Custom muni update...

General
1

Today I picked up my package from the post office containing:

  • 1 Nokian Gazzaloddi 24" x 3" tyre
  • 2 Alex DX-32 rims (one for a friend)
  • 1 One Tired Guy
  • 1 GB4 Stiffener Plate

I’m waiting on some tripple-butted spokes now which will be here overnight so I’ll finish building it tomorrow. Then all I have to do is get the frame adjusted a bit and painted and then fit a better seatpost clamp and I’ll be right. It’ll be perfectly ridable tomorrow though!!!

This is an update on all the parts of the muni. Those of you who have been following my adventure into the world of custom munis will realise how happy I am that this is almost done.

Frame - I’ve been riding for about 2 weeks now on my frame that is currently attached to my 20". It looks really funny because there’s a huge gap above the tyre to fit the 24" Gazz (which you’ll later lear is almost a 26"). To bring some of you up to date, Ian the framebuilder is a great guy who’s been really helpful and easy to work with. I had some bearing holders machined that turned out great and now have them attached to the completed frame. The only thing that I’m not happy with is the clearance either side of the wheel. In my diagrams and notes I specifically said that the legs of the frame were to be parallel which would allow 6mm clearance on each side. I’ve now decided that 6mm is unneccessary, but somehow the frame was built with the legs slanting in at the top slightly. The way it is, I’ll be lucky to get any more than 1mm clearance each side. I talked to Ian about the confusion and he said he can crimp the legs without losing too much strength and allow about 2-4mm clearance (I can’t remeber exactly). He also said that if I’m not happy with that he’ll redo the whole frame for me but that probably won’t be neccessary and I don’t want him to have to do that. Generally, I love the frame and think it’s been really well built. It’ll look beautiful with the metallic orange paint job that’s yet to come and you can see photos of it along with the hub and later on the rest of the unicycle in my gallery (see my signature for the link).

Saddle - I’ve now got a green Miyata saddle that was made in Japan (one of the old ones) that I got from Juggleart in Melbourne, Australia. All you Aussies out there, I strongly recommend that you get anything you can from these guys because they give free shipping as opposed to lots of shipping cost from America (which is fair enough). Go to www.juggleart.com which is a great site in my opinion. The handle hasn’t broken at all but I’m a little worried about the flex in it. I also just recieve the GB4 Stiffener Plate for it which I’ll install soon, although I don’t know how to.

Seatpost Clamp - At the moment, I’m using a really basic one that came with my 20" but I’m about to order in a better one. I’ll hopefully get a quick release.

Pedals - Odyssey Twisted Pro pedals are really great but have already dug into my calves and left a mark for 4 weeks now. I love using them for side hopping.

Hub and Cranks - I’m using (or will be using) the Profile hub and crankset. Due to a bit of a misunderstanding, I ended up with 150mm cranks when I wanted 170mm ones. I’ll put up with these and if I have any problems with them I’ll just save up and buy the longer ones. I’ll let you Australians know if I’m selling my 150mm ones but it won’t be for a while if I do.

Rim - As I said, today I got an Alex DX-32 rim to go with the Gazz. It looks great.

Tyre - The Nokian Gazz 24" x 3" tyre is beautiful! Today I put the tyre and rim together to see what it looks like and I made some very interesting observations. The outside diameter of the Gazz is literally only 10mm smaller than the diameter of a 26" mountain bike tyre! The 26" I used as an example was a comparitively large one and was from a Trek Liquid for all you bikers. Also, the width of the tyre when it’s not pumped up is a massive 74mm. The tyre says the recommended inflation pressure is 15-29psi which has got me really excited. In order for it not to fold I have to inflate my current tyre to at least 35psi.

I believe that’s all of it. As for any of you who actually read all that, I hope I didn’t bore you too much but I’m just getting really excited. Be prepared for many more comments about my custom muni in a few days and the months following them.

Andrew

2

Re: Custom muni update…

Installation instructions:
http://www.public.iastate.edu/~gbarnes/gb4/miy_stiff/miy_stiff_inst.htm

Installation photos:
http://www.public.iastate.edu/~gbarnes/gb4/miy_stiff/miy_stiff.html

3

Re: Custom muni update…

triple butted?come again…ive never seen triple butted before.

