Last week was new wheel week. After months of waiting we got not only our two deluxe coker wheels but Tony’s new impossible wheel was finished as well.
Despite a lack of coker frames we decided to try riding them anyway. I’ve put some photos up of the results:
Riding Cokers as ultimate wheels proved a difficult challenge, especially with 125mm cranks. Getting started was the toughest part, it actually became easier when we figured out how to freemount as the act of jumping on gave us a bit of momentum which helped things enormously.
Tony managed around 20m on his impossible wheel, I figured out how to suicide mount an ultimate wheel and we both got the hang of ultimate cokering.
I know I’m a slow learner, but it took me forever to learn to ride on a ‘disc’ Ultimate Wheel. I tried a 24" ‘cranked’ Ultimate Wheel and couldn’t… start. The disc is waaay easier. And smaller (to a point) seems easier. A 36" UW?
I think you guys are into trick photography. But, I applaud you.
Did anyone say 'Hey, where’s the other half of your unicycle?"
Jer
I hope you’re not ‘crouching down’ as a friction brake!
You need an ordinary BMX wheel [20" or 24"] and hub to start with. I would strongly recommend getting a 14mm diameter axle, as the smaller 11mm axle which I used is kinda bent after just one ride. The ‘crank drops’ as Tommy Miller of the Unicycle Factory calls them are solid steel of dimensions 3"x1"x0.5". You drill a hole at one end to fit over the axle and at the other you need to drill a hole then tap a 9/16" thread. The centre to centre distance between the holes was 2".
I borrowed a set of right and left pedal taps from my sponsors, Pack’n’Pedal bike shop. Most bike shops should have a set. I had the threads tapped at an engineering shop so that they would be perfectly straight.
Attaching the crank drops was by trial and error - as you tighten one side the crank drop on the other side moves. In the end I held one side in a vise and tightened up the other to get them as parallel as possible.
Total cost to me in US dollars was about $35. $5 for the wheel and $30 for the thread tapping. What a bargain!
There are now profesional impossible wheels availible from bedfordunicycles.ca, if its not on the website email Darren Bedford at info@bedfordunicycles.ca.
Well done!!! This is one of the cool things about this sport…there are still “first ascent” opportunities. Maybe the ultimate cokering has been done before, but I’d venture you guys are members of a pretty exclusive club at this point.