Body weight limit on KH29 unicycles

Hi all,

I’m planning to buy a KH29 unicycle, but I’m unsure about how much weight it can handle. It would have to handle at least 330lbs/150kg.

Since I didn’t find the info online, there are maybe a few people in a similar situation as me.

1 Like

First to preface, I am not a professional. Really hope one of the shops/professionals can give some advice here.

While i’ve only been up to 250lbs suspect it should be fine. KH unicycles are designed for downhill and the extra weight of a rider riding doubletrack/flowy singletrack trails should be fine compared to 6ft drops.

1 Like

This might give you an idea of how stout unicycles can be… :slightly_smiling_face:

Note he’s on a smaller uni, perhaps the story is a little different with a 29” wheel versus a 20” wheel. If I had to hazard a guess though a KH29 will likely do the job just fine as long as you’re not doing crazy side-hops

3 Likes

I wouldn’t be so sure about how much such a uni can handle. It really depends on what you’d want to do. Nowadays, KH29 unicycles come with Qaxle/36-hole hubs. They’re not the strongest, and I know a few people who have broken theirs although they are half your weight :confused:
What do you plan to do on this unicycle? Is it only for road riding/touring, or do you plan do go for more extreme things (e.g. muni)?

It would be for commuting to work, which is arround 2miles/3.2km.

2 Likes

In that case, I guess there are no issues :ok_hand:

I would anticipate no issues, however I would get a trusted local bike shop to check and adjust spoke tension after you’ve ridden it for a bit (maybe a hundred miles or so).
This is something I’d recommend to everyone, but it becomes more important the more you’re stressing the wheel.

1 Like

Short answer: you’re probably fine.

Checking with local bike shop is probably a good safety measure. You can also squeeze the spokes together to see if they feel looser than you remember. It is difficult to get a spoke tension meter on wheels that are small, bike shop people might just compare with a handy BMX wheel for reference anyhow. Most unicycles that I have seen (and TBH, that’s not many) have 14 gauge, straight gauge (non butted; non “tapered”). Most of the problems you’ll run in to with heavier riders will be cyclic stress on the spokes from hitting bumps, accelerating, etc.

You could try using a thicker spoke (13 or 12 gauge, smaller the number, the bigger the diameter). You’ll also be limited by the hub to some extent, it may not accept super wide diameter spokes. I’d also recommend brass spoke nipples.

Good wheel building is an art, however, you can learn how to do it yourself and get fairly good results. Some access to a truing stand is needed, but making friends with bike shop staff is probably not hard.

1 Like

The frame and cranks are super strong (I know of almost no KH frame failures). I agree that the weaker areas are the hub and the wheel and possibly the seatpost. The older Spirit Hub was pretty indestructible. The new Q-Axle is optimized to be lighter but is seems to be quite strong. The wheel you could strengthen with thicker spokes.

Bottom line: as above, for normal riding there shouldn’t be much of an issue. Landing jumps and drops greatly increases the forces. I’m under 170lbs so not sure, but I would start to worry on drops of 40cm/1.5ft or bigger. On roads I would think it should be fine.

1 Like

So, I thought I’ll give a update

I bought one and the quality of it is very good. Quite sturdy for the total weight.

It does easily support my weight and I have ridden it for about 5 km by now.

Until the tire tube exploded on me, luckily I wasn’t riding it when it happened. I can’t rule out that the tube wasn’t already damaged, because a single index finger sized piece got torn of the tube by the initial explosion before it ripped completely.

I also noticed that the tube size was 29x3.00 inches and I had it pumped up in the higher pressure range.

I now ordered tubes which are rated for 29x3-3.5 inches to accommodate the 29x3.25 tire size better.

I also want to add that I only did regular riding on streets and didn’t strain it in any other unusual way, so take from that what you want.

Nonetheless did I enjoy riding it and will continue once I reach a lower weight (I’m already down 15 pounds).

5 Likes

I would inspect your liner and spokes very carefully before installing the new tube, I had an issue with a new uni I had that kept blowing tubes, after the second one I inspected everything and found one spoke nut was sticking up and created a tiny cut through the liner and even though the spoke seemed tight it would move just enough to cut the tube after a few days of riding, funny thing is it only popped when sitting out in the sun on my bike. I guess I was lucky on that front as it was on my 32

1 Like

Congratulations on the weight loss so far!

As aj1500 said, it’s definitely worth checking inside the rim just in case there’s an issue there. Another thing could be part of the tube getting caught up in the tyre bead when the tyre was mounted, this does something very similar. I’d say this is probably bad luck rather than anything to worry about.

Given it’s 1 hole rather than 2 and it blew out explosively while not under load, it doesn’t sound like a pinch flat so the wheel seems to be handling your weight just fine.

4 Likes