36’’ Schlumpf

It’s quite a financial risk for them, putting a lot of effort and money in to building a uni that might well sit on the shelves for months. I know one of these cost £1200 to put together.

Oh, the joys of unicycle retailing…

Almost any bike shop worth walking into has several bikes worth twice that hanging up in their showroom. And they’re not internet companies.

Maybe one day they will. The Nimbus 36 frame as a hole for the torque arm attachment. However, it would have to be bent to accommodate the Schlumpf hub, which is not as wide as the Nimbus Extra Wide. I’m sure Roger Davies in the UK would be amenable to fitting a Schlumpf hub into a new uni, though - and perhaps UDC US would do the same if you asked for a custom job. It’d cost though!

36" gunis are an awesome idea; if they cost less or if I had more money then I’d be very tempted. However, they do kind of negate some of the advantages of a guni: that you can have a smaller, lighter uni that’s still fast and (relatively) easy to pedal. That said, a high gear on the 36er with suitably long cranks would probably suit me better in terms of control (and required fitness) than my current 36" / short cranks setup. It would also make it easier to switch between distance riding and coker muni.

I guess another reason that UDC don’t offer a geared 36" uni is that it would possibly have to be a custom job regardless of whether it is displayed on their store page. Which is to say they might have to build it up themselves specially, rather than getting it mass-produced. And I guess, finally, that the people who want to buy geared 36ers probably usually have really specific needs and know exactly what they want and therefore won’t want to buy an off the shelf cycle.

If I wanted a guni, the logical thing (my head tells me) would be to sell my 36" and buy a KH / Schlumpf hub and a KH frame for my 29". But my heart is not going to let me give up the bigger wheel, regardless of what might be sensible :slight_smile:

I have one and we will sell them if you wanted one. :slight_smile:

The reason they are not in the shop is that they are so bespoke. So if you seriously do want one then give me a call and we can discuss it.

Roger

Incidentally, I wasn’t intending to volunteer you against your will, Roger :wink: I just had a hunch!

Out of interest, are you able to sell Schlumpf hubs separately, as an upgrade? One day when I have made my millions, or at least got a better job than I currently have, it would be nice to get on the guni bandwagon since everybody seems to like them so much!

By pure coincidence, I was searching for other info, and came across this thread;

The interesting post is the one by Dave Stockton (U-turn) about why a 36" Schlumpf is not a good idea, and that he won’t build one.

2 years on, I wonder how those with 36" Schlumpfs feel about the strength of their wheel. Are U-turns fears justifiable, or should he be doing a U-turn on his thinking? (Sorry, it’s a cheap joke, but one that had to be made!).

I also remember reading somewhere that Florian said that he would never sell a 36" Schlumpf for safety reasons, due to the amount of damage you can do to yourself when riding one of these fast. But that thread seems to indicate otherwise.

STM

I know Hans Fiby had a Schlumpf 36" on the SINZ Unitour before it got stolen and he said he’d had no problems with flex. And he’s a pretty big guy.

I’ve also ridden an airfoil Coker with both a narrow Suzue hub and the Std UDC hubs off-road (hard!) and they’ve held up pretty well. If you’re building a Coker wheel in order to leap off tall buildings then I’m sure U-Turns wheels would be ideal.

Florian said was that the intention was not so much speed as it is to slow down your pedalling cadence. If you’re not comfortable with high cadences/short cranks then the Schlumpf hub would be a more relaxing ride on a 36".

If you’re going for all out speed then yes, it can be dangerous on a 36" schlumpf in top gear. But because the gear is so large, it’s actually quite hard to wind it up to speed with short cranks, so you end up using longer cranks which tends to slow your cadence and speed down. To really get it up to speed you would have to go on a gentle downhill I think. But not too steep :stuck_out_tongue:

Here is a photo of a 36" Schlumpf being ridden down the steepest street in the world:

Thank you.

Yes, you’re welcome (now that I think of it!) :slight_smile: Like many others I was drooling over der uber Coker before the Schlumpfs came on the scene!

I’ve read that at higher speeds the 36 is more stable than the 29er. Makes sense to me. Anyone out there with personal experience on this? Does anyone know how a 36er guni would compare in weight to my 17 lb coker?

36’’ Schlumpf

I called UDK and ordered all the parts they shipped them to me. I had to cut the spokes and lace up the weal. I used a KH36’’ frame and a doubled walled rim. The unicycle is worth over $2600 It is 22lbs

wow! i didnt know there was such a thing! i need to check up on these forums more often!

Yeah, it’d be dumb to spend loads of money on a schlumpf and just buy a completely stock model. There are so many things about a distance uni that are personal preference that you’d want to mess around with it loads.

