Coker muni question

Unicycles and Equipment
1

Hello gang,
I subscribe to a local outdoors club and one of the activity is to mountain bike nearby trails. Since I discovered uni, I have not rode a bicycle in 3 years, it’s too boring! :smiley: I would love to join them with my Coker but do not feel confident about myself AND my new Coker will hold up on such trail.

You muni people and Cokers out there, can you give me some advice on how I can ease myself into muni?
What do I need to practice for muni trail riding?

I have a beginner 24’ uni but don’t think it will hold up in trails.
What are some absolute skills I need before muni riding?
My plan does not include 3-5 feet vertical drops while muni, I am afraid of heights! :stuck_out_tongue:

2

  1. Start riding trails, with whatever you’ve got. I started with a 24" street unicycle, which still hangs in my garage. I didn’t destroy it. You don’t beat up the cycle too bad until you start hopping or dropping.

  2. If you use your Coker, no hopping or dropping. Make sure your Coker’s spokes have good tension in them. Loose spokes make for an easy taco.

  3. Don’t expect to keep up with a group on bikes, especially if you’re new to MUni.

  4. For now, just get out and ride some trail, then come back and tell us what you found out! This will cover the stuff we don’t know, like the nature of your trails (smooth vs. rough, rocky vs. dirt, vertical vs. flat).

3

If you have a Dave Stockton wheel on your Coker you probably don’t have anything to worry about until you start (if ever) to do drops that will hurt the cranks. Dave builds a VERY strong wheel. The next step down are the unicycle dot com Airfoil rim wheels which are not built with as much care or precision as Dave’s if they are built up at all. You may have chosen to build it yourself. At the bottom is the stock steel rim which tacos as fast as Pedro pushes fast food at the grease counter. The rim is weak and the lacing is loose. I tacoed mine hopping up steps, not down. Cokers are fine for off road riding.

As John said, since your experience is limited, start with what you’ve got. The MUnis that are made with big downhill wheels, profile crank and hub sets, and fat Gazzoloddi tires are subjected to incredible abuse. You don’t have to do that. Your stock 24" won’t stand up to many 12" drops let alone 36" drops but you don’t want to do that…yet. You can still ride trails and skinnies with your stock unicycle you just can’t barrel down steep, rocky, rooty trails or sidehop over fallen trees.

4

Yeah, just go for it. I started riding on muddy trails & large stones on a cheap freestyle 20" and quickly realised how much fun it was. with a 29 with a nice fat slick it was still great fun (more entertaining than with a grippy tyre due to some great slides)). I did my 80 miles continuous of offroad on a coker with no problems (with the uni).

Whatever you do, don’t over-tension spokes either! it could taco of it’s own accord (I remember a shot of one like that on a rig recently)