Not at all. I rode with 165’s for technical muni from 1998-2005 and really liked that length. It just depends on what you are used to.
Kris
i think its funny that this thread starts right after i ask someone to trade me my 150s for 165s
maybe i just need to get on my muni more…
Video?
great discussion.A few months ago I swapped my 150’s for 137’s on my 24" muni and went on a 15k ride.I have 2k of road to the trail head and was hoping it would take care of the bitumen a bit quicker and it did but my control over roots and rocks was very sketchy compared to the 150’s.Overall the 137’s were slower over the whole ride so I went back to the 150’s.Maybe if I allowed more time to adapt the 137’s would be better.mmmm now where did i put those short cranks?
This may be slightly off topic, but since I don’t MUni currently and this thread has me interested; do Unicycles react the same way as bikes do with high torque in that wheel spinning occurs in long crank length? I’m of course talking on a climb, and with 165mm’s+.
Yes. Often the problem in climbing with a muni is that you have too much power and spin out the wheel, not too little.
This is just me speaking, but I have yet to spin the wheel climbing, of what little muni I’ve done. Someone else may have, but with all your weight on the wheel, I would think its rather difficult to spin a uni wheel climbing, regardless of crank length.
I think the longer the crank length, more Ooomf…the shorter the lenght, more zoom. I’m thinking you want to find that happy medium for both when it comes to crank length, no matter how you ride.
It’s not hard if you’re in the mud or the wet, or if the dirt/earth/gravel under you is loose.
I think shorter cranks would help hill climbing in scenarios as described above, because they help keep momentum and speed up. With longer cranks you can push a lot harder and it would be easier to spin out.
Of course, with either setup you are still able to modulate the force you put into the pedals to avoid spinning out–with longer cranks it just takes that bit more modulation.
165, 137, whatever. If it feels right, use it.
Thanks for exposing us to another way to use the wheel, Kris.
I don’t do much muni, but I found the same thing as Kris.
I was mostly a 36er rider and I used 114/125s most of the time. With the 125s I could even do some singletrack on the 36er. Using 150s on a 24 just felt silly to me. The reason the brake feels nicer is the same reason a brake on a 36er feels nicer with short cranks…you wobble less with shorter cranks so everything is smoother.
I think that riding a 36er with short cranks is very beneficial for muni riders and should be good cross training. Once you learn to control a massive 36" wheel with short cranks on uphills and downhills, a 24 or 29" wheel becomes less of a hassle to you and your climbs and descents should become easier.
Crank length for muni is always a compromise. Nothing is going to be optimal for all situations. There are going to be pros and cons to crank length, wheel size, tire selection and other factors. The rider has to choose where to make the compromises and what set of options is best for the way they ride. Short cranks require a different style of riding than long cranks. Climbing style will be different. How you get over bumps and roots will be different. It’s all a compromise and an effort to balance the pros and cons. It’s also a matter of balancing your riding style with the equipment.
I have a spare muni wheel. One of these days I ought to put shorter cranks on the spare wheel and try it out for a couple of weeks.
I have recently gone from 170’s down to 150’s on my MUni and am very happy that I made the change. I find that I have more control going uphill and can hold my balance better, and I can roll out of drops a lot easier. I tend to roll everything when going DH and do very little hopping so the shorter cranks have helped so much.
I have dual hole 125/150’s but haven’t had the courage to try them on the 125 posistion. I’m currently feeling comfortable with the 150’s and will be staying at that length until I feel the need to change to the shorter length. I don’t have a brake or even a fitting for a brake so even if I wanted to I would not be able to put one on unless I start welding pieces on which I am not keen on doing.
A word of caution!
As Kris mentioned spining out is a big issue when going uphill. It is very important to be able to read the ground and pedal accordingly. I don’t feel that crank length is a factor here though. Reading the ground and going the correct speed it what is important.
There is much less torque with the shorter cranks.
With 150mm cranks I can’t roll over rocks and roots that are borderline for me with 165mm cranks. By borderline I mean that I make it over on most trys but not all and I have to really concentrate and put effort into it. Also - steep inclines that I can’t ride up with 150mm cranks I succese in riding up farther with 165s. There is this one hill that I tried going up 10 times with 150s and made a mark in the dirt with a stick at every place where I failed. I then tried going up 10 times with 165s and surpassed the highest mark made with the 150s each and every time. And this is when I am more tired! There is more wobble with the 165s but if you know how to control it, it is not bad. Learning SIF riding helps here.
One last thing - Be very careful with shorter cranks! You have less control going over obsacles. I broke my leg in 3 places becasue of that!
Unicorn
I’m a fairly new rider, but I have still experimented with crank length. I started on a 24 Muni with 145’s, then got a 26 and ran some dual position 165/135, found the 135’s way to hard to manage tough climbs, the 165 felt good, now I have 170’s and can crank up and over stuff like never before. I do find a lot of side to side movement, but I get used to it, holding on while riding slow gives me a nice stable rhythm.
For newer riders the longer cranks make up for having less control, esp on climbing where side to side motion control is more difficuly. I can see running 150’s in the future when I get more control over the uni in tougher situations, climbs, etc… Meanwhile my 12 yo son continues to ride his 24 with 150’s and does pretty well, though he has a hard time muscling up climbs, so I’ll likely put him on 165’s to hep with power.
