Best Giraffe to get from UDC UK?

Same line of spontaious, lodgogical, amzing and inspiring thoughts here.

From what little I know about giraffes (a bit), double-chain models are mostly about looks. MUCH more visually interesting to look at; great for performers. They put less strain on the unicycle frame, but then again I never see giraffes that are destroyed by too much chain torque. The downside of a double chain is if one side wears faster than the other, which would make it hard to keep both chains equally tight. Probably not a big issue. Also if your frame gets bent for some other reason, it can put the two chains out of whack and again make it hard to keep both tight.

I still don’t trust a two-wheel-stack unicycle that’s held together by four little bearing cap bolts. That just seems like a pretty weak design (though cheap and easy to put together), and the only ones I’ve seen in person didn’t work because the wheels couldn’t be made to stay aligned. Adding another wheel would magnify the inherent weakness, and I think I’d be afraid to sit on one at my weight…

You could go with what Madison (Ducttape) got which is a 3 wheel giraffe. :thinking:

It should work, I have a three wheeler giraffe that is Nimbus and I can actually take the bottom wheel off and make it a 2 wheeler…

it’s actually only a little higher than 6 feet, I own a 3-wheeler…

I weigh 130 lbs and have been hopping around on my 3-wheler for a while, seems to be holding up alright now that I tighted the bolts up, maybe the 2-wheelers you’ve seen just need a bit of tightening up, I ran into that problem when i first got the unicycle. It’s an easy fix though…

it’s not available on UDC uk or US right now, he could get the 2wheeler and the extension like other people said though… those extensions are just frame legs with bearing caps on either end… pretty simple to assemble and disassemble.

Yeah i was looking through the UDC UK, US and NZ and could only find the 2 wheeler versions.

Like this 2 wheeler.

Yes, one thing I remember being told very early on was “Don’t tighten the bearing caps too much, they need room to breathe.”
On a normal uni that would seem to make good sense, as it protects the bearings and does not appear necessary for strength.
But if we extend a giraffe by bolting on an extension via those bearing caps, then surely we need to bolt it tight, as it becomes part of the frame? Or do we still need to protect the bearings?

What advice is given by UDC to two wheel riders with these bearing cap extension tubes?

Nao

I thought the point of a double chain was a safety feature in case a sproket comes loose. I suppose that’s not such an issue now with the bolt-on sprokets as it was with the threaded track-bike type hubs.

Rob

I had a 3 wheeler at the Australian Uninats for display and trying out. It was a great hit for giraffe riders. They need care in assemblying though (the unicycles not the riders) and careful adjustments of the tyre pressures. It was a 2 wheeler which is too specialised so I just added another wheel kit to make a 3 wheeler.
Cheers
Mal
www.unicycle.au.com

At least with the DM giraffes, the double chain giraffes had the sprockets offset by half a tooth, which meant that you got less backlash when you idled. That’s what he said anyway. They did seem easy to idle.

Joe

do you want a giraffe??

hello, my name is nicolas,im from spain and i am selling giraffes,very good giraffes of 1,50 long and very good mechanics.and nice colors,there arent giraffes with colors theese are new!

it cost 250€ plus send cost. there you have the photo…

you can talk to me here or : niconale@gmail.com

bye!

Is ducttape male or female? :thinking:

Haha… Madison is a boys name.

Right and right. Any giraffe that’s built with a threaded-on sprocket, if it isn’t held in place by something other than a lockring and Loctite, should be avoided. A sudden loosening of your sprocket can cause bone-breaking injury.

Hopefully anyone building double-chain giraffes already knows this and is using some form of bolt-on sprockets.

On the bearing-cap two-wheeler I described above, no the owner spent many hours trying to tweak it and get it to work. This included trying different tires and pressures, and eventually bending the frames to try to get things to line up properly. But it must be noted that this was not one of the Nimbus frames.

(two months on exactly and…)
Update:

My three wheeler came and I put it together ready for a quick ride before it got put away for xmas.

One problem I have is the stiffness. It takes some substantial pressure to pedal the uni. Does anyone know if I should have high tyre pressure, low tyre pressure, or a combination on different wheels? It seems at the moment that the wheels are squashed onto each other :thinking: , which I wasn’t expecting.

unfortunately multi wheelers are a bit like that, if the wheels aren’t compressed hard together you risk them slipping on each other, whihc will almost certainly result in an unexpected, uncontrollable fall. Give Roger a call, he will know, he no doubt designed it in the first place.

:smiley: Ducttape is a mans name as you can see here and just scroll down. :smiley:

the Bottom wheel should have the highest pressure, the middle one a lower pressure and the top one a medium pressure, just experiment with it until it feels like the wheels can rotate semi-freely without slipping.