Yay! I’ve arranged to use a local hall for early morning practice, so I won’t have to waste time driving to the skatepark or wondering about the weather. Any idea how I check if my tyres are non-marking? Thanks!
I think there’s no other methond than rubbing this tire on this floor. While a tire may not leave any mark on one floor it may leave lots of on an other.
Are you training freestyle or flat? I run a white Kenda Karumba for freestyle which I really like. It can be inflated up to 7 bar (100psi) which results in nearly no rolling resistance. With 75mm cranks it feels like flying 
I’m just a beginner. I won’t be doing anything fancy! My plan is to just try it and take the Magic Eraser along in case, but I will buy a new tyre if it turns out to be a problem. I’m a bit daunted by the idea of changing my tyre though…
Tire changing & wheel install
Hi Spinningwoman…I’m a beginner to unicycling but not to cycling. Others may have better info, however, I think these 2 YouTube videos might help you.
First of all, (in this first video), save yourself some time and trouble and start out with tire levers to begin with. I would have no less than 2 and 3 might be better.
Unicycle Tire Changing: The Process and Some Tips
Voodoo Unicycles - Unicycle Assembly Tutorial
( Starting at 4:40 he talks about installing the wheel properly )
I hope this helps.
I’m envious! In 30 years of riding, I’ve never really had a place suitable for riding indoors. You must have great connections!
Regarding the tire (or tyre, as it were), you might see if the local bike shop would help you out if it becomes necessary to change it. I have at least one friend that’s taken his unicycle to a bike shop for a tire change. Maybe you could use your great connections to get a discount.
I do agree with Beachkid that it would be good to learn to change the inner tube and tyre. It’s pretty easy to do and hard to mess up, and I think it would be empowering to learn yourself. While I don’t always need tyre levers, they are cheap and convenient (I think my last pair was under 2 quid), and they make the job pretty easy.
Enjoy your indoor riding!
Thanks, really good info there Beachkid. And yes, Bradford, if I did feel overwhelmed I could get the bike shop to do it but like you I feel it is something I ought to do myself. The tyre on my 20" is currently a 1.75 but the most obvious replacement I can see would be 1.95 - does that mean I would need a new inner tube as well?
Not sure what you’re riding on, Spinningwoman, but the general rule is to assume that a black tire will make marks (some don’t), and that the vast majority of colored tires do not. If it’s a Trials uni, you are almost guaranteed to need a different tire. If it’s a “skinnier” tire that’s not black, you probably don’t need to worry.
Floor marks from tires are very easy to wipe off, so the easiest way to test is just ride around in there. Just do some sharp turns or spins, if you can. Nothing should rub off from riding straight. Small marks can be rubbed off even with the soles of your shoes. Big ones too, but that gets old real fast, which is why you want to be non-marking. 
And yes, Bradford, I’m lucky - use of the hall is free to the local church and although I’m not using it for churchy purposes, no-one else wants to use it before 9am, so I get to use it for a reasonable donation to funds. It’s a relief as until I can go in a straight line, steer and mount unsupported, I was having to drive 35 mins to practice and to get there and back before work was tricky even when the weather has been good.
No, you shouldn’t need a different inner tube. Usually inner tubes have a wide range of tire widths they will fit. For example, most 20" bicycle inner tubes sold today will fit tires widths from 1.75" to 2.125". I would not change the tube for the small difference you mention.
An acquaintance of mine took his unicycle to a bike shop for a tire change and they put his wheel on backwards, so his pedals came unscrewed as he rode, destroying his cranks. A bike mechanic who knew about unicycles, or was especially thoughtful, would anticipate this problem, but if it’s a busy day…
Replacement cranks, plus shipping, plus labor to have the new cranks put on, could cost you well over $100 in the US, maybe almost double that in England. Most unicycle repairs, especially tire changes, can very realistically be done at home with only minimal equipment, as mentioned above by Bradford.
In general, if you have tire levers, a patch kit, some hex wrenches, a pedal wrench, a crank pulling tool, a spoke wrench and some grease, you can do almost any unicycle repair short of welding a cracked frame. Just search this forum, and you will find all the advice you need.
