Missed post #1? Read it here.

After my first few rides, one of the things that I felt I immediately needed to improve at was simply getting on and off my Onewheel — that is, mounting and dismounting. I know that this is something other beginners sometimes have a hard time with as well, so in addition to describing my own experience learning, I’ll also try to provide any wisdom I can (with the caveat that I’m still very much a beginner myself).

Mounting

Mounting is the process of getting on the board: standing on it with the back end touching the pavement, then swiveling it up to level so it’s primed for action. It’s not the hardest part of riding a Onewheel, but nonetheless it takes a bit of practice to do smoothly. As I learned to mount my board, I found that the easiest way to fail is to not commit to it hard enough. I tended to be too tentative with swiveling the board up to level; as a result, sometimes I wouldn’t get the board all the way up, and then I would have to try again. Trying to mount too slowly can also go wrong in other ways, such as losing your balance and accidentally engaging the motor, which happened to me once. Instead, I found that it is not only easier and smoother but also more reliable to be aggressive with mounting. There’s not really anything to be afraid of in a fast mount. Just smoothly shift your weight from your back foot, to centered over the wheel; this should be a single, quick motion. The motor will catch you once you hit level, and as long as your weight is approximately centered over the wheel, it will balance you out so you won’t unexpectedly take off. If for some reason the motor doesn’t engage — board not turned on properly, front foot not on the footpad sensors correctly, etc — you’ll just plop the board down on the front side and you’ll still be stopped; you won’t fall or anything. Don’t be afraid of a failed mount.

A couple caveats: It says so in the manual (and if you haven’t read the manual, I definitely recommend it), but I can agree from experience that one shouldn’t try mounting from the front-foot-down position. Also, make sure your feet are placed properly on the board before mounting; in my limited experience, I’ve found that the heel and toe of my rather large feet should hang off the edges of the board approximately equal distances. This seems to give the best balance and ensures that both front footpad sensors will be activated.

Dismounting

Dismounting requires a little more finesse. For my first few rides I always dismounted by jumping off with both feet; this is the easiest way to dismount, and it’s also good to practice it just in case you suddenly need to bail off the board at speed. If you wanted, you could continue using this method indefinitely, and I’ve seen others recommend that you get more comfortable riding before trying other dismounts. But, at least for me, jumping off the board quickly got old — the “proper” dismount by heel lift and disengaging the motor is definitely the smoother experience, and I was eager to learn it.

Like many others have advised in various online forums, I’ve found the key to “proper” dismounting to be to keep your weight centered over the wheel until the motor disengages. Lift your front heel, but don’t shift weight onto your back foot as you do so. It might help to think about pressing downward with your front toe just so that your weight stays centered. Another way to think about this is to imagine that the board is already off and you’re trying to lift your heel while still staying balanced on the board. Then, once you feel the motor click off, lean onto your back foot to finish the dismount.

Really the best way to get better at mounting and dismounting (or at anything, for that matter) is practice. For me, I find myself inventing simple little drills to help myself improve. In this case, I’ve been cruising around a mostly empty parking lot while I’m learning, and I found it useful to do a simple mount/dismount drill where I go through the parking lot one space at a time, and in each space touch my rear bumper to the ground (by lifting my heel and disengaging the motor), then stand back up and continue to the next space. Each parking space is a mount and dismount. After going through a couple rows like this, I felt much more confident with touching my rear bumper to the ground each time, and it wasn’t long before mounting and dismounting “in the wild” felt much more like the smooth experience it should be. One word of caution for anyone trying this at home: be sure to always touch your back bumper for mount/dismount, and if you accidentally dismount with front foot down, get off the board and remount with back foot down so that you don’t try to mount from front-foot-down position.

In this post I mostly described my own experience learning to mount and dismount smoothly, and the lessons I learned along the way; I hope reading this was helpful and informative for the other beginners out there, or even for more experienced riders wanting to remember what it was like to learn. If I’ve said anything wrong or if anyone has more/better tips, feel free to let me know!