Leg strength and balance play a big part in what cranks feel the best. We have a KH Trials arriving Friday with 135’s, that’ll be fun 
Like Kris says it’s all about adapting to what you have; give yourself time to get used to whatever set up you’re trying. When I first began to muni I only had a 28" (26x3 Gazz) with 150mm cranks. I didn’t have anything to compare to so that’s the setup I rode everywhere and I got used it. A year later I got a KH24 with 150mm cranks and to be honest, the first several rides over the same routes were terrible! I couldn’t climb the same stuff I was used to climbing with my 28" setup, I didn’t roll over stuff as easily… But I stuck with it and I prefer my KH24 with 150s now for most of my off-road riding from long distance XC to technical DH. The key is giving it time and adapting before you judge; I can promise you probably won’t like whatever your new setup is the first time out! Also my muni climbing ability vastly improved once I bought a trials unicycle and got good at still-stands and side hoping. I learned to conserve energy on ascents, going half a pedal stroke to half a pedal stroke and working my way up the hill. Before I learned to climb “slow” I just tried to grrrr my way up the hill and I’d always redline my heart rate and often fail! So what I’m trying to say is fitness and technique are probably the most important aspect to one’s ability to adapt to a given unicycle setup.
So KH himself restarts the age-old crank length debate!
My current fleet (excluding the 20) is:
- 28" with 114s (big wheel, short cranks)
- 26" with 125s (medium wheel, medium cranks)
- KH24 with 165s (small wheel, long cranks)
Yesterday I was out on the 28; today I was out on the 26. A few days ago I was out on the 24.
Although there was no really serious climbing, each ride included short bursts that were at or just beyond the limit of what I personally can achieve.
Strangely, I felt that all three unis climbed shortish steepish hills about the same. I would rather do a long gradual hill on the big wheel with small cranks. I know from one specific experience that I can climb one particular long steep hill on the 24"/165mm that I cannot even start to climb on any other combination I’ve tried. That’s not very scientific, but it’s my subjective analysis.
On the uphills that I tend to ride, it is usually the momentum that fails before the torque runs out. Long cranks can be bad for momentum.
I sometimes feel like it’s climbing stairs: if the cranks are 6 inches long, each step is 12 inches high; if the cranks are 5 inches long then each step is 10 inches high. Would you rather carry a heavy load up a flight of 10 inch steps or a slightly lighter load up a flight of 12 inch steps?
I think the effect is because you need to lift your bodyweight and get it above the pedal, and the bigger the “step” (the longer the crank) the more ungainly and tiring that manoeuvre becomes. Most of the work in climbing a hill is shifting your own bodyweight. The uni weighs very little in the whole scheme of things.
On down hills, there is a tactical choice: do you gradually release the potential energy, using long cranks as control levers, or do you spin out - in which case short cranks are safer and easier?
I tend to be a rather plodding rider, and very cautious on descents, so I find the longer levers help. I did a spectacular catapult dismount from the 28"/114mm on my way down Scoreboard Hill yesterday!:o
I was saying to Gadge on our ride today that where a rider like Joe Marshall appears to see a single patch of rough ground, I tend to see five or six specific obstacles close together. Joe’s uni flows over a single hazard, whereas mine plods over each obstacle one by one. Shorter cranks encourage the flowing style; longer cranks encourage the plodding style.
I’ve never ridden with a brake so I can’t comment on that part of Kris’s post.
I used to muni with the default 150mm cranks on my KH24. After a while I got the dual whole 150/125s and tried the 125 setting. It took a little getting used to, but after a while I was very happy about the new feeling of that setting. I found that I could do just about everything I had been capable of with the longer cranks until then. The feeling of climbing and downhilling was quite different, but for short climbs and descents it worked very well. I now have the same setup as Kris with 137s and maguras + spooner (which is really awesome) and I am getting used to it now. I guess the crank length matters most when going on long tours rather than going for a shorter muni session. For going up a steep hill/mountain for a real long time I would definitely not want to have to do it on 125s but I’d prefer to use 150s. For descents with a brake I guess the 125s are the way to go. So for long mountainish trips the dual cranks are the best and maybe for the 2h muni session 137s.
Spin out. Duh.
It’s more fun.
I just got my KH MUni with 125/150 dual-hole and Maguras/spooner. I am mostly a 36er rider and I use 102/114 almost all of the time, so I like the short crank feel. For the downhill race at UNICON, I used 125’s with my brake and I loved it. For XC I had 125’s but I wanted 110’s because everyone walked on the hills because it was just as fast to walk as ride and on the downhills/flats 110’s would have been faster and not to difficult to spin up. I think that for uphills with shorter cranks (137’s, not really 125’s) keeping your speed and momentum up and ‘spinning’ up the hill is much easier than ‘cranking’ up the hill with longer cranks.
P.S. Kris, do you have any clue when those 110’s are coming out, and have you decided whether they will be 110/137(with reinforcements) or 110/125(without reinforcements)? (My opinion is that 110/125 would be more popular)
I’m with Mikefule on this one–it’s about the riding style. I’m a plodder. Not by choice, but because I weigh more than I’d like and don’t have as much leg strength as I wish. So I’ve been going with 165/137s on my KH29. I’d like to go down to 150s or 137 on my 24 (I have 165s now), although I think I’d probably be less effective on hills. Right now on my 24, I can climb pretty well, but it’s a herky-jerky affair of 1/2 circles rather than smoothly spun circles. The 29er is helping me get better at spinning, as I ride it 90% of the time now, about half the time on the short crank hole. The 125s were a little too slow, but I’m really liking the 137 hole a lot.
SOme of the top, elite MUni rides I know use 165’s. The length of the cranks one uses, is in no way a determinant of their various skills, strength or stamina. At a certain grade, everybody MUST stand up and half rev to climb, or walk, regardless of crank size.