4

George,

Thanks a lot for that, it was really helpful. I forgot that I’m going to need to buy those bolts, nuts, and washers.

Jagur,

That’s strange, I’m guessing that they’re not that uncommon because they were really easy to order in. Did you think double-butted was the strongest?

Andrew

5

George,

It’s okay, I replied to your post before actually reading all the instructions. Now I realise that I won’t need to buy anything.

Thanks,
Andrew

6

jagur,

I checked and they are triple butted. I also found triple butted spokes in the Wheelbuilding Handbook. I think they’re very similar to double butted but thicker at the ends or something like that because they still only go thinner in the middle. They have the same advantages as double butted but I think they’re just stronger.

As for my unicycle, it took longer than I expected yesterday and I didn’t get it done. I’ll hopefully finish this afternoon.

Andrew

7

The GB stiffener is straightforward to install; you may have to drill plastic a little to get holes to line up. I’ve installed two so far and both were fine.

Triple-butted, according to the books, means double-butted with a slightly thicker head section. You will have to be careful to get high tension to get the benefit of the swaging, and you may have to drill-out the spoke holes on the Profile to accomodate the thicker heads. I will be very interested to hear your experiences with the spokes, Andrew!

8

I left the bike shop yesterday with half the spokes put in (luckily they did fit through the Profile holes) and returned today with all the spokes in place. This was a good surprise for me because I didn’t have enough time anyway before work to finish it off. So today I put a bit of oil on the threads and tightened them all up and trued the wheel. I continued to finish off the rest of the unicycle (FINALLY!!!) which you can read about in my latest thread which I’ll post soon. I’ll just say one thing…the Gazz is huge!

Andrew

9

Andrew,

Once you get this beast together and in a rideable state, could you comment on the feel of the 150mm cranks on a 24" rim with a 3" tire? I’m getting the Alex32DH rim and will put a 3" Fireball on (for now – probably a Gazz later). My only outstanding decision to make is whether or not to get 170mm cranks or 145s (which I’m equating to the 150s for simplicity). I think I’ve unearthed most of the discussion on the topic and it seems most people say 150mm cranks are fine if you don’t have to go up anything too steep. My current thought is to get the 145mm cranks now and drop another $100 for the 170s before I go home for the summer (where I’ll be doing more trail riding).

I’d be interested in how they work for transportation (just getting around on the uni) and how they feel for trials (balance, leverage, hopping, etc.)

I guess this is pretty much the last step in getting your custom uni – you’ve waited long enough for this thing, now go make up for lost time and have some fun!

Later,
Eli.

10

Eli,

Thanks for the support. In my opinion, if you’re going to be using the uni for nothing too ‘heavy’ (ie. not too much trials or muni) you should start with the 145mm cranks. Having said this, I think you really do have to eventually get the 170mm ones. I’ve only ridden for a little bit tonight in the dark so as you could imagine I wasn’t too ambitious, but when I did a drop that was only about 50cm high the uni came out in front of me. It felt like I didn’t have much power at all when landing drops but it’s the first drop I’ve done and it was in a poorly lit area. Although I’ll adapt to 145mm cranks for now, I’d much prefer 170mm cranks for what I’m doing. I also ride around a fair bit but I do a lot of drops and hopping and will do a lot of muni so I need the leverage. On footpaths, my muni is really fast it’s pretty much a 26" tyre (because Gazz’s are so high off the rim) with 150mm cranks so it’s very comfortable to ride.

I hope that helps. Please keep us up to date with your new wheel.
Andrew

11

Re: Custom muni update…

michaeli wrote:
> could you
> comment on the feel of the 150mm cranks on a 24" rim with a 3" tire? I’m
> getting the Alex32DH rim and will put a 3" Fireball on (for now –
> probably a Gazz later). My only outstanding decision to make is whether
> or not to get 170mm cranks or 145s (which I’m equating to the 150s for
> simplicity). I think I’ve unearthed most of the discussion on the topic
> and it seems most people say 150mm cranks are fine if you don’t have to
> go up anything too steep.

I’ve got 150s on my muni with 24x3 Gazz. They work well. Alan (Arnold
the Aardvark) recently experimented with 175s on his 26x2.6 and found
that, while the extra length helped on downhills, it didn’t seem to help
on uphills. The problem was the bigger dead spot with the longer cranks
making it difficult to maintain momentum.

