as I focus on the topic of rim choice for my Hunter unicycle, I am wondering if anyone out there uses a sew-up (tubular) rim and tire on their 29"/700c unicycle. For the unitiated, sew up tires are those which have to be glued onto a rim with contact cement. They are popular among racing bicyclists, and the larger varieties are often used by cyclocross racers.
There are lots of nice 700c tubular tires in sizes up to 35mm made by companies like Tufo and Andre Dugast. The Dugast tubulars are some of the nicest bicycle tires made, and assuming you have them glued onto the rim properly they can be ridden even at low pressures.
I have heard that some special circus unicycles use sew up tires.
Has anyone here tried a sew-up tire on a unicycle? Thanks in advance.
I’ve never used sew up tires, but narrow tires are generally regarded as not so good for unicycling. 35mm is definitely on the narrow side. If you do try it though, let us know how it goes.
I have a “circus” bicycle that came with sew-up rims/tires. I switched them for cheaper, easier-to-replace rims & tires. My preferred tire for the 29" (on road) is the Schwalbe Big Apple. A hard, skinny tire may work for you, but just remember you’re not going that fast in the first place; wheel aerodynamics and road friction aren’t really measurable in relation to your energy output. Comfort, though subjective, is.
I don’t have any experience running a CX tubular on a unicycle, but I do race cyclocross on tubulars. They are great for CX racing because you can run really low pressure for better traction, without worrying so much about pinch flatting. The tire I use is the Challenge Grifo 34C. Notwithstanding the 34 claimed width this is likely the fattest CX tubular available. As you may already know, UCI rules limit tire width on a CX bike to 35mm. However, Dugast also makes this 43-45C tire: http://cyclocrossworld.stores.yahoo.net/durhxlmobitu.html.
The Grifos are very cushy for a cylocross tire, as they can run at 30 PSI or even lower. With a non-tubular cylocross tire I’d be pushing my luck at 40 PSI. However, I think that they would be very prone to folding over if you put them on a unicycle, even at 30 PSI. You would probably also hit the rim quite often given the narrow tire width.
Another consideration is that the available 700C rims are designed for ~23mm road racing bikes. They tend to be very lightweight and narrow. Frankly, they are a poor fit for the wider cyclocross tires. (If you know of any specialty rims used for circus riding that are wider, I would sure like to know about them.)
I am in the midst of building a 29er unicycle, and though about putting one of my Grifos on since cyclocross season will be over soon, but for the reasons above I decided to go with regular 29er tires. If I ever have the funds to build a uni just for the miles of desert dirt roads around here, I may give it a shot.
I’ve ridden with a normal cyclocross tyre. It was usable, but way way worse than riding with a 29x2.1" tyre. Horrible folding if you hit roots, or go off even a tiny drop and land slightly sideways, like if you go over a root on a corner.
There are 2 problems, the first is that cyclocross tyres just aren’t designed to have any side load, which causes the folding effect. The 2nd is that on a unicycle you only have one of them under you, in effect it’s kind of like running half the width of tyre on a bike, there’s no way you’d run a 17mm tyre on a bike for off road.
Oh yeah, and even on road the cyclocross tyre was slower than the 29x2.1
The only use I’ve ever found for it since is as a lightweight emergency tyre, for when I was going somewhere where a replacement tyre would be impossible to get hold of if I was unlucky enough to trash my tyre.
