Sure, but why do you fixate on a bicycle standard as an ‘ideal’ for unicycles?
It’s an anchoring bias to say it’s going to be 700c. It could just as easily be 20", or 36" or even 42".
Even if 700c was an ideal standard for bicycles 100yrs ago, given all technological advancements since then, it is not necessarily the ideal compromise of weight, strength, rolling resistance etc, if you had to design a geared bicycle today.
I don’t agree. I think you’re thinking in terms of us serious enthusiasts, but not of the larger world of “normal” unicyclists, who don’t ride them for practicality. I suppose a good question would be whether the hub you describe would turn the tide toward people riding unicycles for transportation, but today more than 90% of them don’t. The vast majority of unicyclists ride them for fun, as novelty vehicles. That is less likely to change before the introduction of your “ultimate hub”. 
And it’s not like Tom doesn’t have access to 36" unicycles; lots of them of every type. I’m pretty sure his main dislike of them is the massive rotating weight. That’s what makes them so lousy for riding MUni when it’s all up and down. Sure, it’s a great workout, but damn!
Tom can’t make the argument that the 36" won’t fit in his car, since he chooses not to have one. But that is a reasonable factor for lots of other riders, as well as living space.
At my house I have a lot of choices of what to ride. Wheels from 12" to 45", Giraffes from 5’ to 9’. Skinny and fat. What do I ride? 24 x 3" for MUni, 36" Schlumph for road, and occasionally 36" ungeared for dirt. I also like taking my 29" MUni on easier trails. Mostly the rest only get used occasionally. I fully understand Tom’s choice of a geared 29", and that’s almost what I got. But since I have a choice of many wheels, I chose to gear up the biggest one, for a higher top speed in spite of the weight. I can’t keep up with Tom in a race, but I think I could if I trained properly. And if the course wasn’t too lumpy!
People do design geared bicycles today, and they have all those choices, and they basically don’t move more than an inch or so from 26.5" for typical riding. So I think it’s safe to say that given today’s technology, that’s still a pretty good size. Better than 36", certainly.
Ah, now that’s an assumption that does not necessarily apply to unicycling in all its forms.
I have a 700c x 23mm uni. It has the lightest rim and tyre I could afford, the tyre runs at 130 psi. I have short light cranks on it. It accelerates and decelerates easily and is a joy to ride in some circumstances - but it is hard work. It has no “flywheel effect” and if for one moment you take your foot off the gas it just slows down.
Compare that with my old Coker Big One which just kept going - whether I wanted it to or not. I know which was easier for a long smooth flat ride on the flat.
A less extreme comparison would be the 700c x 23mm and my KH29. The 29 has a heavier wheel and tyre, and therefore far more rotating mass. It takes more effort to start or stop it, but it takes very little effort to keep it going. The difference in wheel size is almost negligible, but I know which would be faster over a long journey (the KH29) and which would be faster in a sprint (the Bacon Slicer).
There is nothing magic about 36" as a wheel size, other than its ready availability. If Coker had decided on 35" or 37" or 40" or 36.5" or any other size in that range, then it would have become an attractive option for many (but not all) unicyclists.
Wheel size is a bit like crank length. I ride 150s on most of my unis these days. 152 or 140 or 145 might be almost exactly as suitable, but 150s are what I have. 170s are too long, 200s would be far too long, 110s are too short for me and 50s would be far too short. There is an optimal range which depends on the rider.
If for the sake of argument Coker had chosen 45" there would be a small group of hard core 45" riders, but a lot of people would be put off. If Coker had chosen 31", a small group would have loved it, but most would have gone for the wider range of options at 29". However, 36" sits somewhere nicely above 29" but safely below “far too big”.
So it is not 36" per se that matters, but a wheel size around 36". It combines practicality with excitement; speed with control; off road ability with cruising ability; and so on.
However, Tom is not wrong when he says that a readily available cheap reliable multi speed lightweight hub would be a game changer.
I would t least be curious to try a standard Schlumpf, even though it is not realy what I want from unicycling.