I recently did a flat-ish ride around Rutland Water so opted for a
26x1.75 with 125s. I found that the occasional uphill was no harder than
it would’ve been with my 150s. I think the same principle was involved
(but in reverse) the shorter cranks helped me to keep pedalling away. Oh
yeah, and the shorter cranks kept my feet dry when riding through
puddles. :slight_smile:

> I’d be interested in how they work for transportation (just getting
> around on the uni) and how they feel for trials (balance, leverage,
> hopping, etc.)

I don’t think you’d want to ride too far on the flat with 170s. That
said, Klaas Bil uses cranks of that kind of length and seems to get on
OK with them. I don’t know how much of his riding is on the flat though.

I guess it all comes down to a mix of riding style, terrain and personal
choice. One of these days I’ll make one of Klaas’s inclinometers to
check just what I’m riding.

Regards,
Mark.

–

Fujitsu Telecom Europe Ltd,| o
Solihull Parkway, | In the land of the pedestrian, /|
Birmingham Business Park, | the one-wheeled man is king. <<
Birmingham, ENGLAND. | O

12

Mark and Andrew,

Thank you both for your feedback – it was very helpful and confirmed a lot of what I’ve been thinking.

I’m going to get the 145mm cranks to start. I live in a city (until May) and will be using the unicycle a good deal for transportation; my playing will consist of urban trials (no Muni as trails aren’t conveniently at hand) and I’m confident I can get used to the crank length.

Like you suggested and I mentioned, the purchase of the 170mm cranks will happen. My home-home (summer) is in a rural area where there are many trails “out my backdoor”. I’m quite sure I’ll want to have the longer cranks for the mostly trail riding I’ll be doing. At home I have my mountain and road bikes for transportation anyway, so that’s that.

I’m going to Toronto the weekend after next (the 8th of February) to visit Darren (Bedford). I should be a very, very happy unicyclist after that encounter. I’ll let everyone know how things go (ooh, the prospect of starting my own, “I’ve got a new uni!” thread. How exciting!)

Later,
Eli.

13

On Thu, 30 Jan 2003 12:54:23 +0000, Mark Wiggins <M.Wiggins@ftel.co.uk> wrote:

>I’ve got 150s on my muni with 24x3 Gazz. They work well. Alan (Arnold
>the Aardvark) recently experimented with 175s on his 26x2.6 and found
>that, while the extra length helped on downhills, it didn’t seem to help
>on uphills. The problem was the bigger dead spot with the longer cranks
>making it difficult to maintain momentum.
In my view, the dead spot with long cranks may be bigger, but it is not ‘as dead’. I mean, in the dead spot you can still exert some forward/backward push to the pedals, and because of the longer cranks that translates to a useful amount of torque.

>I don’t think you’d want to ride too far on the flat with 170s. That
>said, Klaas Bil uses cranks of that kind of length and seems to get on
>OK with them. I don’t know how much of his riding is on the flat though.
With Het Beest (24 x 3" Halo, 170 mm cranks) I do ride on the flat but mainly for transportation between slopes. I don’t ride flat-only with Het Beest. But I think that 170’s are OK even on the flat if you don’t mind going slow. Others may disagree and find the leg movement excessive.

On my Semcycle 24 x 1.75 which I use almost exclusively on the flat (mainly on pavement), I have 125 mm cranks and plan to try several shorter sizes in the spring. (And 150’s and 170’s for comparison.)

Klaas Bil
[no sig line for forum posts - still hoping that this is temporary]

14

if youre doing trials then you want long cranks. especialy doing drops, shorter cranks will kick you off.
remember what archemedies said about moving the earth if he had a lever and fulcrum big enough?

15

You can get 160mm from Profile as well.

16

>You can get 160mm from Profile as well.

yep,uni.com has a pair of 160’s in stock right now.i was going to get them but they had the spider hole in them so im going to have to wait 6 weeks for some custom ones without the hole.

i am useing 145mm cranks on my new 24" uni with 2.5 hookwerm and the shorter cranks are great for urban speeding,the torque loss is’nt that bad.i am going to need some longer cranks (probobly 160’s) if i ever get back to the mountains.

17

Jagur,
What fork are you using for your new 24" ride?

18

jagur,

Do you just not like the look of the spider, or is there something else wrong with having one?

Thanks,
Andrew