I recently moved to southern california to a location that suits (as well as standard 24" Muni riding) some street riding at higher speeds. I was pondering the possibility of putting some energy into putting together an ultra budget 26" uni on an old mountain bike wheel assembly and just relacing the wheel/spokes to a UDC hub or something and putting the whole thing on a Yuni frame. I wonder if any of you have done something similar or have any suggestions for making it as cheap as possible. If it happens it’ll be my “commuter wheel” and thus not require much strength. I was hoping to perhaps get some spare parts from the local bike shops’ junk piles. But have yet to find one that’s willing to help me find an old wheel.
-Jeremy
Keep in mind the diameter of the unicycle hub will not be the same as the diameter of the bike hub. The spokes will be way too long to reuse.
Its possible to adapt a mountain bike fork to a unicycle frame. One benefit of this is that brake bosses are already in place if you want to run brakes. The main modification you’ll have to do is to cut the drop-outs off and weld on bearing holders. If you’re lucky the fork’s steerer tube will be 1" diameter - this will let you use a standard unicycle seatpost. If its some other (larger) diameter you’ll need some kind of shim arrangement for yr seatpost.
Most likely you’ll need to buy a new uni seatpost, saddle, cranks spokes, nipples and hub - its very unlikely that you’ll find these parts lying round in bike shops. www.unicycle.com can help out here. You might need bearings (6203) too, if these don’t come on the hub.
Good luck!