http://nsmb.com/gear/first_principles_07_02.php
http://www.firstprinciples.ca/products.html
Annoyingly these are 32 hole only, but does anyone think a similar adaptor might work for unicycle hubs?
Joe
Oh yeah, NOW we’re talkin’! I’m sure that as First Products makes more sales of this simple but great (aren’t they usually?) part, they’ll invest in a 36 hole flange, to bolt onto a Suzue or Profile, etc. Now all we need is a mounting kit for an Avid caliper!
I just don’t see wanting disc brakes on a unicycle…The added stopping power in overkill and I know I personally would not want a disc rotor that close to my leg
Good point, but you’d have to agree that someone just might make a 3 or 4" rotor? As with all tech, someone will do it and then it can be evaluated for whether it will be the next big step.
Re: Disc brake adaptors
The most apparent problems other than the drilling appears to be the axial footprint of the adapter. It would take up all the space outboard of the flange that is currently occupied by the bearing and crank. That’s what it looks like from the webpages, anyway.
I’d put a disc brake on in a second!
Brakes are already overkill for 95% of the riding I have ever done (choosing leg power, skill, and stamina over brakes—which I have owned and used), but a disk would just be so cool looking I would feel obligated to.
I think disc brakes are a no no on unicycles. If one were to slip, and got the leg in between the crank and tire, a nasty cut will result. Wonder how many stitches would be required to sew up the wound. 
I’ve sliced my finger open putting a tire on my mountain bike before from slipping and running it across the rotor. As I said above, having that rotor sitting just to the side of your calf is a bad idea in the making…
Roach pads will take care of that. No leg armour? You’re asking for it anyways…it may as well be a rotor
hey Guys,
im just getting started riding again, I havent rode in 10 - 15 years but what is the need for brakes on unicycles?
Thanks
rob
Your leg shouldn’t fit between the crank and the tire, unless you have huge clearance. Isn’t it possible to file down the edge of a disc brake to make it less sharp? Surely a sharp edge doesn’t provide all the stopping power. I wouldn’t mind having a disc brake if they were practical for Unicycles. I have a Wilder without brakes, with a Sun Doublewide rim which is designed to be used with disc brakes (not rim brakes). If there is enough room in the frame to chuck disc brakes on that would be cool. I don’t mind going without brakes though, they only slow you down. I’ve probably spent too much on my unicycle as it is, so I shouldn’t think about any extras for now.
This is why you should not use a disk brake. 
The picture was posted to the online gallery for the MTB club I’m in. The caption was “When You Crash, Your Rotor May Be Your Worst Enemy!”. The rotor can get a bit hot on a long downhill.
You have to be going really really fast downhill for a long time whilst feathering the brakes to get very hot brake discs. I’d be amazed if any unicyclist rides fast enough to get that much heat into the discs. We’re talking alpine descents at 30 mph rather than descending at 15mph on a unicycle.
Disc brakes are good for a bunch of reasons
- Any wheel size
Obviously you can swap wheels around as much as you want with disc brakes.
- You can’t knock them into the wheel with your legs
This isn’t true of maguras, but is true of other rim brakes.
- Not affected by rim problems
If you ding your rim they don’t screw up. If you ride a lot they don’t wear out your rim.
- Choice of cable or hydraulic
(without wheel knocking problems). This is good if you’re going somewhere remote where getting replacement hydraulic tubes would be hard.
-
No tyre clearance issues
-
Choice of levers
Especially for cable discs, you can choose pretty much any lever for discs and aren’t limited to magura levers.
- Are current bike technology
Maguras are great, but seem to be going out of fashion in the bike world at the moment.
The disadvantages of discs I can think of are
- need a special hub and frame
Will cost more.
2)The cable/tube runs down the frame further
This might be more likely to get knocked / broken, although you might be able to run it closer into the frame than with maguras.
- Possible issues with cutting yourself on them?
I’d be surprised if this happened ever, the disc being inside the frame and all that.
- Maybe issues with grabbing or crashes bending the disc?
Personally, I want a disc brake muni at some point to ride when I go to really big hills, my legs were pretty knackered after a week of solid riding last year.
Joe
Joe, I got to thinking about all this last night and I have kind of swayed a little bit in my opinion, disc brakes MIGHT work on a uni.
Let me say a little bit about some of your comments first. Now I am 200% more mountain biker than I am unicycler and have been an avid mountain biker for a long time. About Maguras going out of style, that’s just not the case. They are the preferred brake of trials bikers, modulation cannot be beat. Also single speeders and other weight weenies use Maguras because they want the improved braking power over V-brakes, BUT they don’t want to add the weight of a disc braking system. Magura rim brakes will be around for a long long time and will be highly used.
Now to address some other things I have thought of and you have mentioned. All I was thinking about when I was imagining a rotor on the unicycle was the size of my 8" rotors on my downhill bike, they are massive and WOULD end up cutting you eventually and WOULD end up getting bent in wrecks…and bending a rotor back 100% straight is a damn near impossible task.
BUT what I was to get in my head (and I don’t know why) is that all you would run on a unicycle is a 6"-5" or smaller and even 6" would be overkill but they don’t make smaller (mountain bike style anyhow). It would be cool if they made a 4" rotor.
Realisticly for the stopping power you would need on a uni you could have an even smaller rotor…
I like the idea because Magura Rim Hydros are completely over priced IMHO. I would much rather spend half the money and install an Avid Mechanical Disc brake…which has all the modulation of rim brakes with all the stopping power of Disc Hydros. And it’s mechanical which I personally prefer to dealing with hydro.
I had more to say but hit send too early…
With a small rotor, say 6" or smaller you would be a lot less likely to get cut or to bend the rotor. If you could get a 4" rotor or smaller the chances of doing either would be greatly diminished to the point of not even being an issue…
Doesn’t HOPE or someone make a disc brake with a little roter?
I thought I saw a review in bicycling about a disc brake that had a 2 or 3 inch roter.
peter
To the new guy: brakes help you save energy when riding down hill, you can concentrate all power on going over things, not on trying to keep from going too fast.
Mostly they are used on mountian unicycles.
Road riders can benefit by allowing to use VERY short cranks for maximum speed…they would suck to have to slow down with, this is where a brake would help.
Welcome back
I don’t think so peter, the smallest I know of that Hope makes is a 140mm which is like 5.5"
It is the smallest that I know of however I would still go with the Avid Mechanicals and the smallest rotor you can get for them is 160mm which is about 6.3"
What would be ideal for mUni’s is a rotor that is just big enough for the caliper to have a full contact patch. Say like a 2" or a 3" rotor.
Rotor size is all about stopping power and keeping hyraulic fluid cool. Unicycles would not require the rotor diameter that a mountain bike needs b/c speeds are SO much lower on a Uni and “stopping” is never the objective of a brake on a unicycle…
If they made a small rotor I’d be ready to jump on the bandwagon…too bad you’d have to have mounts for the caliper, but I guess a local welder could take care of that!!
Here’s one
I’m surprised no-one’s mentioned this already, but a disc rotor on one side of your uni means no crank-grabbing on that side. [Unless you’re very careful.] Those who crank/pedal grab to the left are out of luck for fitting a disc brake unless manufacturers come out with a right-hand side version soon. Even if you do crank/pedal grab to the right, this means you can’t practise grabbing on your non-favoured side.