“Hark”!, it’seems whatever you ride can be a downhill unicycle. Now I kind of am giving up on the geared hub for the unicycle…since everyone has a better ideal than mine anyway…at least I am kind of giving up…I figure connecting a fixie bicycle geared hub on a giraffe with a parallelogram suspension would work, and would be an easier build…
I for 1 know that a chain can be shaped in a parallelogram and then the angles can be changed without having to change the length of the chain, I just haven’t figured out a way to adjust tension on the chain, which periodically has to be done as chains stretch, and since unicycle chains must be extremely tight than they will stretch even more.
I read some older post about seat post suspension knocking the rider off the pedals, so on to the next best and cheapest bet which is to take or reverse engineer a geared bicycle hub and stick it on a giraffe…it may not be as “cool” looking as a standard big wheel unicycle but it would be fun to play with it…and to let everybody know, i have no intention of selling it, and nor do I think it would sell, but i sure as “hark” would like to try it…
Also maybe since the suspension is below the pedals In this case, and if you add shocks the “bounce off the pedal syndrome” should be reduced.
I do however think that beyond the problem of tension there will be the problem of constant changing of the height which can throw a rider off balance…
So the Problem all along was that you have a very different idea of what downhill unicycling should be then the existing one, but since you simply said “Downhill unicycling” we assumed to know what you mean, even if you tried to explain your vision. What you envision would be compared to downhill unicycling like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpAKB75c0xU compares to standard bicycle downhill.
Well I can not share it. You can always dream, but do not think that someone wants to go 40 or 50 ona unicycle. Even if the gearing allowed for it, it’s much faster than anyone has gone on the road, on a 36" with geared hubs.
Finnspin you are right for the most part. There was a time I wanted to be the guy who set the Guiness world land speed record for unicycles but I also had a thing for the technical look…there was an old bicycle game called Down Hill Domination and I loved the full face motocross helmet look, and I also thought that gee, it would be neat to apply it to unicycles…there is a Facebook page called Rosenkraus downhill and that is a perfect example of the vibe I was going for.
Another thing I also mistakenly assumed I could offer higher gearings and more speeds and then everyone would want such a said product. I was wrong I learned my lesson. No more playing big prosperous unicycle company anymore.
Anyways right now I feel like just playing with and making/modifying giraffes for personal ride,and play. It almost seems l Ike they were built for long travel suspension I mean they already look like pogo sticks.
It’s a crazy ideal, i guess i mean i just am always trying to do something different out there…it’seems it’s the wannabe a pioneer of a sport spirit in me…like you want to be like Kris Holm and try to start something unique and different, but it’seems all been done before, so i mean i’m just gonna chill out for now…especially on the whole manufacturing and patenting thing, maybe i will just focus on the prototype building…
This is what I foresee:
One crazy dude on his one of a kind unicycle that cost more than a car to build…
The thing is, when i watch our downhill elite riders (like Ryan Kremsater, Florian Rabensteiner, Jacob Spera, Gerald Rosenkranz, Jakub Rulf, …) i do not see them being limited by their not-extreme-downhill-specific-enough unicycles. I just don’t believe they would dramatically increase their speed with a better (how-ever-more-downhill-specific) unicycle.
Lately people whatever i say or do been bashing my dreams that i now only apply to myself, and i have been “kissing foot” by apologizing every second and here i am the troll???
I never said I wanted to hit 50 mph on a giraffe though I am trying to add a suspension system.
Also i was… dead serious about 40-50mph since of course i have experienced speeds like that on one wheel on a motorcycle often. hopefully the dead literally part doesn’t wind up true. BUT I WOULD have loved to try it… excuse me if I sound like i have a chip on my shoulder (even though i don’t) because it seems like I don’t have a superiority complex at least jeesh…why so much "hate"from so many "fellow"unicyclist enthusiast…how many times do I have to say i’m not the best and everyone is better than me, blah, blah blah…I am a lousy designer who builds junk and I am a lousy rider who could never be or do anything to improve anything.
Is everyone happy now. Your all better since I never compared myself to anyone…I just wanted to try new technologies on a unicycle.
Who is trolling here does it look like I am!!???
Thanks for the encouragement…(sarcasm)
At least 1 famous unicyclist. (Did not post on here) believed in me for a little while, but if he were to change his mind today I would respect that…as I don’t think anyone wants to try anything new on here anyway, eventually though I just wanted to change my name to focus on other unicycle related aspects as well.
Maybe this is a misunderstanding…maybe somebody thought I was being sarcastic or maybe trying to be insulting, but I wasn’t…I was serious, and as far as Giraffes I am talking about the lowest possible height to utilize said such suspension in theory it seems like it would work.
Perhaps UnidreamerFR is also joking about the troll thing as well
Anyways It seems it would be best to assume a more fitting perhaps more lighthearted username…for a unicycle rider as well as hobby idealist…
Will somebody post soon, you guys are making me feel bad for that little outburst. I misunderstood the situation. Let’s just play it cool from now on, feel free to post. Oh and please explain about why it was mentioned earlier that suspension doesn’t work on unicycles if you can, technical information is very exciting to me, I won’t argue and i’ll ditch the attitude…I am wanting to learn about this sort of thing, so please share about why the suspension ideals in the past didn’t or why it won’t work…pleeeeeaaaaase…
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.
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.
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.
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/
