A problem with the standard braided crossover is the length. Mountain unicycles typically use a 3" wide tire and the standard length crossover just isn’t quite long enough for enough clearance over the top of the tire. So you have a problem where a stick or rock stuck in the lugs of the tire or buildup of mud on the tire can get hung up on the crossover possibly breaking the crossover cable.
29ers and Cokers (36 inch wheels) have smaller tires and don’t have the same clearance problems with the standard length crossover cable.
For my muni with a 3" wide tire I had a custom braided crossover made by a local DH bike shop.
One trick that some have done with brake pads is to cut away some of the pad so that less of the pad makes contact with the rim. That gives more modulation and makes it less likely that you will accidentally eject yourself by putting the brake on too hard.
For road unis, our RTL team has had problems getting the Coker stock v-brake to modulate at all, they are either on or off(read “thrown off the front of the uni”) I went to a different brake and pad and now they are fine. Part of the problem is no machined surface on the wheel, just paint. So for v-brakes, we would like less sticky pads.
Have you toed in the pad at all, toeing in is supposed to help a lot with modulation (meaning that the front is slightly closer to the wheel than the back). You can toe it in by putting in the brake pad with a couple of bits of paper under the back end, pull the lever hard, and then tighten up the brake pad.
I sanded and polished my airfoil rim to a nice shinny brake surface, MUCH better modulation and consistancy of brakeing than the powder coated surface that it came with.
I use HS33s with the black pads, thinking of cutting off half the surface to further reduce grabbyness but polishing the rim really helped.
The standard crossover line is a bit tight on my 36er. Some day I will replace my lines with Stainless Steel ones, I have ripped the line to my brake handle before.
One product I would like to see is a break mount that could be mounted to a regular 25.4mm seatpost similar to a mountain bike bar end, and after market break leavers that you could work with your thumb when holding a KH handle. (Sort of L shaped sticking out sideways, someone made one and posted it on these forums somewhere but I can’t remember who)
Airfoils are powdercoated now? thats too bad mine came black anodized and ready for brakes.
I don’t know if one of these Wilson Widget would work for you or not because I use my fingers not my thumb. but I am going to cast some more soon. If you or anybody else wants one send me a PM.
Those look cool but are not what I had in mind. The guy who had the L shaped leaver had his brake lever assembley mounted sideways under the seat with the leaver sticking up through the KH handle and the brake was activated by pushing it sideways with his thumb. I don’t have a break on my MUni (yet) but if I did that is how I would want it set up
The picture was posted around a year ago if anybody else remembers it.
Wow that’s realy cool! I don’t know how that might work with a magura brake lever though. It would definitly be too wide the way it is but it could posibly be modified to work. I don’t know how well it would work in real life. I would like to try it though.
It seems to me all that all the brake set ups talked about here are similar in action to bicycle brakes.On my muni I dont have maguras just a fairly simple caliper set up,I first set it up the lever similar to most shown here and with spring release type of action,I found it difficult to use accurately and of course you have to compromise your balancing ability by taking one arm out of action.So I set my brake up with a friction lever (old style gear changer),I can now go down most hills with a single flick of the lever at the top of hill and release as the hill levels out.The friction lever is ten times more useful to me than the bicycle style.Also my preference is to set the drag to slightly more than the hill requires so that a slight positive pedaling action is needed to maintain speed,I can comfortably maintain my flat ground speed on most downhills without using more energy than flat ground.I reckon the ultimate brake setup would be dual levers acting on the same brake,the drag brake for those long constant downhills and the bike style for quick stops and incidental braking.
I think most people are talking here about muni brakes, when you’re riding technical muni, 99% of the time you have your hand on the handle anyway, so it doesn’t matter that you have to use that hand to brake too.
The problem with drag brakes for muni, is that when you’re riding a really steep downhill and you hit drops or roots, or jump, you often want to loosen off the brake quickly to avoid locking up. Having control of the brake is vital when it gets technical.
I’ve known a few people with drag brakes on cokers, which maybe make some sense for long descents, although I don’t know how you deal with the control for riding fast, I find riding fast downhill needs quite close control of the brake, to let myself freewheel until I’m going as fast as I can and then keep it just under control, if I just drag the brake constantly, I go down hills slower as I’m still using my legs to stay in control rather than the brake.
I think the drag brake must be slower, as you’re saying you can ‘maintain your flat ground speed’ on downhills, whereas on some of the descents we did in the Alps last summer, we were going easily 1.5 times our flat ground speed on some of the easier bits.
I have this idea for using a drag brake on a 36er:
Use a friction shifter on the T7 handle to set a base level of drag, then use a cyclocross-type interrupter brake handle so that it’s accessible when using the KH seat handle, and use this for fine control.
I see. I’ll have to see if it’s something Magura can custom make or sell the parts to custom make the crossover line.
By the way, you didn’t happen to be the unicycle rider at the Seattle Bike Expo few years ago riding with other bike trials rider were you? I was there with few buddies and we were doing a demo and the guy on the uni did few moves during the show. I think I have a picture or two from that day.
The rider you likely saw was Dan Heaton. Dan is from Bellevue (just East of Seattle) and much much much much much better than I am. I’d be embarrassed to demonstrate trials publicly.
