Hi, I am thinking about buying the Torker Unistar TX 5-Foot Giraffe Unicycle off unicycle.com. I Plan to to learn how to hop down stairs and possibly ride down them and stuff like that. I have a pair of peddles to put on so it won’t have the plastic peddles, and I also have a nice alex rim I could get the local bike shop to put on. If I put the better peddles and rim on will this uni be able to handle drops,hops,etc?
If you are looking for a Torker to handle basic trials, you can easily think what a normal inexpensive non-trials freestyle would handle, and go from there. The cranks are going to bend just as easily, and the axle isn’t a BMX 14mm axle, but is a normal 3/8". So the axle will bend just as easily as a normal kid’s bike. Finding a commercially available replacement hub with a stronger axle is not as easy as it might seem.
Adding a really nice rim and pedals is like putting professional boxing gloves on me, and sending me out to face Mike Tyson. It’s not just the gloves that counts.
So I would expect that, as you ride more aggressively, that you would trash the equipment pretty fast.
You may also have trouble replacing the rim because I think the lower sprocket is welded on, which makes replacing the spokes on the wheel difficult. If the two rims have the same ERD, though, you should be able to use the same spokes without unlacing them from the hub. There is a procedure outlined in the wheel building references.
Scot Cooper built a MUni giraffe and I hope he contributes to this thread.
Scot’s giraffe was based on a low-end Taiwan 5 footer, but there have been several mods and upgrades over the years. I think some of these were done after bends or breaks.
A giraffe frame undergoes a tremendous amount of bending stress to the front and rear. Much of this is focused on the joint between the crank barrel (bottom bracket) and the seat tube. Though you can start with the Torker and do Trials on it, I’m sure it will bend or break at some point. So you can wait for that to happen and then reinforce it, or customize it to begin with. Or you can make one (or have one made) from scratch.
Or find a used one from Tom Miller (The Unicycle Factory). Though heavy, one of his will probably take anything you can dish out.