disc brakes?

Unicycles and Equipment
1

Why don’t people use disc brakes on unicycles?all i ever see is hydraulic rim.I know one reason is no manufacturer is making hubs that have the mountaing tabs and frames that have them too. I have hayes 8" hydros on my DH mountainbike and they are more powerful than any hydro rim brake…

Am i missing something??

2

Disk brake rotors are vulnerable to damage, especially if you like riding skinnies. It is not unusual to slide off the side of a skinny in a way that would bend or damage a disk brake rotor.

3

didn’t think about that

4

There are some disc braked uni’s around:

http://www.unicyclist.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=35329&highlight=disc+brakes

http://www.unicyclist.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=34354&highlight=disc+brakes

I’d presonally like to see a disc brake unicycle hub, but I would imagine anything but custom versions will be a wee bit of a way off. You could try mounting a disc brake to a crank spider on a regular bike crank perhaps.

5

In my opinion, you don’t need that extra braking power from disks and you get pretty damn nice modulation from a good set of Maguras anyway.

I have ridden a uni with a disk brake though, unfortunately the brake wasn’t attached at the time. I’m talking about hte muni owned by Gabe Holmic who I did a 12hr MTB race with in a two man uni team.

Andrew

6

I have mounted a disk brake to my 04 KH. I have yet to post pics because I am waiting for it to be painted. It was alot of work and involved amongst other things making and welding on new stronger bearing caps. As soon as I get it painted or maybe before as I am getting impatient, I will post all the details. Oh, and by the way dinging my disc when falling off of skinnies is the least of my worries. That is of course assuming that I will ever be able to ride skinnies.

Wayne.

7

The advantages of fitting cable disc brakes would be

  1. Maintainable while on a ride (a spare cable is easy to carry, whereas few people carry a bleed kit and spare magura fluid).
  2. No brake bleeding.
  3. More durable levers + more choice of different levers available than for maguras.
  4. Switch different wheels in one frame without moving brakes.
  5. No knee knocking problems (as with cable V-brakes).
  6. No rim wear (is this an issue on unicycles though?)

Joe

8

I’d like to run Avid Mechs on a mUni…but for a unicycle I would want a smaller rotor size/mount size then they currently make for bicycles. A 6" rotor is overkill on a uni, it would be cool though if they made a mUni specific (yea…keep dreaming) 3 inch rotor/mount. Nice and small, out of the way, harder to bend, large enough to have plenty of stopping power on one wheel, etc. etc.

9

Hydro-rim work better.

10

Zod, I agree with you (3" rotor). But those things have to be made by a unicyclist first. No one is going to mass produce one for us. Don’t laugh, but I am actually running an 8" rotor on my KH24. The reason is spoke clearance. The closer you get to the hub the further out the spokes get. I had to go 8" inch in order to get suffecient clearance for the caliper ( Shimano Deore, dual piston full hydraulic ). I did not want to dish the wheel and lose strength. I do have some ideas on how to make a custom hub with a built in disc but they are just crazy ideas in my head right now and don’t fully make sense yet. I just sand blasted the frame so I might assemble it and post some pics soon as the powder coaters seem to be closing for the hollidays.

Wayne.