I’ve ridden 3 geared 36s, they kind of seem alright, but the geared 29er is so convenient and multi-purpose, and if you run 125mm cranks is about the same speed as a geared 36 with 170mm cranks like people seem to use.

I think also a geared 36 is pretty extreme, and it’d be pretty weird to want to ride one before you’d ridden a 36 a bit, whereas if they were listed and obviously available on unicycle.com, they’d sell to all the people with loads of money who just want the shinyest most expensive unicycle out there.

Joe

You say that like it’s a bad thing. One of the reasons why unicycling bits in general are so expensive is that they are only made in small production runs. If UDC and the rest of the retailers out there were pushing these, then they’d sell more to the rich kids, putting the production numbers higher, making the prices lower, and in turn making available a lot of cheap second hand unicycles that the inexperienced rich riders realise that they can’t handle.

STM

I sent an E-mail to Roger at UDC UK as I had heard the Nimbus 36 frame would accomodate a Schlumpf hub, and once Roger confirmed this I inquired about buying the hub separately and between UDC-UK and UDC-USA I should have my geared 36 with Nimbus frame on Monday. You should be able to contact the UDC closest to you and they can build one, but dont be in a hurry, I first inquired about this back in Feb, March of this year. As for price, I will be into this one for a little over 2k

Ahhh yeah, I started that thread a while back. I ended up saving some money and going with a non-geared coker (which I love). I still really want a geared 36, but now I am deciding between the new KH/Schlumpf hub, or the design that unisk8r has with the Red Menace.

Also, as Ken pointed out…Hans loved his schlumpf 36, and had no problems with wheel strength.

Although apparently Florian Schlumpf has expressed worries regarding the risk of injury when going at 36" Schlumpf speeds I do rather agree with what somebody said in that thread: the main advantage of it wouldn’t be the ability to go ridiculously fast. Rather it’d just be good for folks (like me) who don’t like riding with really short cranks but would still like to maintain a decent cruising speed (and, as always, to have a low gear for muni stuff).

Presumably the KH Schlumpf hub will be wider than the original hub? And therefore more suitable for 36ers? That’d be cool; and could be combined with the dual length KH cranks to give a ridiculous range of configurations!

Exactly. I do think that my average speed would increase a little bit on flat ground with a geared 36 though. The main goal wouldn’t be to go ridiculously fast, it would be to slightly increase my average speed and lower my cadence at the same time. A coker with 150 cranks in low gear would be able to climb most mountain roads, I usually stick with 125s, but 150s seem like they get the job done a lot easier for longer steeper sections.

Also, as you pointed out…the dual length cranks would allow for even more options. If the ride is going to be rolling hills everywhere you can just screw the pedals into the 125mm spot and keep it in low gear.

Depending on build, the main difference in a 36" guni over a Coker would be the hub change. You would also have to make some modifications to the frame as well which would probably net at least a little more additional weight. Otherwise, the answer to that question depends entirely on the components used; aluminum vs. steel for example.

Yes, a 36" wheel is going to be more stable than a 29". There is probably a physics word for this, but I don’t know what it would be. Inertia? Even assuming a rim and tire of the exact same type (only bigger) the size and weight would still make the larger wheel roll more smoothly. I’ve always found it much easier to ride long distances without dismounts on bigger wheels.

This is theoretically true at any speed, though at very slow speeds the extra weight and size of the bigger wheel makes it harder to control. So I’d say not for very slow speeds, but for anything from “comfortable” speeds on up.

Speaking as a guy with a broken collar bone, I can fully understand Florian Schlumpf’s reason for avoiding high speeds on his unicycles. Anything over your ability to run carries the possibility of danger in even a basic dismount, and the potential for much worse to happen if you wrap up a shoelace or similar (according to my speedo I was going about 15 mph when this happened to me).

FWIW, I was on a ride yesterday with tholub and mscalisi. Tom was on a 29" Schlumpf, and Mike and I were on (non-geared) 36ers. Tom looked quite comfortable on the fast downhills where Mike and I were spinning like crazy to keep up. Based on that, I’m still planning to stick with the 29" wheel for my first geared unicycle once the KH-Schlumpf comes out.

As Mike put it, courage is the limiting factor when it comes to speed on a geared 36. I believe a geared 36 has too much speed on the high end and not enough climb-ability on the low end. Whereas a geared 29er should be a better balance, and it’s more suited for rougher offroad.

Something else I learned yesterday is that the hill climbs around my house are abnormally steep, so perhaps my assessment of “climb-ability” is a bit skewed.