Wanted to try to accelerate my 36er to at least 15mph in under 10 seconds from a stationary start. Pretty scary and was trying not to think about falling at that speed!
That would have been my fear, but you did amazingly well. I just wonder whether you might have gone a bit quicker if you had something a bit higher to hang on to at the beginning?
Speed limit. 8mph…. (Just saying!)
Linda, we don’t have a laughing emoji button, but if we did you would have earned it. Now, how many people will re-watch the video to understand the punchline?
Terry, I very often want to respond to your videos with, “Ridiculous!”. Or, “Crazy!”. Or, “That’s amazing!”. Or, more than once, “Ouch!”.
Regardless, I really enjoy your videos and am very motivated by them; even if I don’t yet (if ever) plan to travel 15mph+ on a unicycle.
Thank you for deciding to do what you do, and then recording it for us to see!
-Uni2ONE2
No doubt you’re a talented and experienced rider but is it really wise to practice your acceleration speeds in such a busy area? Personally I don’t think I’d be comfortable riding that speed in the area shown in your videos as a UPD at that speed in that area could be very bad. I know I’m sounding like a nag but I try to be very cautious around crowds as if I did mess up and seriously hurt someone it will give them a very negative opinion of unicyclists.
What setup did you use? I guess carbon rim, light tire and long cranks should let you have a lot of acceleration.
I think about that stuff too.
I think the video makes it look perhaps more crowded than it actually is due to the low angle. There are very few moments where a UPD would be likely to end up with a unicycle close to a pedestrian.
Makes me want to do some acceleration runs on my 36er now!
I imagine there’s a point where longer cranks becomes a detriment of actually getting that high speed so quickly, but as a lover of short cranks I don’t have much experience to draw on there!
If you go for 170+ mm cranks, sure they’ll prevent you from going fast. I’m actually a lover of short cranks so “long cranks” means something like “137+ mm”
So do I! It reminds me of Martin Charrier who starts really fast on road races. I think it’s even faster than Terry’s record!
Haha! Martin is the best! I would bet on 0 to 20mph in under 5 seconds!
Just to clarify, in this video the road was 100% clear ahead of me, and on the last run as soon as I passed about 7 mph. I also decided on runs under 10 seconds so I could more easily stay in the clear.
My fastest personal speed record was 20.9 mph, which I set at age 60, again on level ground, using the same non-geared 36er, with stealth 2 rim and regular nightrider tire. Here’s a clip, actual run starts at about 0:53