Ha! Good point, Song! I didn’t even think about that. I had assumed that they would know better, but who says they would? At a minimum, I guess you should always check things out if someone else has worked on your uni. That’s an excellent reason to do all your own work! I don’t even trust others to work on my cars if I can absolutely help it for that exact reason. Plus, I’m just terribly cheap! One of my friends always says, “Why pay a mechanic to break your car when you can break it for free?”
I would do as John suggested. If your tyre is black but not the knobby mountain bike type, there are chances that it won’t leave any marks, or marks that can be rubbed off rather easily.
The other thing to consider indoors would be the pedals. Most freestyle unis have rubber pedals because those won’t mark the floor when the uni is dropped. You can easily picture what a muni spikey pedal could do to a wood floor…
No, I have rubber pedals (though they are black too) so that should be OK hopefully.
I am ridiculously excited. I will be up there tomorrow early even though it’s actually my day off and I don’t need to fit it in before work. But I can only use the hall early so that it doesn’t clash with other bookings.
+1 tire marks come easy, but are very easy to get rid of too. Depending on how nice the people seem, you may want to take a before picture of the floor, it seems unicyclist very often get blamed for any marks on the floor.
Or on the walls! That happened in a gym where we practiced. You’re careful at the floor, and then you don’t realize that sometimes your uni hits a wall (painted white of course)…
Yep, I did that swap on my first unicycle after a few weeks, from 1.75" to 1.95" tire, so that I could run lower pressure for easier rolling on my lumpy patio. I used the original inner tube. And it’s still in there, never a problem.
I wish I had an indoor area to practice in like you do Spinningwoman, but I’m not well-connected like you(are you royalty?). I wouldn’t worry about tire markings too much.
This reminds me of the permanent black tire mark I left on the wall in my building in the hall near the entry to the parking garage. It’s a pretty secluded spot usually. I had a bad UPD while practicing idling on my 24", resulting in the unicycle hitting the wall and leaving the tire mark. I frantically tried to wipe it off, but wasn’t successful 
. Luckily it’s not very obvious, I wasn’t caught, and there are other marks and minor damage here and there that I have nothing to do with. I swear! 
I can’t wait for them to paint over the marking already.
I believe the tire came with the unicycle, I hadn’t replaced it yet. A Kenda maybe?
I’ve also left tire marks while idling and riding in the courtyard of my building complex with this very cheap($10) replacement tire I got from the local bike shop. Luckily all it takes is a little rain to wash the marks away and no one ever complains about it. The Tioga Powerblock tire I use now doesn’t leave any marks there.
Just a silly question, but it is always important when screwing the uni together to pay attention to what is left and what is right. I understand that for the how the pedals are screwed into the cranks and that the frame the opening at the top of the frame for the seat post points to the back. But…
When I take off the cranks from the hub, then I reckon the wheel itself doesn’t have a left or right side, correct? Or is the hub also made to rotate a certain way (thinking of a schlumpf)?
I learned unicycling on a cheap small uni that I had bought in a toy shop. It had black tires. I learned in the living room in the rented apartment. There were black marks on the nice wooden floor and on the walls and everywhere. Then first after I learned to ride I bought a 20" with white tires. Those are meant to be ridden inside. White tires leave no marks and I think all black ones do. Even now that I moved back to Holland in a new rented house, I just keep the unis in the living room, so I don’t have to walk alllll the way (5 metres) to the shed. Here too there are now tire marks on the walls.
With a typical unicycle it’s mostly about the pedals unscrewing, so the rest can go either way, with only aesthetic considerations.
As the unicycle gets more complicated, additional factors come into play:
- Some tires have a preferred riding direction for best performance (though on unicycles it's not always the one indicated)
- If you have rim brakes, I think it matters which way you run them
- If it's a Giraffe, the bottom bracket (where the crank arms attach) also has a left and right side
- I'm sure there are others, as we add more and more stuff to our unis