I am Testing the 1st prototype Torker DX for 2010!!!!

[p1choco]

Would there be any damage to the structural integrity of the frame if I were to cut and weld the frame like pictured. My limited engineering knowledge tells me no, but I would like to hear from someone else with a little more experience and insight.

[Probailer2]

Originally Posted by p1choco

Would there be any damage to the structural integrity of the frame if I were to cut and weld the frame like pictured. My limited engineering knowledge tells me no, but I would like to hear from someone else with a little more experience and insight.

KH has aluminium frames like that, and they never broke al the leg parts.
So just go for it

[feel the light]

Originally Posted by johnfoss

Thanks for that additional detail; that's probably the situation for the majority of bike shops that aren't connected to unicycle enthusiasts. And if they don't know which product is better and their customers don't know either, not much is going to change... What it may take is customers coming in and requesting the other brands. The hard part is educating the customer (or bike shop) about those other brands and why there's a difference. At least now all you need is an Internet connection to find out though. It was a lot harder back in the dark ages (1990s and earlier).

On my high rent flat tropical island, you can get everywhere on a bike, or on a 36, very comfortably, 12 months of the year. Car parking space is scarce because of all the tourists. For these reasons, you can't go 1/2 mile anywhere without passing a bike or scooter shop. Scooters out number bikes 4 to one. I have met only a few uni riders. Most are performers, who just do the torches on the high uni bit down at the pier.
Out of maybe 15 bike shops, one is a UDC dealer, and they used to carry one way over priced Sun uni. Last time I was there they had nothing uni in stock at all.

There is a uni club at the middle school, I have met a few members, all riding Suns they bought on the net. They seem to hold up ok for these small kids.

I can't imagine why any of the bike shops here would stock unis. All the riders I have met bought their unis on the net, for a price that these high rent shops can't match.

Maybe uni riding is different where you live, it is very niche here. I have never passed another 36 rider, in 2 years and 1000ish + miles. As much as I love them, if I owned a shop, I'd have a hard time justifying stocking something that sells few or nothing. Add in that, uni riders can buy the same ride online for less, I wouldn't bother, I would not be helping anyone. I'd just point them to this forum and tell them to buy an lx 20 to start out. If I owned a bike shop, I don't think I could afford to sell them one. Shop floor space costs to much money. Renting a shop in this town is 2k to 10k/m. How much of this space do you want to devote to trying to sell KH's to bike riders?
Why not try to sell them through feed stores in rural areas? The floor space is 50x cheaper, and horse riders are as likely to buy a KH as a bike rider. I have passed by maybe a dozen horses and a couple mules on my 36 this year. If I owned a bike shop, I'd be more tempted to stock horses than unis.

Uni sales is ideal for an online business. It's just another box to Amazon, no expensive show room gathering dust on my dime. Just a box on a shelf in a dirt cheap warehouse somewhere. Perhaps in some large cities there might be enough uni riders to justify a bike shop's uni section stocking some stuff.

The shops have to buy the stuff they stock on display, losing interest every day it sits there. This, and the floor space cost, salespeople costs, means they must charge much more than the "online warehouse of boxes" companies, just to break even. So IMHO , the online low buck "uni in a box" isn't just the present, it is the only likely future for uni sales. I have no real info but I will make up a fakement and say about 90 % of uni sales are now done over the internet.

[blueharmony]

I the only store I know that actually stocks unis and their parts, within at least 1000 miles from where I live, is Serious Juggling in Portland, OR. I have to stop by every time I'm in town just to pet the new unis.