How hard is it to break a hub on a cheap unicycle. I know how easy it is to taco wheels and bend cranks on my 24" Sun, but i was wondering how hard it is to break a hub. Im not trying to break it on purpose, but wondering how durable they are. Ive bent/tacoed my rim 4 times and after truing it each time it breaks faster. So Im going to order an Alex DM24 Rim. I hear those are good. If not, any other cheap suggestions?
also how wide of a tire can fit on an Alex DM24 Rim? mine is a 24X2.125
You’re good with that rim/tire combo. The Sun BFR rim is also good, is a little wider and probably stronger, also more than twice the price. About the same weight.
When you taco your rim you are damaging it. Truing just straightens it out; it does not make it stronger.
How did you damage the wheel? You may need to upgrade your entire wheel, not just the rim.
well, when i “taco” it or what im taught is tacoed, i step on the high side, and it kind of “snaps” back to a much better position. Then i have to true it
> Wow, that must become very weak! Please excuse me…that does
> actually sound like a taco.
Sun used mindbendingly weak parts on my 26"er. The rim was single
walled very soft steel. I’m not surprised George’s can be repeatedly
coerced back into shape, but I’m sure it is getting weaker and weaker.
I bet the nipple holes are stretching, among other badness.
Anyway, I busted the hub on my Sun unicycle in about a month of riding
without dropping off anything more than an 8" curb. The stud that
holds the crank nut sheared off. Must have been made of pot metal.
I recommend replacing the hub now. Either way, new spokes will be
needed (figure $15 or more) to go with the new rim, and swapping hubs
now (additional $20-25) will save the expense of replacing spokes a
second time (and the effort of rebuilding the wheel again).
I think uni damage depends on the rider and the equip. combos. I’ve bent my fair share of steel cotterless cranks, but I’ve never broken the stock hub on my crappy united rip-off. But, on my old muni the right taper was beginning to deform and rotate, so that the cranks weren’t parallell. That was a suzue. Still, I’ve never had any catastrophic damage to any of my unis, although my original uni wheel is no longer tru-able, because of the multiple dents in the rim. Otherwise, with some new cranks, the thing’d be fine. I’ve only taco’d one wheel, and it was a cheap savage that someone wanted broken. I jumped 14-18" off a stage and turned 90 degrees and slammed all my weight into the pedals. The rim taco’d, and the crank was severely bent. Hub was fine, though.
Sin rhynolite rims are great. I don’t know about the DM-24, but the rhynolite has resisted tacoing, and instead my tire has just sheared off, but that was just because it was a 3.0.