Lots of posts about giraffes lately. If you want to go riding with someone, go riding with the equipment manager for a unicycle club. That’s what I did today. I went over to UniBrier’s (Steve DeKoekkoek’s) to try out his 6’ giraffe with 24" wheel and his 4-1/2’ giraffe with 20" wheel geared to 40". The guy has 5 giraffes in his garage, maybe more. He has some of the Uniques of Lynnwood’s unicycles as well as eleven some of his own.
I started easy with the 6’ with 24" wheel. I always wanted to try a giraffe with a wheel larger than 20". I rode and fell and then I rode and rode and rode. This is a giraffe that is useful as transportation. As Steve pointed out it would be a bit dicey in a parade because it’s not anywhere near as responsive as a 20" but for transportation it’s much better. Giraffes aren’t really meant to be too practical, though. I didn’t spend any time trying to freemount it because I didn’t want to hurt myself before the maiden voyage on the geared camelopard.
Steve handed me the 4-1/2’ with 20" wheel geared to 40". The chainring topside was a giant. I got up on the mail box at the end of Steve’s driveway and wobbled a bit back and forth on it. When I was ready, I grabbed Steve’s hand and started to roll forward. I let go after about 10 feet and started to GO … SLOW DOWN … GO … SLOW DOWN and then finally got the right rhythm and found the balance envelope. It was WAY cool. It pedaled smoothly with backlash no worse than the uni.5 hub. It was a little more stable because of the height but not one on which I would like to ride at great speeds. Steve has 170mm cranks on it which aids control but is also one of the factors that makes the rider want to hold down the speed as fast spinning would become wobbly quite quickly. This guy moves right along and is a TOTAL GAS to ride.
The disadvantage as a commuter as I see it is that it’s not the kind of giraffe one freemounts with ease. It’s not the kind of giraffe one mounts next to a lampost and rides away alone with ease. When Steve went in to get the camera I tried to jump mount it because it’s so short. Fortunately he was not there to witness the embarassing results. Another tricky thing is dismounting even though it’s very short. It is very non-intuitive to have it roll out in front of you if you still have a foot on the pedal. It tends to turn sideways and begs you to land on top of it. To do it correctly you must take both feet off the pedals right at the the moment that it starts to roll out.
We finished out the day with an ultimate wheel, a stock Coker. a 24" Miyata, some goofy trick cycles, and wheel walking with his daughter on his Stealth Torker and me on mine. Also, I’m off the hook again because Steve said he’s going to post the photos. We took about 100. Thanks, Steve.