How many of you own $1000 unicycles?

I am interested in buying the Hunter unicycle from unicycle.com. But it’s
nearly $1,000 (US money). A little bit too expensive for me, but I will
start saving for one. How many unicyclist actually owns a $1000+ unicycle?
This includes your upgrade cost. But if you added diamonds, forget it!
Don’t bother posting. :slight_smile:

I work at a bike shop so I didn’t actually pay this much, but my muni is about $2100 - $2200 (AUD) retail. In my opinion, it was definately worth spending so much because I ride it so much and it’ll last so long and withstand so much abuse.

I reckon you should go for it.

Andrew

Re: How many of you own $1000 unicycles?

I bought the Hunter Uni from Unicycle.com and with everything including $100
CDN duty, it came out to around $1200 CDN
Dustin
Zupancic

Re: How many of you own $1000 unicycles?

LOL. :slight_smile: Well… if you say it like that (about durability), then
it gives me a good excuse to buy one. :slight_smile:

what’s the practical difference between these frames and say a yuni frame?

Okay they look nicer, but is the ride really better than a yuni frame with the same wheel in it? Given no-one much breaks frames strength doesn’t seem to be a problem.

I’ve ridden on a muni costing £500 (probably about $800) and to be honest didn’t like it any more than my pashley, although I can see the advantage the wheelset had over mine.

Some of the expensive frames have obvious advantages over the cheaper ones, such as the wilder one being really really light. But the others always just seem to look nicer.

Joe

Well - Everything I ride has been built by myself but i guess price wise they’re comparable.

All the frames are lighter than the Nimbus/Yuni/KH/Hunter frames and have different design properties. Ie greater clearance on the muni and less on the trials uni. magura, disc or normal brake bosses on some of them etc.

When you couple a decent wheel to a light frame the end result is almost always costly.

I set them up with splined hubs on my trials unis - for strength - and a suze on the munis - it’s almost as tough and is much lighter.

after that i use butted spokes on the muni and beefy on the trials
before finally settleing for a big rim and tyre on both.

I guess my muni totals up at about £900 for all the bits and about £500 for the trials - both with carbon seats, cromo seatposts etc.

I think i priced my MUni out, somewhere around $1100 CAN. and my trials is about $1000 CAN. What adds to price so much is the profiles. but i think they’re worth it. I’d say go for the uni you want. As long as you know you’re going to stick to unicycling, it’ll be a great investement.

-Ryan

Re: How many of you own $1000 unicycles?

Every single time I visit unicycle.com web site, they are ALWAYS out of
stock on theWilder.

I bought a Hunter over a year ago and at the time the Yuni frame and KH unis weren’t available. As I recall the Hunter was the least expensive Uni that could take the 3.0" Gazz tire and the Profile cranks/hub. Now that’s no longer true. I may have chosen a less expensive uni had one been available at the time with the features I wanted.

But I really admire the workmanship that went into building the Hunter frame. The frame is beautifully powder-coated and there’s not a scratch on it. The welds were so well done that I’ve had MTBs comment on them. The main cap bearing holders look to be machined. And it’s made in the USA! I’m not sure it’s worth the difference in cost, but it’s a damn fine piece of hardware.

I’m going to get the bedford 20" hardcore trials for about $1000. If your going to stick with unicycling it’s best to go out and get one good durable uni instead of ending up getting 3 garbage ones.

Logan

With any equipment based sport you can choose from

  1. Cheap rubbish for people who have no idea about the sport. This stuff is so bad it puts people off the sport.
  2. Good beginner’s kit, which the keen and talented beginner will soon outgrow.
  3. Good kit that should last, and do the job well. It will outperform most people who buy it.
  4. Top flight kit which is quite a bit better, but a hell of a lot more expensive. An expert can tell the difference.

This has been true of every sport I’ve been involved in, and I see no obvious reason why unicycling should be different.

So if you’re sure you’re going to stick with the sport, and get pretty good at it, buy something in category 3.

If you plan to be very very good indeed, and you have lots and lots of money, then buy something in category 4. Of course, just the pleasure of ownership is worth the extra expense for some people.

But remember, a better unicycle will always give a better ride, but a better rider will make more difference. So my boring suggestion is get something decent, but don’t go over the top. When you need something better, you will know, and you will know exactly what you want, instead of buying ‘the best’ just for the sake of it.

You will then have the original one available as a spare - keep it in the car boot, lend it to a friend, ride it where you’d be afraid of wrecking the better one - or getting it stolen, or put really silly short cranks on it and ride it for a giggle.:wink:

Re: How many of you own $1000 unicycles?

