History of KH parts incl. manufacturing dates and specifics

Unicycles and Equipment
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As part of a different mammoth project, I’m after information on every KH part ever sold (and every other unicycle part ever sold by any other company, but that’s for another time…)

So, who’s got the best knowledge of KH part history? Any information anyone can share would be most appreciated.
(I know Kris himself probably has the best knowledge of this, but I’d rather not hassle manufacturers for information at least at this early stage).

The blog has some information, but not everything (Blog | Kris Holm Unicycles), and I’m slowly scouring these forums to fill in a lot of the gaps.



Frames:

  • Original release of KH frames, was it 2003 in Orange (after the Summit Prototypes?)? Black ones in 2004? Blue alu ones released in 2005? Knurling in 2006? 36" then came out in 2008? Does anyone know what sizes were originally available?
  • Disk mounts added in 2012 (June 2012 announcement)
  • When did the magura bosses get removed?
  • When did they start being painted black again - mid 2020?
  • KH20 Longneck and double crown longneck (raw only?) appeared at some point, then disappeared again.

Cranks:

  • Splined - what year release? What lengths? 2003/2004?
  • Moments - what year release? What lengths? 2005?
    • 110/137s in 2009?
  • Spirits - 2012 release (June 2012 announcement)
    • Some of the sizes got released later - does anyone know which ones and when?

Saddles:

  • How many Fusion Freeride saddles have we had now? Anyone know when each one came out?
  • Same question for things like the slim and street.
  • 2012 they moved to velcro straps from the drawstring and smooth synthetic leather from sweat absorbing tops.
  • Fusion Zero came out in May 2014, then Aug 2016 release for the Fusion One (at which point the stiffener plate was also updated with the third hole)

Rims

  • Have there been 3 different freeride rims over the years?
  • Currently 55mm? When did this change from 47mm?
  • No holes, then holes, then no holes, then different no holes?
    I’m struggling to find too much information on these.

Bars

  • T-bar and stiffener plate release in 2009?
  • Curved bar added as an option later following the Nimbus Shadow handle?

Unicycles

  • KH '03
    Orange frame, splined cranks (150s?)

  • KH '04
    Black, splined cranks (150s?)

  • KH '05
    Blue, first aluminium frame

  • KH20
    *

  • KH24
    *

  • KH26
    *

  • KH27.5
    *

  • KH29
    *

  • KH36

    • Released in 2008
      • Blue alu frame
      • 125/150mm Moment cranks
      • Some saddle
    • Disk tab version in #
    • Disk version in # (Spirit hub release?)
    • Updated to Fusion Zero
    • Updated black Spirit Hub
    • Updated to Fusion One (was this the same time that the King George tyre was supplied in Europe?)
    • Black version in 2020(?)
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Hi. I am the one that created and manages the KHU website, but it hasn’t seen much change recently.

This is something I was hoping to do on the official krisholm.com website long ago through changes and improvements to the support section to provide historical info on all KHU products throughout the years. However, in the early days changes happened organically between manufacturing batches and it would have taken a lot of time to track every detail, thus it never happened.

Not sure if you’ve seen this page: About Kris Holm Unicycles | Kris Holm Unicycles
It has an accurate timeline that might help with timing of the major KHU products but short on engineering details.

I probably have a ton of info going back far on various KHU products. I’ll talk to Kris sometime and see if anything can be done.

Cheers,
Carl Hoyer

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I had some time ago, but had completely forgot it existed. That timeline is very helpful.

So the project I’ve decided to try and tackle is getting the mass of unicycle parts (where manufacturer stated masses will be given and users can submit their own measured values), but in my typical fashion of diving right into the deep end, wanting to make it a little more long lasting than some of the attempts people have made before, I’m trying to ensure it has almost everything.

Now I’m starting to wonder whether this is going to morph into a history of unicycle parts as much or more than simply the mass of them…

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Here are some answers in random order to a few of the questions you raised:

  • careful that KH had 2 types of splined interface before ISIS: a 10 splines ala Qu-ax and then a lot of splines ala Onza (do not remember the exact count)
  • the KH/Onza cranks were available in 125, 140, 150 and 165
  • the rims were : the XC (38mm in and no holes), the freeride (45mm in with holes) and recently the new tubeless-ready (55mm no holes). The latest rim should be in one of the latest KH products announcement on the forum. As for the XC, I think it predates the freeride but I cannot say exactly how much.

Another quick tip when doing documentation: the internet wayback machine (archives.org) will be useful to poke around uni sites to check information about parts (whenever the robots were successful). It helped me when I was completing the article about hubs on the french wiki as most of the tech info are from shops.

Good luck on your new endeavour and please post any update on the info you are still looking for so we know in what way we can help searching :wink:

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Great idea!
I was thinking a few weeks ago about making an open and collaborative list of all unicycle parts ever produced, including their main characteristics - weight, range of price, years when it was manufacturing … So that anyone could check what parts they got and how they can upgrade their uni. That would be an hard and long task but I think it would be profitable for the unicycle community. Maybe you could add your data on KH once you’ve collected all of them?

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There was also a short lived Gel Fusion saddle, but I don’t know what year it was.

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So right at this moment there is a work in progress website and databases, and I have a list of >200 products and their masses (either previously reported by users here on the forums, or as supplied by manufacturers).

Range of prices is probably not going to be possible, but release RRP could be.

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There is lots of good information on this site as well. Probably the easiest way is to search the threads that Kris has started.

I was more familiar with the old search feature but this seems to work pretty well.

https://unicyclist.com/search?expanded=true&q=@danger_uni%20in:first

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Yep, I found searching by “before # date” works quite well too for finding out when products were released.

Keep changing the year until there’s actually mention of the product, then work from there.

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I built the prototypes of the blue frames and did some work on disc mounts/magura mounts etc after a long weekend or so talking about MUni design with Kris, roger and others on a road trip to Germany and back. Fun times

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silhouette_410180338_o
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Found this picture of riding some north shore on a prototype kh seat.

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That could be anything!

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Ah, of course. I can tell from the 17th stitch of the second right seam, that this is the prototype.
Truly: I don’t see anything. but still a cool photo.

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Who knows the Year from that Hub? If never seen that before.

IMG_20220513_204717_5
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It’s the multi-part clicky generation that came before the silver KH Spirit hubs. Maybe from 2010 or so? My KH24 and KH29 came with them.

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can make some clic-clic noise …

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Out of curiosity is the KH brand still active or is it just managed by another one of the unicycle companies and just sold through Qu-Ax and UDC?

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KH actually posted here recently, but the brand and the products offered seem to be relatively unchanged for quite some time now.

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Pretty unchanged apart from paint colour!!

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The next announced changed will be disc brake tabs on the left leg of the frame. Otherwise, you’re right, nothing new. But KH unicycle are still top-end stock unis :slight_smile: