicycle. Of course, it's terrain dependent, so I won't repeat what
John said.

There's a local 50km bike race I've done about 8 or 9 times. The last
three which I did on a MUNI were by far the easiest (although slightly
slower), and I was far less knackered at the end. I didn't cramp up
either, which I always seem to do when I ride my bike on this
particular race.

Also I've done a couple of 12hr MTB races (on both MUni and MTB)- I
feel much more hammered after doing it on a bike. And the 320km
roadbike race I did last year (taking about 11hrs), was much more
tiring than any of the 12hr+/24hr rides I've done on a Unicycle.

When you first learn to ride, then that would probably be the only time
that it's more tiring to ride a unicycle, because you're expending a
lot of energy trying to keep your balance.

Ken

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tholub said:

When I'm in shape, I can come back from a seven-hour, 100-mile bike ride
and not be particularly fatigued; if I spend seven hours on a unicycle,
I am wiped out, and I can't even contemplate riding 100 miles on a
unicycle.

From experience of riding 100miles a couple of times on a unicycle, I
didn't feel too bad at the finish, could probably have ridden further.
After an equivalent 8hr's or so spent on a bike over same terrain
(second lap of the above 320km bike race), I felt really terrible and
almost had to pull out, except I was miles from anywhere. And when I
finally got to the finish I coughed up blood.

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GizmoDuck said:

From experience of riding 100miles a couple of times on a unicycle, I
didn't feel too bad at the finish, could probably have ridden further.
After an equivalent 8hr's or so spent on a bike over same terrain
(second lap of the above 320km bike race), I felt really terrible and
almost had to pull out, except I was miles from anywhere. And when I
finally got to the finish I coughed up blood.

I think for the first couple of years of uni riding it's more effort
everywhere. Nowadays I feel it's a bit more effort off road, but less
on road.

I've done 50 miles on a road bike as fast as I can god that hurt
compared to riding 50 miles on the coker. I can average about twice as
fast on the bike over that distance. Obviously if I chilled out and
rode at coker speed it'd be different, but if I was gonna do that I'd
have taken the coker anyway.

Muni riding though, rides involving a lot of downhilling in particular
are still way way more tiring for me than on a bike. I've gone on easy
25 mile rides with groups of bike riders, and hardly been able to walk
afterwards cos it was so much effort trying to keep up and racing them
up the hills.

Joe

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joemarshall said:

I've done 50 miles on a road bike as fast as I can go that hurt
compared to riding 50 miles on the coker. I can average about twice as
fast on the bike over that distance. Obviously if I chilled out and
rode at coker speed it'd be different, but if I was gonna do that I'd
have taken the coker anyway.

I think this phenomenon (and the one Ken mentions) is that it's not
possible to go "as fast as you can go" on a unicycle; your speed is
limited by mechanics, not by VO2max. So if you're putting out 100%
effort on a bike, it will be more strenuous than a unicycle.

But, you can put out 80-90% effort on a bike and still be both way
faster than a unicycle and use less energy.

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I think the effort spent depends alot on the terrain. I'm an avid road
biker and Muni rider. I can blaze away on the road bike and keep my
heart rate way up there, and burn my legs to ashes on climbs. But so
car as total body workout goes, trying to clean those long steep rocky
sections on the trails up in Santa Barbara, and places like it--that
thrashes me more than anything I've ever exprienced on a bike. Even my
shoes are soaked through after an hour, and all that back presuring
makes it supercardio as well. And having to keep all that core body
tension really works the whole corpus something fierce.

JL

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Muni can be very tiring and good excersise. but if you want a
thighburner, coker up steep hills over and over again.

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cline said:

AscenXion said:

I basically disagree with everything you said. I get a better

workout

Quoted message said:

on a uni than on a bike no matter what. If it's flat, push harder.

I'm

Quoted message said:

also able to pedal and keep my balance on a uni when I can't even

stand

Quoted message said:

on my own two feet. And I've only been unicycling for 4 months

total.

Quoted message said:

So, the answer to the OP is, HELL YES! The answer to you, try

harder.

You sure like to argue, but you ain't got the knack to pick up ideas
any too quick. One newbie just wrote in asking why he is so tired
(after 9 days fo practice). It looks to me like 4 months just might
not be enough for you...

Oh, yeah. It is more than a little amusing to see a newbie advising
JC to try harder. Thanks for the amusement.

Ken

I appreciate that English doesn't appear to be your first language.
But, if you're going to attempt to argue a point, perhaps you should
use the translation button a little better.

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GizmoDuck said:

I agree with everything John said, and was going to post something
similar but then had to go away and he posted what I was going to say
in the meantime.

I've been a MTBker, Roadbiker and Unicyclist, and I feel far more tired
after riding the equivalent amount of time on a bike than I do on a
unicycle. Of course, it's terrain dependent, so I won't repeat what
John said.

There's a local 50km bike race I've done about 8 or 9 times. The last
three which I did on a MUNI were by far the easiest (although slightly
slower), and I was far less knackered at the end. I didn't cramp up
either, which I always seem to do when I ride my bike on this
particular race.

Also I've done a couple of 12hr MTB races (on both MUni and MTB)- I
feel much more hammered after doing it on a bike. And the 320km
roadbike race I did last year (taking about 11hrs), was much more
tiring than any of the 12hr+/24hr rides I've done on a Unicycle.

When you first learn to ride, then that would probably be the only time
that it's more tiring to ride a unicycle, because you're expending a
lot of energy trying to keep your balance.

Ken

Then perhaps you really are Gizmo Duck. 😉

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joemarshall said:

I can average about twice as fast on the bike over that distance.
Obviously if I chilled out and rode at coker speed it'd be different,
but if I was gonna do that I'd have taken the coker anyway.

Joe

I believe that is the point that you few are missing. If you get more
tired on a bike than on a uni, it's only because you are pushing
yourselves WAY harder on the bike than on the uni. You THINK that
uniing is less tiresome, but you don't realize that it's only cuz
you're not pushing yourselves. Which is why I said that John needs to
push himself more.

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AscenXion said:

I believe that is the point that you few are missing. If you get more
tired on a bike than on a uni, it's only because you are pushing
yourselves WAY harder on the bike than on the uni. You THINK that
uniing is less tiresome, but you don't realize that it's only cuz
you're not pushing yourselves. Which is why I said that John needs to
push himself more.

The point we're making is that It's not possible to push yourself that
hard on a road unicycle once you're actually good at riding it, whereas
on a bike it's pretty straightforward.

Joe

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And I have been known to push myself pretty hard on a unicycle 😠

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AscenXion said:

cline said:

you ain't got the knack to pick up ideas any too quick.

I appreciate that English doesn't appear to be your first language.
But, if you're going to attempt to argue a point, perhaps you should
use the translation button a little better.

Someone who actually talks that way would certainly be a native
(American) English speaker. But of course, you couldn't come up with
a better response.

Since you are too dense to pick up on sarcasm, I was insulting you by
using crude language to mockingly suggest that you might unable to
understand proper language. In case you can't tell, I also insulted
you again by stating my mock belief that you are too stupid to infer
the nationality of the natural speaker of that phrase.

Despite the insults, Ascenxion, I harbor no resentment for you. How
about joining in the discussion in a way that shows a little respect
for participants that actually know a lot more about the subject than
you do? That's not an unreasonable request, is it?

Ken