In any equipment-based sport, there are “gearheads” who want the latest and “best” and there are purists. They will never fully understand each other because they have different priorities.
Comparisons between bikes and unicycles are not always useful. The main difference is that almost any able bodied person can learn to ride a bike in an afternoon and then just get on with it, whereas unicycling takes a long time to learn, and longer to learn well.
When everyone who wants a bicycle can easily have one, it becomes the marketing man’s job to make people want a better bike.
That’s why in the flat area where I live people who seldom ride more than a mile to the shops have front and rear suspension on their 21 speed, disc-braked, mountainbikes. These people ride bikes partly for practicality, but choose a “trendy” one largely because they have been told that’s what they need.
Those of us who ride unicycles do it because we want to ride unicycles. The single wheel is a self-imposed challenge and a limit on practicality. It is that same attitude that will make the direct drive ungeared uni remain a popular choice among unicyclists, and which will make the 36" wheel remain a popular choice.
However, I am sure that if geared hubs become cheaper, lighter, more reliable and more versatile (and most of all, more readily available) they will also have a substantial part of the market.
After all, how many people who have been riding enthusiastically for several years have only one uni?
Great post Mikefule 
This thread is indead an interesting read…
And so you’ve chosen to predict that the 36-er ungeared will become obselete, despite quite a few people on this thread not only stating they will continue to ride the 36-er, but also supplying details arguments as to why they will. Maybe you should learn from your friends mistake?
No, it hasn’t- no-one’s buying your high-wheeler analogy.
Thing about the high wheeler is that it had many, many negatives- especially the fact that, in UPDs, riders died/got crippled. Coming off the front meant, not only a really high drop, but the handlebars would trap the riders legs, leading to a extremely harsh face-plant from a 6’+ drop. Hence why the chained bicycle (worth noting here that the inovation was not ‘gearing’, so much as a chain drive) was called the ‘safety’ bike. The reason many high-wheeler riders continued to ride their old steeds was not due to ‘long spokes smoothing out the ride’, but because they looked down on the new ‘safety bike’ .The high-wheeler riders were athletes, adventurers and risk takers, who rode machines that could, and did, kill. The safety bike opened up cycling to the general public, who, to be blunt, lacked the courage to ride a ‘proper bike’ (in the eyes of the high wheel riders).
You’ve still not either acknowledged, or attempted to deny, the existence of those many unicyclists who wouldn’t go near a geared unicycle because they see it as lacking the intrinsic purity and mechanical simplicity of the standard ungeared unicycle.
Can you not see that, even if a really good geared hub did become available in the future- it couldn’t possibly affect their choice to ride 36-ers, because the best geared huib in the world won’t convince those opposed to gears to ride a geared unicycle?
His mistake was believing that the way things were then is the way things would always be.
Chain drive was important because it allowed for gearing. Without the chain drive, to go faster you had to keep making the wheel bigger to go faster, which had all the negatives that making a unicycle wheel bigger does.
Just like a really good tablet computer couldn’t possibly affect people’s choice to use laptops, right?
You are comparing a 36" to a ‘high wheeler’.
If you are referring to a Penny Farthing bike- the wheels are much bigger than a 36". They have solid tyres and wheel sizes from typically from 52-60". A 36" is closer to your ‘pretty good size’ of 26.5", than it is to a 52"+ Penny.
A ‘standard’ also doesn’t take into account the vast range of rider heights and proportions. If 26.5" is a ‘pretty good size’, who is it a ‘pretty good size’ for? The median height of males? The median height of females? In a Northern European population (where it originated)? In an SE Asian population?
I don’t know, you’ll have to ask the people who ride them (that is, pretty much everyone). Short people could ride 20" wheel bicycles if they felt they provided benefits greater than the detractions.
But that’s just the point. Since 26/700 is the dominant size on the market, that’s where all of the technology is. Short people can and do choose to ride smaller sizes sometimes, but they are severely limited in their choice of products. As a result, smaller people will choose to stick with 26/700 even if their body mechanics might dicate that a difference size would be better.
32 years ago when I was a bike racer, I was short and needed a 48cm frame (19") but at that time smallest one we found for 700 wheels was a 49.5cm which was too large for me. I would have preferred to ride with 650 wheel but not sure i was possible for racing.
Today, I cannot imagine to uniride long distance on other wheel than 36". It’s so much stable compared to a 29" ! Ungeared 127mm cranks are fine, sometimes I ride 110 if rather flat, and sometimes 150 when it’s hilly. It’s why I wanted 3 holes Spirit cranks 110/127/150 with disc on crank, but Kris considers just a small market for this; so I did mines and I happy with them, no more change of cranks !
In the future, I just would like to have a 3 gears hub (with down gear as described page 2) to have a more versatile unicycle but still on 36 for road rides.
That’s a strawman, i’ve said/implied nothing remotely close to it.
How about just answering the question I’m (repeatedly asking)?
I have answered your question repeatedly: Yes, there would be people who still ride 36" wheels, just like there are people who still ride high wheelers.
No, you’ve not answered my question- I doubt, from your ‘answer’ that you’ve even read it properly.
You seem to be answering a question along the lines of ‘do you acknowledge that, just like there are a few bicyclists who, for reasons of tradition, stubborness, misguidedness etc, still ride high-wheel bikes; that, even when geared hubs with good range/reliability arrive, a tiny minority of eccentric unicyclists will similarly, continue to ride 36" wheels?’
That’s not a question I’ve asked, nor will I.
The question I’ve asked, is-
(i.e. IMO there will always be 36-er riders, partly cos some unicyclists are not interested in geared hubs, and, they will be seen as being what they are- unicyclists no more eccentric than any others, who just happen to choose a wheel size that is as valid as any other unicycle wheel size)
That’s a very different question, and, one which you’ve utterly refused to address in any way.
If you dont want to answer it, fine: if you do want to have a go, i’ll give you a tip, try to answer it without referring to ‘high wheeler bikes’, as, they are utterly irrelevant to my question.
But I’m pretty sure the few that stuck with their Ordinaries weren’t doing it for reasons of purity. They liked the hardcore nature of their dangerous machines, and may have been put off by the “safety” aspect of the newer bikes.
Today’s riders of Ordinaries do it because they look cool, and those guys like old machines.
So I was thinking about the purity; the mechanical simplicity of a regular unicycle. Do I miss it? No, because only one of my unicycles has the Schlumpf hub and the rest don’t. And I still ride those other ones and enjoy them. What I like is the challenge of balance. Adding the high gear allows me to extend those challenging rides to longer distances. I say longer more than faster, since I don’t like going very fast…
Other people? Give me a laptop any day! I guess I’m still not ‘most people’.
An interesting point to remember. A 36" Penny Farthing would be for a small child. You basically rode the largest wheel size you could fit on. Anything under 50" was for sissies.
But I think Tom’s point is that 36" wheels, being the largest size easily available, are only that big to allow for higher speeds without pedaling crazily; just like in the old days. Anyone who’s not interested in gearing theirs up should be interested in getting an even bigger wheel!
I don’t know what else you want me to say. I specifically said “Yes, there would be people who still ride 36” wheels, just like there are people who still ride high wheelers," which absolutely addresses your question 100% directly. My assertion is that in this theoretical world where we have a practical gearing system, that would be a small population, but it would exist. I would love to have the opportunity to test the hypothesis but it seems unlikely.
One thing is entirely clear: A handful of people chiming in on a thread on unicyclist.com proves nothing. Some of those people also said that geared hubs were inferior to short-crank 36ers, and it took getting their butt kicked in Ride the Lobster to get them to acknowledge that higher gears make for faster riding.
OK- you’re clearly not seeing the distinction; I’m going to give up on it
Yes, discussions and reasoning/arguments are all well and good, but, in the end, it is reality that determines the truth.
