OK, I’ve just purchased my 2nd Unicycle. (Not counting the fact that my 2 daughters each have one, which I ride)
I’ve got a 30 yr old hodgepodge Uni. And soon will arrive a new Yuni MUni.
In my future I see a Coker and a Giraffe.
Question 1. How many do you folks have?
Quesiton 2. How many is too many?
Re: How Many is 2 Many?
I have 4 unicycles which I in my heart of hearts I know is already too many.
This question may generate more activity than did “tasteless at unicon.” This is, however, truly a matter for you to work out; it is a fundamental question of conscience. You will not receive an answer here, although perhaps some comments will be made that are of use to you.
I personally have been trying to get ahold of the book “Living High and Letting Die: Our Illusion of Innocence” (Amazon.com)
as I believe it may be useful and have been giving this topic some thought of late.
I can’t help but sound overly serious about this and can only wish you the best of luck if you really want to tackle this question.
Raphael Lasar
Matawan, NJ
I’ll balance that part out for you, Raphael.
I have eight unicycles. I don’t have anywhere NEAR enough. Neither do you.
I saw the Drummonds this summer and they were starving, emaciated. Their kids were dirty, barefoot, and dressed in rags. They work in a sweat shop in a third world country (Marietta, GA). They need our business. Do it for the children. Buy often, buy BIG and HAVE FUN.
Question 1. How many do you folks have?1
Quesiton 2. How many is too many?4
Just one more won’t hurt. I can stop any time I want. Just the one, and one for the road… and one for the the track… and the trail… and the ring… I’m not an addict, I can control it… it’s just my way of dealing with stress at the end of the day, my way of unwinding…
Recognise any of this?
My rationale is that each of my unicycles has to do a different job. Apart from my original one which is really old and tired, and the vintage one I bought on a whim and seldom ride…
One for each job might roughly translate into one of each wheel size: 20, 24, 26, 28, Coker. A 16 for completeness? Oh and I saw a 12 the other day. But what about a beefier 24 for real MUni?..
That way lies madness. Soon you’ll get withdrawal symptoms and start dreaming of pink giraffes… and some of them will have two wheels… 
The important question is not weather or not the Drummond kids will die if I don’t buy more cycles, but how many more than Lewis I have.
However, to avoid crassly dismissing this weighty posit out of hand (heh), I’ll be selling off all but one of my juggling balls to fund an additional cycle to the one currently kept from me by the Evil Minions of The United Parcel Service.
-Christopher
Tom,
Since you are in a family, the question isn’t one you can answer by yourself. Right now, you have already ordered the MUni, so that is a done deal. I’d say you have plenty of unicycles, so hold off on more so that you and the wife unit can stay on the same page about unicycling. The MUC may obtain a Giraffe (I plan to help chip in if they do) and you could borrow it. Next spring (2 seasons away) you may get a Coker. Right now you have the Uni.
So, a little restraint can go a long way. Hold off on unicycles beyond the MUni for now, and make sure to do some stuff the wife unit wants, let her continue to see that unicycling is a common joy between you and the kids, and all should be well.
Of course, you are the one in a working marriage and I’m the single loser who was dumped, so maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about. 
My opinion is that, since each Unicycle is for a different purpose, there is no such thing as “too many” unicycles. However, “too many, too often” can definitely be a problem.
Good luck,
Lewis
Currently I own 6, down from 8.
I keep on selling unicycles to fundraise for new purchases. The logic goes something like, “Well I can’t justify 9 but if I sell two then I could buy that new expensive unicycle and I would only have 7 unicycles which isn’t too many is it?”
Actually I’m trying to cut down as I figure some of my unis would be better off being ridden by other people rather than sitting in my garage. As you can only ride one at any particular time I think you can justify one unicycle for each type of riding plus one multi purpose spare which can be leant out to people.
For me that means the following bare minimum set
Freestyle
Muni
Commuter
Spare
I figure you could probably justify having a 28" and a Coker as well as a trials unicycle plus a giraffe and a 24" for competitive racing. As you can see it is fairly easy to end up with 8 unicycles on the grounds that each one has a different use.
Once you get up to 8 though it is unlikely all of your unicycles will get the attention they deserve.
Peter,
So, is a trials cycle 100% useable in all the contexts that a FreeStyle cycle would be used? In other words, would it be feasible to collapse my Trials and Freestyle into one cycle? How would the extra weight of a profile setup, and the weight AND width of a 2.5" trials tire affect my freestyle skills? Would the Yuni frames be suitable for this?
I ask this because, heck, maybe I could trim one from my “must have” list.
Lewis
Combining your trials and freestyle unicycle into one machine has the same problems that any multi purpose unicycle has. You are making compromises to produce a unicycle that is suitable for both purposes.
An “ideal” trials unicycle is not ever going to be an ideal freestyle unicycle and vice versa. That being said, for many people combining your trials and freestyle machine makes a lot of sense. Not everyone wants to be world class in both styles of riding.
The freestyle unicycles ridden by world champions have a 20"x1.75" tyre, 102 or 125mm cranks, Miyata style seats (some prefer no handle), rubber pedals, a long seat post and a frame suitable for resting your foot on, with small tyre clearance.
The trials unicycles ridden by worlds champions have a 20"x2.5" Monty style tyre, 140mm cranks, splined hub, Miyata style seats, metal bmx sytle pedals and a frame with large tyre clearance.
This means your compromises are going to be in the following areas: the tyre, cranks, pedals and frame clearance.
The thing to remember is that while a freestyle uni is ideal for most freestyle tricks it will only stand up to light trials use. A trials uni is built to be bomb proof and while some of the advanced freestyle tricks become harder, they are probably still doable on a Tuni.
If you want to do hard core trials AND reach level 10 I would suggest buying both types of unicycle.
If you want to do 6 foot drops, huge gaps, ride rails and the occasional outdoor freestyle session buy just a trials unicycle.
If you are not sure which way you are going to go, buy a Monty wheel, with 125mm cranks and plastic bmx style pedals. This is a good compromise between freestyle machine and trials unicycle. They aren’t too expensive and you can always sell it later if you decide to focus on a particular style of riding. Note that some gymnasiums won’t be happy with your riding a Monty tyre inside as they tend to mark the floors.
If you aren’t ever going to do much more than 1ft drops and want to focus on freestyle, buy a freestyle unicycle. (That being said I did 3 foot drops on my freestyle uni and could jump up 2 feet - did bend my cranks lots though).
[QUOTE]
Originally posted by Animation
[B]Peter,
So, is a trials cycle 100% useable in all the contexts that a FreeStyle cycle would be used? In other words, would it be feasible to collapse my Trials and Freestyle into one cycle? How would the extra weight of a profile setup, and the weight AND width of a 2.5" trials tire affect my freestyle skills? Would the Yuni frames be suitable for this?
As to particulars:
The extra weight may make tricks like 360 and 540 unispins a bit harder.
The tyre width makes things like wheel walk easier to learn. The extra traction may make it harder to do skills like gliding and coasting for long distances.
The crank length means 1 footed tricks are a bit harder. I also find that longer cranks make most freestyle tricks slightly harder and they seem to require more effort.
The Yuni frame is suitable although I haven’t tried gliding on one (the KH 20 should be good for gliding)
Well, at risk of losing my forthrightness, servitude, and thriftness, we have a total of 19 unicycles. That is, the family and I have a total of 19, I mean the club, the family and I have a total of 19…
Okay, okay, here’s the scoop. We started with one little lonely lovable yellow Jugglebug almost two years ago. Since then, we’ve tried many things and as has been said, there are different uni’s for different purposes. Many desires make for many activities, many activities makes for many necessities, many necessities makes for many purchases, many purchases makes for much spending, much spending makes for much begging for forgiveness (crosses fingers).