On Sun, 09 Feb 2003 04:06:05 GMT, “nostunt” <noemail@noemail.com>
wrote:

>But if you added diamonds, forget it!
>Don’t bother posting. :slight_smile:

Out of curiosity, I would be interested to know who adorned their
unicycle with diamonds.

Klaas Bil

If you stretch a standard Slinky out flat it measures 87 feet long.

Re: Re: How many of you own $1000 unicycles?

I did. And I went with the usual guideline of 3 months salary.

Raphael Lasar
Matawan, NJ

Re: How many of you own $1000 unicycles?

LOL. Very good. Hmm… I think the highest price I would ever go for is
the Hunter. I’ll never be a good, good, good rider, but I’ll certainly be
“decent” all the time. This year is the first time I have been more brave
going to the park and riding off-road. I will want to ride my unicycle much
more often. So… maybe I’ll choose category 3. But I’m not sure which
category number the Hunter falls in. (probably 4, I guess).

Re: How many of you own $1000 unicycles?

Richie Rich?

You don’t need to spend $1000 (USD) on a bomb-proof muni any more. It used to be that a strong muni with a bomb-proof hub (Profile) would cost over $1000, but no longer. No we’ve got the Taiwanese made KH Muni for $450. If $1000 puts a big crunch on the budget then go for the $450 KH and use the money you saved to go to a convention, go to a muni weekend, or buy more unicycle candy.

The Taiwanese made KH unicycles are a great deal. The downside is that some people might prefer getting a Profile hub instead of the KH hub. But I think you could put a Profile hub in the KH unicycles. The Taiwanese KH frames take a 42mm OD bearing size while the Profile hub uses either a 40mm OD bearing or a 1-5/8" OD bearing. It should be possible to get a shim machined to slip over a 40mm Profile bearing to turn it into a 42mm OD bearing. It would just be a metal ring with an ID of 40mm and an OD of 42mm and a small slot so it could be clamped on the bearing. Not very complicated and shouldn’t cost a lot to get machined.

The KH hub should be a fine hub. I can see why some might prefer to go with a Profile hub because the cranks on a Profile angle out so you have a bigger Q-factor and aren’t as likely to hit your ankle on the crank. But the KH hub should be fine and I don’t see an overwhelming need to switch to a Profile hub.

You should be able to make a really nice muni for under $1000 using a made in Taiwan KH frame and a Profile hub. Heck, you could buy the complete KH muni for $450, buy a Profile hub, have a wheel built and still come out to less than $1000 and you’d have a spare wheel to boot that you could put a 24x3 Fireball tire on. You’d have to find out about getting two shims custom machined for the bearing and then make sure that the Profile hub will fit in there (make sure the width of the hub is OK and that the spacers will work).

Who is going to be the first to put a Profile hub in a Tawanese KH frame? I think it can be done.

I’d rather have the KH frame than a Hunter. The flat crown is really nice because it allows you to play around with one foot skills and eventually gliding. The KH frame also has better brake mounts just in case you decide to try using a brake. The KH uses a two bolt trials style Magura brake mount while the Hunter uses a single post style Magura mount. The two bolt trials style mount doesn’t require the use of a U shaped brake booster and is more secure - it’s a much better brake mount.

John Childs>quote>…Who is going to be the first to put a Profile hub in a Tawanese KH frame? I think it can be done.

it might be me,my new uni frame is working out great but if i ever decide to go for a brake the KH frame would be the easyest “off the shelf” choice that i know of.i also think $210 is a little high for the frame set.

That’s a good one! I think the list fits very well. You don’t really need the stuff from #4 until you can tell the difference. But lest we forget, as most hobby activities have those four levels, the industry gets good financial support, paying the R&D for advances, from people who like to own the top item available. So nobody minds if you buy the expensive stuff, and your friends should be jealous. :slight_smile:

From a practicality standpoint though, it sounds like you’re in category 3. Ready to buy something good, with good quality and durability. So why not the KH, as John Childs mentioned? It’s the breakthrough MUni that’s bringing splined technology to a much more affordable level.

BTW, I checked Unicycle.com. They have Wilder frames available. Only the 6160B is listed as out of stock. I’m not sure why, unless the frame itself is built different to fit the different cranksets. But I think it would be quite silly indeed to spend the money on a Wilder and then put a conventional axle on it. That’s like putting a Cavalier engine in a Corvette.

Presumably because the point of getting a wilder is that they’re super light, so if you’re not going to break the non-profile setup it makes sense to get the 10% lighter 6160B. It’d be stupid to get a really really strong muni if you don’t need it.

Joe

I see your point. Of course thousands of people break this practical rule every day when they buy their cars… :slight_smile: