I am a 50/50 Coker/technical Muni rider (36 and 24) and like them both equally.
I ride a 36er with 125mm cranks and can cruise around at 13mph all day long and do some moderate technical terrain with it too (up stairs, small drops, etc.)
I bought a Schlumpf Coker a few months ago thinking it would bring a whole new world of big wheel riding but I am still not feeling it.
It seems like the standard Guni Coker setup is longer cranks which bring the gear ratio down then add the Schlumpf which brings the ratio back up. It seems to me the net benefit of this is about a 15-20% higher speed in high gear and maybe a 30% advantage in the 1:1 gear. (It is a myth about doing insane speeds – Unless of course, you keep very short cranks on there…).
There is the complication of actually changing gears on the fly too and loss of dexterity. On my fixed Coker, you can navigate crowds easily by stopping and hopping and still standing till you have an opportunity, then riding off again. This is very hard to do in high gear on a 36” wheel. I can see the geared Coker would be an awesome machine on the very long distance all-flat-terrain riding but that does not happen much in the real world.
Anyway, I am inclined to buy a KH26 Muni and swap hubs so I will have a multi-purpose super machine that can go as fast as my Coker and also drop some trails too. It seems like that would be a far more useful uni. I have riden 24” and 29” Gunis and find that it gets much harder as the wheel size goes up.
I am posting this in case I am missing something about the virtues of the Guni Coker and someone can educate me before I go to that expense. I can always switch back of course. I would keep both.
Any input appreciated. Thanks…