Quick tip that I wish had been given me about 10 years ago:
Learned this from Keith Bontrager (not personally, I say this for cred).
Freaking SLATHER your chamois with vaseline ($4 a tub).
As he put it, in The Tour, everyone uses a LOT of chamois butter, because the more the better. But average joe’s don’t do this, cause it’s $25 for a modest amount.
Try it, you’ll like it.
(And if you like “euro-style”, throw in a little (unless you’re VERY adventurous) Vick’s vapor rub, or apply it directly to your skin where you want it, but expect some migration. FWIW, there is a good functional argument to be made about why menthol is good–relating to increased blood flow that is undeniable.)
That would fail the comfort test in much the same way as riding a bike with no handlebars. If you use a bike seat (whether on a unicycle or bicycle), I think you need handlebars.
Your bar looks like it’s screaming for some support (it’s really long)! Perhaps you could do what I did with the T7 and stick shorter poles front and back.
As per my thread on Road Unicycle Set-up, I don’t think your position is particularly ‘forward leaning’ or ‘stretched’ for a lot of people. I probably ride with my back at the same angle as you, or even lower.
Many riders ride in that exact posture, but with short stubby handles on their seat. So their hands are up against their crotch, not supporting anything with elbows locked in flexion.
Think about it less as body positioning as it is about hand/arm positioning.
Reviving this thread a bit. . . . .
I’m riding a modified KH Freeride saddle now It is narrower in the front and a little lower in the front too. The seat is feeling pretty good, but the funny thing is that I haven’t been able to idle consistently since I installed this seat. Anyone else using bike seats for distance riding have this same idling problem - or maybe its just me and my slightly abused taint?
Brycer1968
I’m considering getting a bike seat for my 36’er with a T7 installed. Does anyone have any experience with such a set up, whether or not it is comfortable? When riding my 36’er I have at least 1 hand on the handlebar 99% of the time, although I don’t usually put too much weight on it. I plan on doing some distance trips this summer, and would like to see if I can find anything that’s more comfortable than the KH Freeride saddle.
I would not recommend the T7, it is not a very good design and of poor quality. Maybe the KH handle that has been announced recently will be a better purchase. But that one only works for KH seats, so no bike seat possible then.
If you really want the bike seat (which I recommend) you may get better results by making your own handle bar from bicycle parts such as stems, seat posts, handles and bar ends and seat post clamps.
This is my handle bar construction, it works very well:
Totally forgot about that other thread. I’ll probably just buy one and test it out. I guess there’s no harm having a spare bike seat laying around. And I’m sticking with the T7 for now since I’m no welder and I don’t feel like paying to get anything custom made just yet.
You might regret that when you’re on a long trip in the middle of nowhere and your T7 suddenly breaks. It will happen, it’s only a question of when and where. It happened to me and to many others. In case you really do want to get a T7 I would suggest having it reinforced with some additional metal plates. If you do a search you’ll find pictures of that. But then you will need welding to be done.
By the way making my handle bar didn’t involve any welding. It’s all aluminum bicycle parts available at your lbs. You’d only have to make sure that everything fits exactly into each other. I had a lot of fun building mine up.
Yeah, if you use a T7, you should weld some steel triangle supports on the front and rear vertical plates that surround the rails. I’m taking all precautions on mine, if you got to see the picture form the other thread. I haven’t done the welding yet, but it’s coming soon. In the meantime, I’ve done all sorts of other strengthening mods…and in the process built the first ever combination of a unicycle and a compound bow.
well, I couldn’t get the Zero saddle to mate with the Nightfox so…
Way better than that Nimbus Gell, but I might need to tilt it forward just a tad more.
Not quite, The Shadow base connects to the rear bumper bolts, the Nightfox connects to the rear seatpost bolts.
I am sure I could have made it work but it would not have been a nice low profile mounting. I do eventually want to make a nice big wheel that fills all that space under the frame
Interesting, I wasn’t aware of that. Look forward to seeing your big wheel!
On a side note, it would be great if all the unicycle manufactures transitioned to using pivotal mounts for all saddles. It seems like such a good fit for our use case.
Oh no, please not! When I think back, which big differences even one degree in saddle tilting made for sitting comfort, the 6 degree pattern of the pivotal posts seems not to be practical.
![P220409_21.27[01].jpg](https://cdn.unicyclist.com/uploads/default/original/3X/f/2/f20ac8c56d8e20f15ac0117efe0719eb6354e1ff.jpeg)
