Yes, I did search, and didn’t find the answer I’m looking for. This is, in fact, a question I’ve had for a long time.
Which is better for touring/distance - the old skool airseat (or in this case a new skool airseat made from a KH Fusion) or the KH Freeride? I’ve ridden an airseat but never a freeride, and I’ve never met anyone who’s done extensive distance on both - just one or the other.
Anyone have experience touring on both and have a preference?
Please leave money/cost out of the argument. This is purely based on comfort, not comfort per cost.
Depends on which unicycle I’m using. But the one I have with me at the moment has an unmodified KH Freeride on it. I will be getting out the breadknife shortly.
I would guess. Different weight, size, talent etc. of riders.
I have only been riding about a year, but I have bought and messed with most of the better saddles.
If you don’t want to mess with them, the KH street is the best small saddle, and the KH free ride is the best large saddle. The Nimbus gell and Torker saddles are sorta lame in comparison IMHO.
The stock KH air is weird and not so good. The tubes shift around. However, the drawstring cover is easy to remove and reinstall. My duct taped and extra padded KH air seat is the most comfortable (better then a KH free ride by 32 % ass opinion lol ). But you need at least a roll of duct tape, and hopefully some foam, plus a desire to mess with it, to make a KH air seat uber cool. Experimentation is key here. The modded KH air seat is bulky and heavy compared to other seats, but has almost an inch of suspension travel. Easily better then a KH free ride on some unis IMHO.
If you don’t want to mess around, the stock KH free ride is the best all around seat. The KH street seat is excellent, and better on small wheels because it’s very small and comfortable. The Nimbus gell is large but sorta roundy, feels a bit like the seat is on crooked. Not really more comfortable then the KH street.
I really liked Terry’s modded KH free ride idea. I have no idea how well it would work, but I think it would be great to try:) .
I’ve ridden quite a bit on borrowed airseats, and they nearly always seem to suck in some way or another. They’re usually massive, typically have a bit of wobble in them, and aren’t as comfy as a stock KH seat.
Massive seats are rubbish for long distance, as you chafe more on a big seat, this is part of why the newer KH seats are way better than the old big ones were.
Airseats also are often not very good in terms of control, as they have wobble when you turn, sort of not too bad on a muni, where a lot of the hard stuff where you need control you’re standing on the pedals, but I don’t like it on cokers at all.
I think big squishy seats are overrated, if you ride a lot, your arse gets used to a firmer seat, and you get much more comfy, whereas if you have a big squishy seat, it’s just always gonna be squishy.
The other advantage of normal seats is that you don’t have bloody seat flats and make everyone wait for you to fix your seat.
I think airseats seem great to beginners, as they have an instant comfy feel compared to other seats, but really you can’t judge seats by how comfy they are for the first mile, you need to ride a seat for a few hundred miles before you have any idea.
I disagree with most riders when it comes to massive seats. My seat isn’t too massive, and not any wider than a KH Freeride seat, but it is perfect.
Ken believes that the KH freeride has too much foam, where I believe that the shape is perfect, but it needs a little thin slab of foam underneath it to be more comfy for long rides. I have experimented a lot with seat set ups and I really like my current set up and have been running it for about a year and a half with very little problems.
I used to have an airseat, which was great for 10 miles or so, anything after that it sucked.
I tried the stock KH fusion saddle with a rail adapter tilted back and that made me go numb fast.
I tried the KH freeride saddle and it was also great for short distances, but the lack of foam really hurt after a while.
KH freeride saddle with a little extra foam on the bottom and a larger leather cover on top is great. Although my set up is a miyata base, steel stiffener plate, small bit of foam on top, kh freeride foam on top of that, leather cover on top tied underneath.
I ordered an air seat with my N36 and it was the first thing that I changed. I spent two months adjusting, modifying, and re-building the seat trying to make it comfortable. I just could not make it very comfortable for long rides. I ended up driving 300km on one of my days off to go to Saskatoon to buy a regular unicycle seat.
I got a fusion Freeride which I instantly liked better than the air seat that I was fooling around with. It felt much more stable, didn’t have to worry about flats, and didn’t have to fool around with air pressure and the center cutaway worked fairly well. After long rides thought it still seemed a bit too squishy. I switched out the foam with a cut up old school KH saddle which I used until recently. I really liked the firmer foam carved by me for me. The foam had top of the front sliced off, a wedge cut out of the back to flatten it and a grove down the middle. I found that a firmer saddle was better when it came to numbness.
Just the other night I took one of those green and yellow dual density KH foams and sanded off most of the top in the front and back leaving the foam and the grove in the middle. I think I ended up with a slightly better shape than my old cut foam and look forward to finding out how I like it on a long ride.
I think that the KH fusion Freeride is pertnear perfect for MUni but a tad soft for distance riding. I just don’t like air seats.
With my KH freeride, I never get numb taint like I did with an airseat.
I did last Saturday’s ride (the one with Corbin and Tholub) using my Schlumpf 36er with a KH Street saddle and T7. It was 55 miles and seat comfort was never an issue. It seems that with the geared unicycles we put more weight on the petals and less on the saddle, reducing saddle soreness. I was planning on swapping the Street with a Freeride, but I may just leave it.
The title of the thread is a little misleading since we all seem to be talking about road riding here. The requirements of other types of riding are different so that’s a factor in which seat’s best for what.
My favorite seat so far for Cokering is an old air seat with a carbon base and ripped Roach cover that Chris Reeder put together many years ago. I acquired it from him in 2002 or so with a rickety Trials unicycle he was discarding. It’s still great (for me), except for that first half of the Tahoe ride last year when it was flat.
I’ve been putting lots of miles on Robert Allen’s Nimbus 36 with Schlumpf hub. It had a KH Freeride on there, which we both hated (for that cycle). For my RTL qualifying ride, I replaced it with a much older KH seat, possibly a 1st-generation one. Much better but still not as good as my air seat.
I’ve now got a KH Fusion Freeride Air, but haven’t put it on any of the cycles yet to compare.
The thing is, I think your body position and riding style are also major factors in what kind of seat is going to work best for you. On my own Coker, I have a low pair of bar-ends that give me a slightly aerodynamic position. This puts my pelvic area at a different angle than on a Nimbus with T7 handle, for instance, which leaves me sitting up. I think A good bike seat is probably better for a road uni where you’ve got a good handlebar system and are all dialed in. A narrower unicycle seat that still has a handle on the front (for those steep spots) might be a future option on the market.
My original air seat (circa 1997) used a skinny 20" tube in it (because that’s all they had at the store, in 1997, and I was in a hurry). But it worked out great because you can position the skinny tubes to create somewhat of a channel down the middle. But I agree with most that the problem with air seats is they tend to put even pressure everywhere, which requires you to reposition a lot or have to stop for “circulation breaks.”
So that’s my two cents at the moment. More RTL training will surely refine my opinion.
And you and Ken have different bodies. Keep in mind that a seat that works well for one person may cause pain to another. There isn’t one seat that’ll work for everyone.