Mary and I have some personal money tied up in starting up the club so in essence, many of the club unicycles still belong to our family. In reciprocal, we also use our personal unicycles for the club so the line between what’s ours and what’s the club’s is a bit fuzzy. We’re thinking about going to a board of directors type of leadership so this will all have to be defined more clearly soon.
Bruce
I asked about the applicablility of the Lucifer fork for Freestyle, and got a couple informed responces. Peticulary, foot on crown skills, such as crown stands and gliding. The user liked how the foot locked in securely, but did note that it was a bit less comfortable on thin soled shoes when standing. Here is a link to the review forum for the Lucifer.
-Christopher
Re: How Many is 2 Many?
> Question 1. How many do you folks have?
> Quesiton 2. How many is too many?
I faltered last week and bought another.
Now I have 8.
I bought a 16-inch Torker very quickly last week since I had promised my
little nieces they could try riding a unicycle if they wanted to. And they
wanted to.
It’s soooooooo cute! I put it together perfectly all by myself! (Later
that day, Max fixed it for me, thank heavens.)
As for the How Many Is Too Many question, I’m sure there are as many answers
to that as there are slow squirrels in Buster’s dreams. I’ve noticed that
many people I know survive fine on zero. I feel zero is not enough. I
don’t appear to be satisfied with the numbers 1 through 8 either. If I end
up with too many, I will let you know.
Carol
Minnesota
Re: Re: How Many is 2 Many?
Carol,
We won’t hold our breath waiting for your answer.
Bruce
Re: How Many is 2 Many?
I too have two unicycles, of which one is a Yuni MUni, and I have two
daughters each of which has one (which I seldom ride). So much for
resemblances.
I do keep a “wishlist” but I buy only slowly. The not-too-definite
plan is that the next purchase will be either a Coker or a 28" for
distance, to be bought in the spring or so as I reckon that distance
riding is nicer in summer (climate thing). Then comes a 20" freestyle
for skill development, maybe next winter (for indoor riding). After
that I’ll see. The way I look at it, there is no “too many” provided I
spread it over time - not for overspending but for spoiling myself,
I’d rather have something to look out for.
My other current uni is a 24" Semcycle Deluxe. I originally bought it
as a Jack of all trades, I did not know that someone would ever have
more than one unicycle. It may eventually turn into a spare as it is
ideal for none of my envisaged uni activities.
Klaas Bil
I posted only a single copy of this message.
I’ve currently got two; for a brief period I had three, but I have no need for a freestyle (ie. the cheap one) uni and a trials uni, so the cheap one went elsewhere.
What concerns me right now is tyre wear on the 24" muni… the knobbles down the centre of the tyre are definitely not what they used to be, and this is slightly disturbing; every now and then a little bit of me starts thinking about something more suitable for getting from A to B along paved surfaces. It’s generally slapped down hard by the bit that says I really can’t justify a third, but the little devil won’t go away…
Phil, just me
We own 11, but only paid retail for two. One is the almost impossible to ride Troxel 16" with tricycle cranks that I tried to learn on back in '75, two are amost always out as loaners, and three are used exclusively by the girls. They all seem to get exercised frequently enough.
Being equipment manager for the club also has its benefits; besides the giraffes, three stack, 16" tall unicycle (including seat), ulitmate wheel, and club loaners we have the COKER domiciled in our garage.
What is too many? Well, IMHO there is this extra 9 footer hanging from the ceiling.
If you only have two or three, it’s far too early to start worrying about how many is “too” many. 2 is not many.
How many do I have? Well, a lot. But the garage ceiling is far from full, so how can it be too many? As long as there’s room…
You wouldn’t expect a road cyclist to use the same bike on trails that he would for racing, would you? So that’s two. And how about riding to the store to pick up some groceries. Nobody wants to leave a “good” bike outside, no matter how well locked up it is. So that’s three. All three are being used to keep you in shape, and reduce traffic and air pollution. It’s a good thing.
Ya, but…
Which one’s best for picking up chicks?
-C