Help in a complex situation

I need help in a rather complex situation.

A few months ago I purchased this unicycle http://http://www.unicycle.se/shop/shopdisplayproduct.asp?catalogid=184

from there. It’s my first one, and I have a problem; it seems to be too tall for me even on the lowest setting (I’m about 150 cm.), by about ten centimetres. (I can reach the bottom pedal without standing on tiptoes, but I should have a little bend in the knee shouldn’t I?).

A few friends of mine tried it, and they thought it was tall too, and they are taller than me (though non-unicyclists). So what shall I do?

I don’t much like the idea of chopping off a part of it to make it shorter, but what else to do? Buy a “shorter” saddle?

I’m in a kind of circus group which I attend once a week. There we have a unicycle which is way shorter. What if I learned to unicycle on that one, will it be easier to ride my own? I will probably not be aloud to take it home.

And yes, it will be too late to return the unicycle.

Phew, that’s the situation, as detailed as I can describe it, and I hope that by doing that, the answes can be more accurate and helpful.

All help appreciated
Jonta

just take a hacksaw and cut some of the seat post off, do it little by little to make sure it is the correct height.

If you dont want to cut the post down, you can buy a shorter post from UDC, but I would honestly just cut the post down.

Get a pipe cutter and you only take off about an inch at a time so you dont over do it, and the pipe cutter will leave a nice smooth even cut, unlike a hack saw would, then, if you wanted you could smooth out an edges on the post to make it fit better.

You could learn on the shorter one and come back to this one, but it will be a paint to ride with such a high seat.

Cutting a seatpost will in no way damage it, its pretty much the same thing that a store would do, the only difference between a tube cut at home and one done profesionaly (which is what you would get from UDC) is the fact that they curl the end in a bit. I don’t know exactly how they do this but instead on mine I have filed down the ends and made them round so that even if the seat post clamp fails and the seatpost shoots down into the tire, it still won’t damage it (and this has actualy happened to me once, it wasn’t pleasant but nothing was damaged).

Thankyou

Thankyou all. I feel more confident about the idea of cutting the seatpost down a little. Only what is UDC?


you can use some pliers to bend in the edges, thats what i did and it works fine.

Oh yes of course, but could they do it for me??? (niggling doubt)

you could probally get a bike shop to do it. fyi(for your information) we use the abbreviation lbs(local bike shop) on the forums a lot.

lbs could be mistaken for pounds though :roll_eyes:

well then you just have to look at the context. if they saw “my uni weighs about 5lbs” then you wouldn’t think that they meant that a uni of theirs weighs as much as 5 bike shops, you would think that they meant 5 pounds. just like if they said “you can get a wheel built at your lbs” since there is no number in front of it, you know that they are talking about a local bike shop.

people actually use a system which has pounds in it?

geeze that’s so outdated, get with the times

zfreak220: It was a bit of a joke, alright?

iridemymuni: yeah, I know, go kilos go! :stuck_out_tongue:

well that’s something you wouldn’t expect to hear at a weight loss clinic.

how’s that seatpost going? i recomend getting a hacksaw and just cutting it off one inch at a time until you get the right height, it’s not rocket surgery.

good luck!

(you won’t need it)

Update

Well, loosing wight isnt something I worry about at the moment.

I got a very nice tip yesterday, in short dont hold on to the saddle, from being able to unicycle about 9 metres, Ive advanced to 30+, woooooooot :smiley:

Im going to go to a kind of big hardware-store today to hack it off bit by bit (maybe Im going to make a neckless of the bits :wink: )

Thankyou all for your help. Finally I can say that Im a unicyclist.:stuck_out_tongue:

(PS sorry about not using appostrof (or however you spell it), Im on a cr… computer right now)

I would have to agre with you.

Jonta, please tell me you’ve got all your weight on the seat, not the peddles.

you should put some weight on the pedals as well otherwise your gonna have some trouble.

Wooohooo! it’s done, I tried to edit the title of this thread so that others with the same problem could get some help, but I realised there is probably a timelimit or something for it. (Wonder why…)

I’ve got some weight on both the pedals and the seat, but what should be my next step? Hopping? Idling?

Thankyou for your help.

well:

ride forwards
hop
idle
backwards.

thats what order i learnt in.

however i suggest you really get onto idling, it’s great