Kendall here at Coker Tire/Coker Cycles. We wanted to let you all know that we’re giving serious consideration to a knobby tire for you Muni 36ers. Our question to you is what tread design would be preferable for off-road Cokering? Send us your tread pattern photos, drawings and cocktail napkin scribbles as generic JPEGs to info@cokercycles.com or simply post them here. Be sure to join our mailing list at cokercycles.com. Updates about the great new products we’ll be unveiling later this summer will be forthcoming. Thanks for your continued support.
Why not work on a lightweight road tire? I think you will sell more of those, also because Kris Holm will be launching his geared hubs for mountain unicycles in a short while, and 36ers will be unpractical then.
We need a strong and light rim!
What happened to the last re-design and improvements that Coker were promising in this thread?
Is the new Coker unicycle going to be a copy of the Quax 36 but with a coker tyre?
jim
What I would like is a nice double walled aluminum rim that is a coker sized (Not that crappy Airfoil). Back to topic, a mimic of either the gazzolodi or the Durro would be best because these are the staple of muni-tires
Sorry to go off-topic so early, I’m a road rider (36") and ride muni on a 29er so I’m not sure if that counts. When I ride 29" I run this tire: http://www.einradladen.net/shop/show_product.php/cPath/5/products_id/306 I’d say it’s a pretty good profile as you have a lot of grip, also it’s a very soft rubber. However, its a rear mountainbiking tire, not designed for unicycling. If you’re making a shallow turn the thread on the sides wants to pull you into more of a turn. So I would like to see some lower profile on the sides, a bit more like trialsy tires. So a pretty round tire, not a square tire like the Gazz as kerosian says. Also the gazz and wildlife are 3" wide, not what you want on a coker at all! I’d go for lightweight, durable and the kenda V shape in the middle, and a more square knobble on the sides.
knobs and knob patterns mean much less to unicyclers than bikers, as we have much more body weight control to help with traction that bikers don’t have. (not to mention that bike tread patterns are designed around far higher RPM’s than unicyclists pedal)
as someone who has extensive coker muni/mud experience, ‘any’ knobs would work, tread pattern is meaningless
Personally I say go with the lightweight road tire. I would love to have one of these. From what I have gathered, talking to people here, and else where is that most of us coker riders do mostly distance on smooth roads, or at least packed gravel.
I agree with Brian that the tread pattern is not super important on a large wheeled unicycle. I ride my Wheel TA tire offroad, and its width and large diameter handle anything that I’m courageous enough to try.
While we’re on the topic of 36" tires, I would like to see a lighter, higher performance tire and rim. Maybe a tubeless tire configuration could accomplish this, or maybe not. Whatever it takes, I think the quickest way to revolutionize the 36" experience is to develop a wheel with a lighter rolling weight.
For big-wheel MUni, you don’t need a seriously knobby tire; you just need something that will bite a little bit when the surface is loose. The stock Coker tire is actually not bad in that regard, but it would be nice to have something a little knobbier.
You definitely don’t want the knobs to interfere much with road or fire road performance, since that’s most of what will be done on the Coker anyway. The Kenda Klaw that’s coming on the KH29" is probably a decent compromise, although I’d probably prefer something with slightly smaller knobs. You definitely want the overall profile to be rounded.
man, I love how the unicyclist community is. direct contact with manufacturers.
Hi Kendall,
I think it’s a cool idea. It’d be really nice to see something like this happen.
Have you spoken to the guy on these forums who was talking about popularising 36er mountain bicycles? He was the guy who first took the motorcycle tread cutting tool to the TA tyre.
Cheers,
Mark
I sent mail to your info@cokercycles.com address but receieved a bounce message:
This message was created automatically by mail delivery software.
A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its
recipients. This is a permanent error. The following address(es) failed:
info@cokercycles.com
all relevant MX records point to non-existent hosts or (invalidly) to IP addresses
For those interested in actually contributing to the offroad Coker tires, please note that they want you to send your JPEGS to the email address indicated in the first post. The guy may or may not be checking back on this thread.
Unfortunately at this point the rest of the unicycle is probably all designed, and they’re getting it manufactured. We hope. This will hopefully be an alternate tire, to go along with the original Cokers? A lightweight one would be nice as well. They may wear out faster, but they should perform much better because those tires are heavy!
Go fat and light
The dune uni. No one has one. So, no one cares. 
Then the lightweight 4x 36 duni was invented, by KH, after prophetic Coker tire company 
reads my post:D and makes the 4x36 light duni tire.
What the world needs now is a duni. Unisk8ter will gear one up 3.4/1 and the land speed duni record will be so cool.
Crashing seems a bit more endemic to unis then other wheeled sports. I was once a noted motorcycle crasher, and sand was the most fun crash by far. With a bit of practice, crashing a uni on a sandy downhill at 35 + mph should be a breeze.
I think it would be so fun to be able to ride a 36 in the sand.
DITTO!!!
Just knobs!!!
Thanks to all who responded here as well as those who have emailed. We value your input. In regard to the road tire comments, I have spoken to Mr. Coker just this morning and he’s agreed to consider it. As for the new rim, I can’t say much right now, but can say that help is on the way. Hang in there for just a little bit longer.
Kendall
Coker Cycle Co.
I just wanted to quote myself from the other coker thread in order it be seen in this thread.
For off-road 36":
Round cross-section for turning ease, not a sharp edged square cross-section like the Gazz…
Front tire knob pattern, medium-to-wide spacing between knobs for snow and mud shedding.
Knobs approximately 2-2.5 times the height of the current Coker tire. Beveled knobs will help with turning, but they should be beveled equally in all directions, not asymmetrically like a bike rear tire. We brake and climb with the same tire, so we are applying torque in both directions, and thus need symmetry. Bevels will also increase the life of the tread/tire significantly.
Stiffer sidewalls than most, because we turn more sharply and hop sideways up inclines (yes on 36"). We have to have lower pressure, say 20-30 psi, so we need stiff sidewalls to help that occur. The current 29er bicycle tires, most of them, require higher pressures to maintain profile and that screws up the ground interface, and bump absorption, and general traction.
The feedback I’ve gotten and seen says that the TA stinks off-road, as one would expect. I haven’t ridden one.
If you took the current Coker tire that we use, if you:
– extended the knobs further up the sidewall for better traction on turns and sidehopping
– made the knobs taller and bevelled them some (perhaps spreading them further apart),
– softened up the rubber some for better traction,
– manipulated the cords for a slightly softer feel and lighter weight while maintaining a stiff sidewall
– eliminated the manufacturing and/or shipping conditions that result in kinks in the bead from time to time
you’d have a really good first go at a good 36" off-road tire.
IMHO.
I’ve ridden the current design off-road in snow and ice, and it actually did really well. This was lowering the pressure to where the sidewall was bulging significantly.
Thanks!
I disagree wholeheartedly. One of the reasons the Gazz works so well off-road is it’s square profile. Compared to the rounder Duro, it gives better grip/traction around corners. At high speeds (like on my bike), I’m terrified of riding round profile tyres.
It seems to work fine for me on gravel or dry singletrack. I think it may have less traction than the Coker tyre if it was muddy/wet/slippery, but I haven’t ridden it in such conditions. Overall though, I don’t think there’s a lot in it.