Hi all,
Just wanted to tell you another sad story of somebody whose unicycle is falling
apart, not due to any misuse, just due to bad design. We should not have to put
up with such shoddy products. It’s up to us as a community to put our voices
together and make ourselves heard in regard to what unicycles are worthy and
which should be avoided.
Sunday I was at Paramount’s Great America amusement park, in Santa Clara,
CA. Jacquie and I rode the new “Stealth” roller coaster, billed as the world’s
first and only “flying coaster”. Pictures to follow (naturally).
While at the park, I spotted a guy riding along on a unicycle juggling some
clubs. “Hey, do you work here?” I cleverly asked. It was Carson, a guy I’d met
at the Damento Juggling Festival in February. He’s proud to be working full time
at the park, and trying to get other performers in. He had attended my
unicycling workshop at the festival.
Carson was riding a 24" Zephyr unicycle. The Zephyr has an excellent seat; the
kind with the foam ends that just bounce of the ground again and again. But it
suffers from the “weak” version of the Taiwan frame, the kind with bolts that go
in from the side to hold in the lollipop bearing.
The engineering stupidity of screwing a flat headed bolt into a round piece of
tubing is obvious. The bolt presses with all it’s force on two small areas, and
no force on the rest of the bolt head. This over-stresses the metal where the
bolts connect, and if you actually ride the unicycle much and weigh over 100
pounds, the fork will eventually crack and fall apart between the two bolts.
Carson told me he wanted to have a bike shop look at his unicycle because
something was loose down there. Uh oh. I looked between the bolts and sure
enough, the metal was seriously cracked and deteriorated. It was only a matter
of time before the bearing holder would rip out of the end of the frame, not to
be repairable by any simple means. He wanted me to show him some pointers, but I
was afraid to do more than ride straight on his unicycle. I was determined not
to be the one riding it when it broke, and it was going to break soon. I hated
telling him the bad news.
There is no excuse for this kind of engineering. The problem is, people keep
buying these unicycles so why should the manufacturers change anything? This
kind is obviously cheaper to produce than the split block bearing types found on
the Semcycle XL and other better frames.
At most bike shops, you have a choice of one or maybe two brands of unicycle.
When there are two, it’s usually a cheap Taiwan model and a Schwinn. With these
limited choices (or non-choices), most first time buyers go for the cheaper one.
Now with Web access, people have more choices and hopefully they can make more
educated choices of what unicycles to buy.
UnicycleSource (www.unicycle.com), for example, has a very wide range, from very
cheap to very expensive cycles. The side-bolt Taiwan frames are there, but
buyers have a choice and can select from better models. It’s up to us to spread
the word, and help people determine what are the better unicycles and parts.
I hope you’re doing your part.
John Foss, the Uni-Cyclone (reply to jfoss@unicycling.com)
http://www.unicycling.com
NOTE: Views expressed in messages with this signature are exclusively those of
John Foss, and do not necessarily represent the views of the Unicycling
Society of America, International Unicycling Federation, or other
positions of responsibility John may occupy.
