Beginner Pedal Replacement - busted already

Unicycles and Equipment
1

Completely unlike my normal purchasing decisions which are researched to within an inch of their lives, and leave me paralysed with indecsision, I made a spontaenous purchase just before Christmas of a Unicycle.

I just hitup one of the first sites Google gave my for buying Uni’s in my country and ended up with this:

http://www.unicycle.com/unicycles/beginner-series/child-xl-approx-ages-12-16-24-inch-wheels/trainer-24-inch-unicycle.html

It definitely wasn’t listed as a Childs XL unicycle on the site I bought it from, otherwise I probably wouldn’t have bought it.

I have spent 6 hours on it, and am through the worst of the learning as far as I can tell - I can ride reliably until I run out of road or my legs get too tired (about 100m at the moment), I can curb mount about 7 out of 10 and I have managed a couple of free mounts as well.

Tonight I was riding along, and suddenly my right hand pedal just fell off the its axel and crapped it’s ball bearings out all over the ground.

I am guessing the fact that I am 6ft and 115kg has something to do with that - I went inside and robbed the OEM wellgo platform pedals off my wife’s trek so I could finish the session, and when the broken pedal and the intact pedal off the Uni both axels were bent.

So two questions:

  • So I am in the market for two new pedals - can anyone give me recommendations of what I should be looking for? Do I want uni specific pedals, or can I just rock anything on there?

    One of my biggest problems at the moment is that when I curb mount or freemount I often put my second foot on the pedal in a bad position and feel really unbalanced - once I am riding I find it almost impossible to move my foot without falling off.

    Do I want a slightly less grippy pedal while I get better?

    I was thinking of maybe getting the Wellgo MG1 (http://tinyurl.com/wellgomg1) - I have rocked them on a single speed before and really liked them - I guess I could take out the traction pins while I am still learning?

  • Is this unicycle just going to fall apart under me in the next few months? I am not planning on doing anything epic on it - just learning to ride and commuting if I get that good - if I want to go any harder I will buy a Muni or something a little hardier

SB

2

you will be fine learning on that unicycle;)
but if you deside to continu riding unicycle you should upgrade.

pedals on most learner unicycles are not so good.
you can use any bicycle pedal on your unicycle.

3

Those look like the same pedals that are on the UDC club uni’s too. There have been many posts of those pedals falling apart. Fortunately the rest of the Uni should be good to go, now you can buy a pair of twisted pc plastic pedals and not have to worry about problems anymore :slight_smile:

Don’t worry about your pedal feeling too grippy, it’s kind of a beginner thing. As you progress you will put more weight on your saddle and less on your feet, it just gets easier and easier to move your feet. concentrate on being light on your feet. A little bit down the road, you will want grippy.

4

I second the recommendation for Twisted PC’s. They’re cheap, grippy and last a long time. And if you decide grippy isn’t what you want right now you can just sand down the nubs, leaving the desired about of grip.