so you’re talking about a penguin unicycle like this?
Triton Unicycles
Triton Unicycles
is an cooperation between Dmitry and Jogi.
Frames are specificated, designed and financed by Jogi & team
Dmitry organize drawings and production.
Triton Bikes
is owned and managed by Dmitry
Dmitry is a biketrialer Jogi is Muni and Uni roadrider
The design of triton uniframes are a summery of experiance and ideas from following (triton team) riders:
Muni: Turtle, Malte, Sandy, Ika, Florian Kaiser, Sarah, Jogi
XC Road: Maksym, Nik Zisler, Florian Schlumpf, Nadine, Johannes, Jogi.
Trial: Smilymarco, Niles, Ika, Jogi
the disk brake system (now in use from KH) was a idea from Jeff and realized in cooperation of Jeffs Mountainuni and Triton.
cheers Jogi
Questions? just ask me:)
by the way…
there can never be enough input, ideas and effort in new unicycles
To many if not most unicyclists on this forum the term “downhill unicycling” means mountain unicycling down usually steep and usually very technical terrain. There’s often a specific category for this in regional, national, and international competitions. I’m wondering if when the original poster added “downhill” to “unicycling” he meant more of what you get when you add “downhill” to “skateboarding”. Downhill skateboarding is a gravity sport that takes place on long stretches of descending roads. Other sports I would put in this category are gravity bikes, street luge, and drift trikes. There are many competitions/festivals in one or more of these sports that go on around the world every year.
As I mentioned in the geared thread I have a 3.8x geared (freewheel) unicycle built from a drift trike front end. This was designed for maintaining speed on flat and less steep spots during a descent. On a drift trike it’s relatively easy to pedal it in the 40-50 MPH range. It’s arguable whether you could pedal faster in a unicycle configuration but I think it’s probably about the same from a purely physical standpoint (you don’t have a seat behind you that you can use for leverage but your body weight is over the cranks and you can hold the saddle for leverage). However, it’s very different from a skill perspective. Staying balanced on a unicycle while pedaling at those speeds would take an immense amount of skill and concentration, but most of all daring. But I would say these challenges are no greater than those that a downhill skateboarder faces. Downhill skateboarding just have a much larger pool of potential candidates and more easily accessible equipment.
If we take the pedaling aspect away and are just going to coast anyway a better profile for gravity unicycling would be a peg unicycle. Part of the effort coasting down a hill on a freewheel unicycle goes into keeping the pedals in the same position. A peg unicycle provides a more stable base and in general is easier. You can get decent speeds on even a small descent. My main source of UPDs on a peg unicycle was overbraking. I have a built-in maximum speed I like to go (15 MPH - about as fast as I can run out) and one thing I used to like to do was find a hill that would get me around my max without having to brake and then do runs on that section. Peg unicycling also gave me an opportunity to explore in-wheel suspension.
Yep, it be fun to try to put suspension on it just to do it…how hard are those things to freemount?
Just wanted to suggest that if you’re into building a suspension uni, you should get in touch with lobbybopster, who is kind of the suspension guru for unis.
(example: How many and what kind? )
Thanks guys for the advice I will give all these suggestions some thought.
A couple videos related to my previous post.
Not bad. It’s a little higher than a 36er, but you can still use momentum using a running mount. Definitely not as hard as mounting a 5 footer. I was free-mounting it on the first day. It’s intimidating, but if you commit you’re fine. I believe this is largely dependent on gearing though. I have it geared as a 2:1 on a 20" effective diameter and 150mm cranks. Much higher and it would start to get really tricky on non-flat terrain. I have a facebook video of me mounting on it, but I don’t think it will show up due to privacy settings. . . https://www.facebook.com/justin.mullins.3591/videos/10206753257975411/
Of course you can’t go as low as that cool-looking Penguin-style one that was posted above; you need room for the upper frame to move up and down. Or you could offset it, by angling it to the front or rear, but it might ride funny. In any case, it should be really interesting to ride. I’ve never ridden a fully suspended uni and I don’t know if anyone else has either, since I don’t know if it’s been done. Probably with giraffes but I don’t remember seeing one. Naturally, being handmade with conventional materials it will probably be, at best, about 3x the weight of a normal muni.
Let’s just call it unintentional trolling. You might need to look up what it means.
If you’re going to be talking about making unicycles, why change? But that’s up to you; accounts are free. Abandon one and start a new one if you want.
