sounds cool. Draw up some plans man lol. instead of the frame, why dont you jsut do seatpost? because the frame would end up sitting on the tire lol. A seatpost with a deskchair hydraulic in it would be pretty cool
the seat post would be easier. this is true. but im thinkin of it more from a “car guy” sorta view. and the idea with that is to have the frame sitting on the tire for show when its parked. with as little clearance between the frame and the tiree as possible. but its just a loosely concieved idea. a vision.
its still a great idea though. Im looking forward to see a hydraulic unicycle lol…
Hopefully this pic will load. I tried to come up with a simple way to do it. maybe use an elastomer instead of springs. This is just an idea, not a worked out design.
that actually seems really cool pete. very awesome:) at first glance its a little big, if it can be slimmed down the the width of a crank… and not pull out of its socket, it’d be pretty awesome
Thank you. I’m thinking that to make it stable and give the split part of the crank more support it could have plates on either side which would also give the part that the pedal is attached to lateral stability. The pedal lever pivot could be attached to the plates making the internal portion of the split crank really simple. Maybe the springs could be clutch springs or dual rate springs. the nice thing is that the main unit would be slim and would be out of the way even though it would look big and dorky.
This looks kind of extreme. You can get about 3 inches of compression from a MUni tire when it bottoms. This spring has less travel than that. A trials tire will give you about 2 inches and this is slightly more. Your feet would move closer together, too, which might feel weird. I would like to find out what the elastic limit is for a spring steel like 1095 and what the likely deformation is. Maybe a coil spring around the axle is necessary. That makes things complicated and ugly.
I actually like that a lot. If it actually has the same elasticity as your sketch, it’d end up hurting your ankles i think. If you landed off of a big drop you’d end up loosing your footing and twisting, if not breaking an ankle. 
i still think its a really cool idea. If it was too elastic-like it could cause bad damage lol…
60 degrees of torque would be a rather fat person or a very serious drop with a metal that is strong enough to be able to actually ride on when not hopping. Is that autocad that you drew those up on?
Perhaps I am missing something, but would “sprung” or spring-equipped cranks not foster horrendously inefficient use of pedalling energy?
That is in AutoCAD.
A four foot drop with 2 inches of compression for a 160 pound rider constitutes an impulse force of about 2000 pounds. This estimate assumes AISI 1095 steel, 0.5cm thick, 2cm wide, 7.5cm long from clamp to clamp, and with linear restoring force over the entire 60 degrees. The same 160 pound rider when standing with all of his weight on one pedal can of course only exert 160 pounds. That would deflect the pedal about 0.16 inches. Pedaling may or may not see this full weight of the rider on each half stroke. The entire problem is non-linear because that compression also causes the pedal to rotate about the wheel axle. At 60 degrees the spring steel would probably be permanently deformed. In the limit, 90 degrees of rotation, the pedal is stopped at the bottom and compression ceases entirely. I think it might be more interesting to see if pedals like these could be used as a springboard to increase hopping height.
Yeah, I’d imagine riding up or down a steep slope would feel pretty horrible.
i had just been imagining a like a peice of rubber to pedal on lol…, or a springs, which would just be a bit much
The steel is at its elastic limit with 100 pounds of force applied. The deflection angle is 1.5 degrees and the total vertical deflection is 0.07 inches. Beyond that it is permanently deformed. This would be one useless item. Time to abandon it. The splash you hear will me be hitting the water after jumping ship. Spring loaded cranks need a coil spring around the axle.
even though it may be doomed, its still fun to think about. and heck! someone try it! im sure it can be done
unibikeling, you are a BRAT!
Rickrolling on RSU is just plain evil.
Did you respond to the idea of using titanium instead of steel for the cranks? Titanium would be much springier.
wha? 
the lol… link in your sig.