Ok, so Santa has agreed to bring me a uni this year. It will be my first one and I have never ridden before. I want it to ride on woodland trails and maybe the coast paths as well, neither are particularly rough. I had been thinking a 24" muni, nimbus or qu-ax, but the more I think about it the more I’m leaning toward 26" as it’d cover distance better. Do I need a muni or would a standard uni with an off road tyre do? Would I be silly trying to learn on a 24 or 26, or even a 20?!? The more I read the more I go in circles, I’m starting to lose the plot!
Btw, I’m 41 and weigh 200lbs, so it needs to be strong.
If you plan to stick with it and do mostly woodland trails, I would highly recommend at least the 24". Of all the uni’s I’ve tried so far, 24" has been my preferred size. You can forget about using a 20" on the trails, it can be done but it is much better to have a 24" for that purpose.
It may be slightly harder to learn on a 24" than a 20", but if you stick with it you’ll get it down
Any chance you can find or borrow a cheap ‘learner’ uni before buying the 26"? Learning on smaller wheels is easier, but it is possible to learn on a 26" - though I wouldn’t have wanted to.
Yeah, I’d probably try to find the cheapest 20" uni with the expectation that it would only serve to help you learn and gauge your interest level in unicycling and then buy a quality 26" once you learn.
Yeah, I was toying with the idea of an £80 20" learner and then buying a bigger one when I’ve got the hang, but if I can get the right one first it will save me cash! I just don’t know how much longer it will take to learn on a bigger wheel.
I learnt on a 24", within 2 months I had bout a 26" and then 4 months late a 29"
If you want to ride off road forget about a 20" (I found it twitchy and harder to ride after I got one after riding my 26") they are for tricks/trials and not riding. The bigger wheels are more stable, easier to mount (less torque on the wheel from the relatively shorter cranks).
Your height will also help dictate what you get , I am a shortish 5’8" but find the 29" to be awesome for XC/MUni but am glad I didn’t learn on it.
learning on a 24" or 26" would be my suggestion but the 26" would give you more uses in the long run if you are wanting to ride more distance
Thanks for that. So… I’m thinking qu-ax over the nimbus in the 24" muni. It’s £200 which is good for a muni, but street ones are cheaper, but I assume they’re no good for trail work? Is that right? (Last question, promise!)
I am 4 weeks into my 24" conundrum. I had the same conflict as you, 20, 24, or 26? I went with middle ground and have found it nothing but enjoyable. If it is harder or easier to ride, I have no idea. It is what it is.
I can ride a mile. I can freemount. I can hop. And it will only get better.
So,this maybe cynical of me, but if you are like me at all, you will get a uni, learn to ride it and decide you need a different one. I would recommend getting an inexpensive one to learn on and planning to upgrade. Check out the trading post and save the cash by picking up a used one either to start or to upgrade, or both.
I started off around june this year. Got a 24" quax luxus. It is plenty strong enough until you start doing (very) high drops. I am 95kg and have ridden it alot. Hopping, pavements, ungraveled roads and some light muni. I’m not comfortable yet with high drops, but 30-40cm no problem. It has a new tire and some scratches here and there but still it works 100%.
I also tried a 20", but actually found the 24" more fitting for my size (180cm).
I have allready ordered a 29", and my recommendation is to learn to ride, then to decide which size to buy when it’s time to get a quality uni. I know that I did not know that I would want a 29" later on when I started off.
You write as if it’s not possible to ride a 20" wheel off-road. I first went off-road with my £30 Lidl learner uni. Only on easyish stuff granted, but proper off-road. I did buy a 26" muni shortly after learning, but I still ride my 19" trials uni off-road sometimes, it’s good practice and far from impossible even to ride interesting stuff on that - sometimes it’s what I happen to have, sometimes I fancy the extra challenge when riding somewhere which is too tame, sometimes I want to do more hoppy stuff for which the smaller uni is better, sometimes I’m riding with the kids and the little wheel is easier to jump on and off, and generally easier to cart around. I don’t get where the idea that a bigger wheel is easier to mount comes from - quite the opposite.
Maybe I’m a bit biased as I learnt on a 20, maybe you’re a bit biased as you didn’t and came to one having been used to bigger wheels. I don’t regret starting on a cheapy 20 at all though - a 26" would have been too hard to learn on, a quality 24" a dead end which I’d have wanted to get rid of, I wouldn’t have known what I’d have wanted in a quality 19/20 and would have been frustrated to have that now with lots of bits I’d like to change rather than the totally custom spec one I bought with the benefit of experience. If anything it’s the 26er I regret a little, as I wish I’d custom specced that, and at some point I will replace it.
I never understood why European riders did MUni on a trials 20" until I saw Kevin Marin from France riding down our volcano, Mt Taranaki, on his 20" going much further than I’d seen anyone ride before. The extra torque and slower max speed allowed him enough control to stay on. So if you do forget about the 20" for MUni it may be a pleasant surprise when you try.
Borrow one to learn with.
For the average person who wants to ride somewhere, as opposed to doing tricks, a 24 or 26 is a good size. 29 is probably better all round though
I started out with a standard 24 and happily rode it for a year. Then (2nd year) got a 29 which I haven’t ridden as much as I expected. This year I got a 24 muni which I ride as much as possible, I have a stretch of track about 1km long which I ride up and down because it is just a lot of fun. Don’t have a car so getting to a mountain trail involves using a bus…
If I was starting again I would get the 24" club muni. I doubt I need the isis hub that I’ve got
My 2 cents
James
ps; sorry to all the manufacturers, but I wouldn’t worry about brands to much. I think they (the mainstream manufacturers you read about here )are all good enough.
The first Pashley Munis were 20". 18 years ago muni was all done on 20" wheels (at least in the UK), simply because that’s what people had.
I carried on doing it on a 20" for a few years after other people moved up to 26" because I couldn’t afford a second unicycle (paying off my student overdraft was a higher priority).
I learned on a 20. My lad (15 at the time) learned on a 20 but went straight to a 29 within a couple of weeks. Someone in this forum learned on a 36, but I can’t remember who.
Big wheels take a little longer to learn, but are easier to ride once you can.
did you learn on a 29, or are you just making that up? I don’t think I’d have ever learned to ride if I’d tried starting on a 29er.