The weather today was beautiful so with the lawn freshly mowed and the family out doing their various things I set out to take a ride on the prototype Harper Hub unicycle. To refresh your memory - This unicycle is almost identical to Harper’s Blue Shift except the hub and frame were built over seas. I have assembled it with an Alex Adventurer 700c rim, 28 x 2.35 Schwalbe Big Apple tire, 170mm cranks, magnesium Wellgo pedals, bike seat post with rail adapter and carbon fiber based air saddle. It’s a very nice ride!
With Ken Fuchs’ recent thread about his hour time trial, I decided that’s what I should try too. I drove to a paved bike/walking path that’s a big figure 8 with straight sections of paved path leading in and out. It has some sharp turns and one short but steep spot - also people on the path - so it wasn’t ideal for trying to set a speed record, but good enough for today.
I unloaded the uni, suited up and set off! about 1/2 mile into the ride I realized that I left my water bottle in the truck. Oh well … I’ll just tough it out rather than go back. Last weekend I played lumber jack using a chain saw to cut up a large tree for firewood. I strained my back wrestling logs around. About 15 minutes into the ride my back started hurting. I concentrated on trying to keep my back muscles relaxed and just spin the pedals smoothly but this unicycle is not easy to ride and I find it hard to really relax so I just did the best I could and pressed on.
The pavement was rough in several places and as I tired, I went slower over these spots. In fact the bumps caused more than one UPD. The short but steep part caused a few UPD’s as well.
With my back killing me and very thirsty (remember - no water?) I managed to ride 1:02 and a distance of 9.6 miles or and average of 9.3 miles per hour.
With that done I went to my shop to tinker around a bit - mostly clean up a project I was working on yesterday. I drank a bunch of water and my back started feeling pretty good so I was off again - this time in 29" mode for some MUni.
The trail I set out for is known as the “Prison Loop” because it runs next to the Idaho State Women’s Prison. It’s a very popular trail with the mountain bikers because it’s handy - it literally starts in town about 1/4 mile from my shop. The published information for the Prison Loop is 5.4 miles and 860 feet of elevation gain.
For the time trial I had the Big Apple inflated to 52 psi. I was great on the pavement but I figured I’d better let some air out for off road so I set the pressure to 38 psi. I’ve ridden this trail many times on both the 24 x 3.0 Gaz and 29" MUni’s but the ride that the Big Apple gave was super plush! I rolled over rocks with ease that are a challenge on my 29’er with WTB Motoraptor. I was amazed at how smooth and easy that thing rolled! Then about 1/2 mile into the ride I realized I left my Camelback in the truck! What and idiot! I decided to press on anyway rather than go back.
The geared hub uni felt great off road - just like my regular 29’er only better because of the Big Apple. The extra 5 pounds of hub wasn’t anything I noticed. I rode smoothly through rocks and was able to lower my cadence and ride farther between rest stops because the Big Apple just seemed to roll through the “dead spots” in my pedal stroke. As I climbed up the trail I started getting thirsty.
The single track is a steady climb but a mile or so up the trail there’s a gully with some down hill then a sharp climb out that I’ve not been able to ride. This little bit of down hill into the gully was the first indication that something wasn’t right. I rode to the bottom and as far up the other side as I could, then walked up the steep part until the trail flattened out a bit. From there the single track comes to a nicely graded dirt road that is a steady climb for about 3/4 mile. Besides being very thirsty by now, the climb up the road was the best I’ve done yet because of the smooth rolling Big Apple.
At 2.25 miles the climbing is done and it’s back to single track - mostly all down hill. This is the payback for the “death march” to this point. I started down the smooth dirt trail that’s about 14" wide and worn 6" - 8" deep in the center but something was very wrong: I couldn’t seem to ride straight down the trail! I was twisting my upper body and flailing my arms in all kinds of directions just to stay on the trail. The Big Apple wanted to climb up the sloped sides of the trail in the worst way!
What is usually a great downhill ride soon became agony! My back was hurting again because of all the wierd contortions I was putting is through just trying to keep going straight - and was really thirsty by now.
What could I do but just press on? It was a very tough ride down and back to my truck. Some of it I just couldn’t do because my back was hurting so bad and it was almost impossible to keep the uni on the trail. Within 1/2 mile of my truck the trail flattens out and I was able to ride that ok. I was like a horse heading to the barn at this point. The first thing I did when I got to my truck was pick up the Camelback (sitting right there on the front seat) and take a nice long drink of delicious warm Camelback water! This time I rode 5.33 miles in 1:05 for an average speed of 4.8 miles per hour.
The bottom line is that the Harper geared hub uni is great both on and off road. I would like to have brakes on it and switch it to 43.5" mode for the off road down hill sections. That could be interesting. The Big Apple turned out to be a serious bummer off road. I don’t know if it’s because of the very round profile or the lack of tread or both but even as nice as it rides over rocks and bumps I won’t be riding it off road again!
Steve Howard
