I just got my first 36er and....WOW

Unicycles and Equipment
1

I JUST got my Nimbus Oracle 36er from Gogiboy (Mark).

Watched tons of youtube videos about it before getting it and I thought I was prepared. No problem, I should be able to ride it easy in a day, I’ll show Mark!!

This thing is a BEAST! :astonished: :astonished: :astonished:

My 26er oracle’s seat is like 2" above the wheel of this thing. I’m both excited and scared. It’s even scary sitting on top, it felt like the first time I sat on a unicycle. Thrilled and scared and wondering if I’m losing my mind, what was I thinking trying to ride this?

I’m a short 5’7 and I had to cut the seat post all the way down and I might even consider using the 127 hole so my legs can relax a bit more. Wish I was taller :frowning:
Just thinking about freemounting this, so thankful I got my wrist guard and helmet ready.

The UPD on this monster must be of epic proportions.

My neighbors thought I was a bit out of my mind riding a unicycle, wait until they see this in the morning :D:p

I was planning to get a neon green seat cover that’s on sale to match the other green parts but then I photoshopped it and thought it was too green so I left it as it is.

Wonderful condition, couldn’t ask for more. Scared but very curious to see if I can ride this.

2

It may look like a beast right now but it can be tamed.

I was kind of nervous about riding mine but I was able to freemount it first try. Just be sure to get a bunch of momentum before hoping on and you should be fine. Also if you haven’t watched Terry’s video entitled “How to freemount a 36er unicycle - secrets revealed” on youtube I would highly recommend it.

3

When you are ready to sell it let me know. Good luck on tackling the beast

4

I think it would be a good idea to start learning how to ride a 36" with the T bar off, right?

5

Definitely. You’ll probably damage the bar quite a bit with it on. And you may not be comfortable enough on it to ride with a bar for while.

6

Awwww but it looked so new and cool!! :stuck_out_tongue:
First time with a T bar on a unicycle.

But yeah, guess I better learn fast so I can put it back on again! That’ll be my new goal, T Bar, I’ll be back for you!!!

7

Once you get the hang of it and start banging out double digit rides no problem, you’ll never want to go back! I rode 25 miles yesterday in two hours. Speed is addicting, that is all I can say. Period. Have fun. Stay safe!:):):):):):):):):):slight_smile:

8

Here it is, a bit cramped until I move some stuff out tomorrow

Yeah that’s why I’m stepping up to a 36er. I really want to see how fast I can get with this and still be safe of course :smiley:

Going to find a long straight road and pedal! Of course that’s after I master riding forward, which I’ll easily learn in 10 minutes piece of cake :roll_eyes: :stuck_out_tongue:

9

Very nice

10

Good luck riding your 36er. I’m still riding a 26" and changing my crank size to improve my speed and distance. Be safe and keep us posted on your success.

11

Well so far a bit of trouble. I got impatient and brought my unicycle out with 150, it’s dark over here so I snuck across the street to the church yard. For some weird reason I seem to reach the left pedal okay but I can’t reach the right pedal…well I can reach it, but it’s a strain to the point where I lose balance while pushing all the way down.

I must be an mutant or something, I swore both my legs are the same length :astonished:

I don’t know, something is up.

I switched it to the 127 hole and it feels a bit better but I still notice that I strain to push down on the right pedal while my left leg seems to reach the left pedal without too much issue.

However, I think if I truly want to be able to bend my leg comfortably I just might have to :astonished: :frowning: :astonished: cut the frame…

Tomorrow I’ll try riding on the 127mm and see if it does better, it’s too late at night, me prowling around the yard with a giant unicycle in the middle of the night.

I’ve been doing some searches and I heard some people also wore shoes with thick soles. Unfortunately I don’t own any, I just have thin sneakers.

To you tall people, you better feel fortunate, growl :angry:

EDIT: Just in case you’re wondering, I have about a 31" inseam, measured the pedal to the seat (127mm), it’s a tiny bit over 31" but like I mentioned, I seem to reach fine on my left leg. Hopefully my right leg will grow a bit tonight…

12

Is the saddle level from left to right? One of my saddles (the one I used the longest time) was tilted bit to the left. I don’t know if it was me sitting not evenly or result of some UPD.

13

CongratulationsNate128 :slight_smile:
( YCNHTMU) :smiley:

Please don’t cut your frame…it’ll cry :o
I’m only 5’2’’ and a little bit and I’ve got an oracle 36’’ but…
I wear 5-10 impacts which add a good inch …and I have bent my sent post back at an angle and fitted a slim naomi impact seat so that brings me nearer to the ground than my usual combination of KH saddle and adjustable seatpost. ( I saved nearly 2’’) I can just about get on it. Here is a video of me trying on my first day. I confess I can’t get on it now, I don’t think my spare tyre is helping :p. But I have video evidence that I once managed it and I’m sure I’ll be able to do it again. I think the crank size was 150’, easier to get on with than 125’s.

Oh and chunky pedals add a bit.

14

Good luck Nate128. Good protection will give confidence. Glad to see from the photo you keep your unis warm and dry :slight_smile:

15

Maybe your seat is twisted slightly making one leg have to reach farther.

And if it’s perfectly straight now you might be able to twist it a little to help correct it.

16

Sorry to here about your troubles. I know when I got my KH saddle for my uni the saddle added an inch easy. So maybe a cheaper saddle would be better for learner. Also, call Udc about cutting your uni. Good luck.

17

Observations:

  1. I know it sounds safer to practice on grass, however I found that grass can actually be more dangerous than on a hard surface. Most real turf has too many bumps that can interfere with a smooth launching.

  2. I would start walking behind the unicycle and timing the pedal around 7 or 8 o’clock position before jumping on the pedal. The momentum of the wheel will bring you up on the unicycle like an escalator. Once your bum is on the saddle make sure to let go of the seat handle and start pedaling.

This worked for me. I hope this helps.

18

Yeah I measured it last night. It seems to be about the same distance. Let me measure it again in a quick sec. Okay first I thought the right one was indeed different but after checking 4 times and measuring it from the pedal straight up the frame to the stitches on the seat it’s the same.

Is it normal to have a tiny little gap between the pedal spindle and crank? The place where it screws into the crank. I can’t push my finger nails into it but there’s a visible gap and it’s not all around, just to one side of it. Both side has it, a tinnnny bit more on the right.

I’ll take your advice in a sec and try a washer (if I can find one that is) underneath the seat bolts on one side to tilt it. That is after I go out and give it another try, seems like my head might be playing tricks on me or something or I have a habit of pushing longer and harder with my left leg. The church yard is filled with cars now (tribal drum beats can be heard through the window). Have to look around for a nice place to try it.

I’ve actually seen that video before haha. I think most of the 36er videos on youtube I’ve seen unless they have an odd name that the typical search won’t bring up.

Yeah, cutting the frame will be my last resort. But I think I might have to, I’m planning to learn quick swerves not to mention dealing with the road crown so my body will be a bit twisted/leaning to one side sometimes and I might need that extra stretch from a more bended knee to make it happen. But yeah I’ll give it a few days and see from there.

Any clue how much it takes to cut a frame? It was pretty tedious cutting the seat post with my not so great tools and I’d like to do a cleaner cut if I were to do it again, especially on the frame.

I wouldn’t trust my neighborhood with a $60 bike. Literally, I have a $60 bike and sold my expensive road bike because of the paranoia. Someone already walked over my yard and tried cutting off the lock on my cheap bike :astonished: and I THINK it’s my next door neighbor who is a 70 year old man. Now I have a fence in between :wink:

Nah I know I’m lucky to even have this unicycle, it’s trouble but it’s not big trouble that I can’t solve and I’m grateful to it all. I’m just dying to ride it :stuck_out_tongue:

Yeah that’s what I was thinking. The KH saddle, especially the freeride with the extra thick foam for comfort is adding quite a bit of height. I’m not sure about buying another seat since I did want a nice soft seat. I was having issue even with the KH street fusion, which is the less padded version.

Eh, if I cut my unicycle I’ll just bring it to the local bike shop. The shipping would kill.

@scgoan

Yeah, I was thinking that too, in all the points that you made. We’ll see how daring I am in about two hours from now :smiley:

I might just attempt a few jumps in the front of my house. I don’t have any close grassy areas a few blocks away, we’ll see I guess.

19

You’re in for a treat once you get this all sorted out.

If you need to cut the frame then that’s what needs to happen. It’s not a big deal, and it won’t hurt the uni. It may effect the range that you can change the saddle position without a different post, but that’s not a huge deal. As long as you have 25mm’s to switch between both of the pedal hole positions you’ll be fine.

Keep in mind that the amount of foam on a saddle is not as important as the shape of the saddle. It may be that your FStreet saddle just needs to be flattened a bit. I know that my “flatter” Nimbus Gel is super comfy, and it was the most uncomfortable saddle in my collection before the mod.

I don’t have one to compare with, but the Nimbus posts that I have won’t let you get the plate any closer than 12mm’s to the frame. You may gain a few mm’s with the KH Forged. A Nimbus CrMo post may have smaller welds, and get even closer to the frame. Josh at UDC should be able to give you info about this stuff.

Another option would be to use a 22.2 seatpost and a shim. That would allow you to drop the saddle all of the way down to the frame. Gaining 12+ mm’s of adjustment. Since you won’t have much post coming out of the frame I don’t think strength is an issue at all. I have a chunk of cuttoff seatpost that measures 21mm’s inside/25.4 outside. That would be easy to ream out to 22.2, and then it would be a perfect shim.

20

Okay I’ll look into that, thanks for the advice, I’ll google it some after a quick shower. Thank you.

I finally got the nerve and went out and tried it. Got some people trying to take a picture of me with the giant unicycle. Ugh…can’t tell them ALL not to so hopefully nothing bad comes out of it haha.

I just went around, probably did about 4-5 miles on a sitting. It’s pretty great and dismounting it isn’t too bad (but I bet it would be a killer if you’re going fast, I might be able to outrun it but catching the heavy thing at that speed is questionable). The 127mm makes it a bit hard, I’m almost pushed up out of my seat a tad if I try a sorta quick stop. And when you’re going up a slope, if you lose that forward momentum, beware. I had major issue trying to assist mount on a sloppy hill and those that have bumps. Had to walk around till I found a pole with better surface.

I’m able to reach the 127mm okay but on slopes I do feel like I have to strain my leg a bit to make sure I don’t slip off the pedals. So I’m still sorta thinking about cutting the frame a bit. I’m going to call the bike place right now and ask how much.

So far I’ve successful dismounted quite a few times (intentional and not) and still able to catch my unicycle. I tried to learn dismounting on a bumpy grass area (no nonbumpy grass area that I can find) and it’s tricky! Hop wasn’t high enough which is probably effected by not enough confidence to commit. But I did end up over and in front of the unicycle a few times, but it’s still a bit of a hop and I wonder if I can always successfully do it. So no freemount just yet, it’s definitely harder. I’m calling it quits while I’m ahead and alive and no one or no car was harmed :stuck_out_tongue:

Like a few people that I’ve read older posts from, the green on the nimbus is a bit striking but it adds visibility and it does somewhat grow on you. I prefer it over a plain metallic grey, etc. I love the view from this thing too!

Hopefully I’ll get decent enough to put the handlebars back on for stability which hopefully equates to more confidence in pedaling faster for better speed.

T-Bar Question:
Is the T bar mainly for stability and body support or can you literally use it to steer sorta similar to a bike? How much steering power can it add?