Similarly, it is only when (if?) a geared unicycle hub with a good range/reliability appears, that we’ll know for sure if 36" unicycles remain in use as they are now, or, become the vehicle of a minority of eccentrics.
Gearing doesn’t change the inherent instability of a unicycle, which is the real difference between bikes and unicycles, and the best reason for riding fatter tires and larger wheels. What works for a bicycle clearly doesn’t work the same for a unicycle, so to say that the 700c “ideal” for biking is ideal for unicycling, well that’s a stretch; let’s call it a straw man argument.
The wheel sizes we can choose from are arbitrary, bicycle designs based on the technology available at the time and any pre-existing “models”, so just like the width of a train track, we are riding technology dictated by history, not science.
What is the ideal wheel size? How would we know? The cost of producing rims and tires is too great to produce wheels and tires in 1/2" increments, so really all we can do is run tires that have a taller or shorter side wall.
I ride a 32" x 2.1", I think there are ony ~6 of these wheels built for unicycling so far, mine is set up for muni and swaps into my 36 frame. I have ridden it back to back with the 36" and 29", and I find it to ride very similar to a 29er but with a bit more speed and stability. I like it a lot and would gladly buy a production built 32" wheel. Would it replace my 36er? It might, though I could just easilly see a lighter weight 36er being even more versatile (lighter wheel/tire/hub).
There is surely a point of diminishing returns, but it’s impossible to identify that point since we don’t have enough choices to rule out any one size. As we know, the fastest riders at RTL rode geared 36er, but is this because they were the fastest riders or did the Schlumpf hub make that much of a difference? Would a multigeared 29" have been even better or would the smaller wheel have been slower due to being less stable?
Speed alone is not the reason to ride a bigger wheel, stability, suspension, obstacle bridging, ride feel, the viewpoint and spectacle, the intertia, al these things play into why we ride big wheels.
My 26Guni had more gearing inches than my fixed 36er, but I felt more stable riding fast on the 36er, so I went faster on the 36er.
I could have sworn that bikes require a rider to make them stay upright. Do you have some evidence that they are “inherently stable”?
Just as with wheel sizes, there are dozens of different rail gauges in use, and there are inherent trade-offs between them. BART uses a wider gauge; many mountainous railroads use narrower gauge. It is not accurate to say that what we now view as standard railroad gauge (at least in the U.S.) is the result of the width of wagon wheels. It’s a result of decisions made on the tradeoffs between stability, cargo capacity, and turning ability. (And politics).
26-27" wheels aren’t the bike standard because that’s what someone came up with in 1895. They’re the bike standard because back in 1895, when just about everything you could possibly imagine was being produced, people found that that size was a pretty good compromise between weight, rollability, and stability. It still is.
I finished 8th in the RTL time trial on a geared 29er. I can guarantee that I would have finished better if I’d had a better gearing system. (Among other things, I came off twice on failed downshifts).
And Chuck Edwall would not have won the time trial by over a minute on an ungeared unicycle.
Tom, there’s absolutely no way that you can tell me that bikes are inherently less stable than unicycles. Unicycles may be more maneuverable, but more stable? No.
Why is this relevant at all?
Why does the fact that they were the “best” size in 1895 imply that they are the best size now?
In almost every case, for a rider who is good at shifting, a Schlumpf will be faster. I am a perfect testament that this is not always the case (Unicon NZ), however, there’s no way I could have averaged 17+mph on an ungeared uni like I did on my Geared 36 in the 10k in Italy.
I really like the idea of a 3 speed hub, but in the case of Didier’s design, I will likely not get one for distance racing. The primary reason is that the highest gear on Didier’s hub is less than that on Florian’s. That being said, one for a 26 or 29" muni could be awesome.
Also, I LOVE the feel of an ungeared 36. That’s what I ride every day to class and it’s super fun to weave through tons of pedestrians. I also LOVE my geared 36. The feeling of cruising that you get is so awesome. I think that given a great gearing system, I would probably use a 700x35 for racing, but there is no way that I’m giving up the feel of my 36 when I want to play around.