It’s already been written you just have to look it up using the Search button above, and trying various terms along with “suspension” like “full suspension” (we don’t have a good name for the concept of suspending the pedals, which is the problem with suspension on unis).
And again I will recommend more reading, more riding, and a lot less posts per day. It’s not good for you.
Regarding suspension, the technologies I’ve considered adapting are the Lauf Carbonara fork, Softwheel Fluent, and Loopwheels Commuter Bike wheel (that was before the mountain bike version came out). I did make a peg unicycle out of the latter but ultimately found the suspension benefit was not much better than you would get by using a fat tire. I don’t know about Softwheel, but you can’t customize the suspension character of a Loopwheel and naturally they are tuned to bicycles. I have the one meant for a cargo bike but it’s still way too springy. I’d really like to make a peg unicycle out of a Lauf Carbonara fork but I’m taking a little time (and money) off esoteric projects to devote myself more to regular freewheel unicycling.
<checks Loopwheels website: “In the future: loopwheel for mountain bikes” 
> though the softwheel seems interesting in a similar way.
@UnimakerX - my apologies that you took my comments the wrong way. I certainly don’t want to discourage innovation - it’s just that I think you need to add some reality to your dreams. Clearly you are serious and not trying to wind us all up - but you need to appreciate that to some of us your ideas seem very outlandish when you don’t have experience of some of the things you’re suggesting (I’m far from the best rider on here, but I’ve ridden giraffes and geared hubs, and the idea of putting the two together to go fast downhill is terrifying). As others have said a few times it would help you to try out some of the things you’re discussing so you understand some of the issues.
Regarding the original question on this thread, didn’t you suggest in your previous thread that you were collaborating with the Unicycle Factory? That would seem an ideal partnership to get some prototypes going - don’t worry about “mass” production until you’ve at least got something working, you’re thinking far too many steps ahead.
Because his current niche of a niche of a niche isn’t quite small enough?
Just thinking about alternative drive trains and shafts came to mind…now comparing unicycles to bikes is like comparing apples to oranges, but I was afraid of the decreased efficiency with shaft, but apparently bicycles have done it.
So I have an ideal to use a chain but the shaft is easier to apply in this application (my ideal to add full suspension) What do you guys think?
Not only decreased efficiency - but more importantly on a unicycle, more backlash. I think you might actually have something there at least as a novelty item - I’ve never seen a shaft driven unicycle, and clearly it should be possible to do even if it’s not ideal. For bonus points hide the shaft inside one of the legs of the frame so it’s not even obvious how the wheel is being driven.
Now that I saw a video of Ryan Kremsater I know what you mean
The problem is i’ve been comparing bicycles to unicycles again
I think I am going to chill now because that is clearly one of the best unicycling videos i’ve seen, and not only am I not the first to think about downhill unicycling, this guy has been doing it harder, longer, and more often than I have been just riding a unicycle on flat ground…definately humbling 
Regardless I have been promising a fully suspended giraffe unicycle prototype so that’s what I am aiming for now. Maybe with a geared hub…but clearly you can see these riders are not limited by there rides…
Like I said it’s been unreal expectation after unreal expectation that stems from video games like downhill domination and magazines without actually experiencing these things in person, sure some riders on there bike can hit 40mph down a hill, but if they were hitting technical terrain like in the video they wouldn’t be hitting 40-50mph
Incredible riding from Ryan Kremsater.
This is what makes this forum great. An idea put up for discussion. Informed but sometimes robust exchanges of fact and opinion. Reconciliation and good grace. Everyone has learned a little bit more, and the seeds of some new ideas have been sown. There are few places on the internet where this happens. Thanks to all.
I have never heard of anyone putting a geared HUB in a giraffe. (Not talking about the regular sprockets or jackshaft gears.) If you tried that, it would be truly unique. I’d be interested in seeing the shifting scheme.
UnimakerX - if you are sure about your project and what you want to do. Then don’t let any comments down you, just make a prototype and show it to the world. On the other hand, if you are not sure and you were checking the market, then you have your response.
Don’t expect the wide group of unicyclists support you and give details to your idea that seems to be close to impossible. If you need some help, contact the ones that fiddled around with the topic you are touching. There is quite a bunch of innovators on this forum. Off course not many of the ideas tried catched on the market, but some did (like flat saddles and 32" wheels for example) and for that these innovators deserve big kudos.
The sport is still small, so if you want to be one bringing something new, there is a place for that wider than in most other sports. Just dig deeply to see what was already tried and why it failed 
I miss this thread 
so much entertainment.