Hello again!
Yesterday (saturday) was raining so I didn’t go out on the monzta. Today is dry so I went to Pollock Country Park.
I usually get the underground into town, then the train to Pollock, but I rode into town to give it some urban stuff.
It just goes over anything! It’s like a tractor, point it where you wanna go and keep pedalling and you’ll get there! Fantastic.
Kerbs don’t exist anymore, and I could ride along angled surfaces with ease.
Now to Pollock.
I get off the train just as two boys with their downhill bikes and all their gear on are waiting to get on. I watched their faces, they started by looking at my face, then got to the unicycle and started smirking, their eyes kept going down and as they got to the tyre and rim their jaws dropped! Off I went with a big smile.
At the entrance to the park there is a curved wall with a curved top, I have never made it round the curve, only along the straight part. The old rim/tyre combo used to try and pull you off the wall if you rode off the very centre of the curve. The LM allowed me to wobble about on top of the wall and keep going no bother. I made it round the curve and dropped off the highest part of the wall and rode away. Grinning.
Next their is a wee muddy hill slope to jump up and that’s me in the woods. With the old rim/tyre I had to do it in one or maybe two jumps as the tyre would bend with me jumping sideways on a slope. The LM let me do it in three wee hops with no sideways movement at all. Grin getting a bit mad looking.
Now the bike tracks. I usually join the tracks halfway round the green (easy) route so I ride the rest of that, then half of the blue (medium) route that leads to the red (hard) route.It involves doubles/triples, wee downhill gravel slaloms, mud, and logs to ride. The last obstacle is a wood ramp onto a log with a sideways log to jump over/onto at the end. My fastest time round this red track had been 6:30. That involved three failed attempts at getting up the log-ramp and then a mount on the log to continue.
My first time round on the monzta gave me an amzing time of 5:39 !!! Thats 51 seconds faster!!! It went straight up the log-ramp and off the end easy.
I was absolutely knackered and so pleased with my time. Two older women out walking saw me appear out of the trees, let the uni fall, and grab a fence to support myself on. They came over all “He’s got a unicycle, let’s go speak to him about it”, got a bit closer and slowed right down. One of them even hesitated about coming over. I must have looked like a proper crazy man! But come over they did, and all I could say was “5:39! 5:39!!” and point at my watch. One of them said “you must have phenomenal balance to ride a unicycle off-road” I replied with “Nah, that fat wheel takes care of that for me!” and went back to my panting and grinning.
So to round up the 24" Large Marge, I would say:
If you’ve got a 24" muni and some spare cash, get a LM rim fitted or even a new wheelset built, you will not regret it.
This is how muni’s should be. The 3" tyre was a serious upgrade from the stock 2.6", but the fat rim and fat tyre makes the ultimate muni wheel.
It eats any terrain and is still hungry, does big drops and asks to go bigger, goes down any hill and says “was that it?”.
Seriously, it is amazing.
T.
I got an onza image off t’internet and modified it with photoshop. Then gave the image file on CD to a sign shop and they cut it out of silver vinyl for me. To powdercoat the frame cost £20, and the wheelbuild cost £20. The rim was £75 with shipping from USA.
