hey well my rim is shitted, stuffed, un repairable, cracked from nipple to hole, buckled from asshole to breakfast time, and flatspotted to the house…so i am after a newie.
my question to all you unicyclists in yhe know: just how much stronger is the koxx one un drilled trial rim ompared to the KH drilled trials rim?
most of you know i have a kh drilled rim and as mentioned it is no longer capable of holding the tyre away from the frame as my nipples will not allow me to apply enough tension to pull the buckle out even with the spokes oposing them loosened off to the point that they are almost slack.
the dilemma is that from municycle.com the koxx one rim is twice (yeah you dont need to read that again it said twice) the price of the kh rim. so is it really worth the extra cost of to get the koxx rim? or should i just get a new kh rim at the current rate of every 6 months?
see the upside of thekh is with the money saved i can get some funky rim powdercoating and some spoke painting going on.
This is how we all learn about how new gear is holding up. What is your weight and what did you do ? I am just curious, I don’t know what the strongest rim is.
This is how we want to learn (not paying ourselves !).
first buckle, was a 5 set
second waa a 6 set
third was when i broke 4 spokes on the 6 set
fourth was doing a 180 down 5 set but stuffed up bad and landed about a 90
have you tried renegade juggling. I know they dont charge extra for the undrilled rim(at least when putting in on a uni). The regular rims are 65 USD so however much shipping comes out to…
An undrilled rim is going to be stronger than a drilled rim. But in a 47 mm wide rim, this is much less of a factor than just keeping your rim trued properly. For agressive riders it’s a good idea to keep a key in your pocket and true your rim after every ride, and also in the middle of the ride if you hit hard off something.
And don’t just true the spot that’s out. Check the overall spoke tightness and uniformly tighten every spoke. Usually I try to get the rim as straight as I can, and then uniformly tighten all the spokes using the valve as reference, and then recheck the true and adjust again after that. This is especially important for a new uni because the spokes tend to stretch and settle in after a few rides.
If you true your rim after it even gets slightly out, you may be able to stick with the lighter drilled rim, and still have a way, way stronger wheel then getting an undrilled rim but not taking care of it.
Kris
this is very true…(no pun intended, hah) but for most of the agressive riders out there, the ones that would need to put more attention into trueing there wheel, are the ones that Im sure would rather be riding than fiddleing with spokes. Im not saying that just becuase someone jumps big drops and such they dont want to keep their wheel in good shape, working on a uni is the next best thing to riding one. I just feel if a non-drilled rim is going to be a little more forgiving to lake of care once and a while, its not a bad investment. I mean big street isnt about having the lightest uni, its about going big. I cant speak for everyone but after a hard day of riding I would much rather drink a beer than tighten my spokes and true a wheel.
I might experiment with drill shapes to optimize the strength/weight ratio, but I want to stick with one rim type if I can do it, just because it makes the unis more versatile.
IMO, we are already really fortunate that our sport has so little maintenance requirements compared to bikes, so a little truing shouldn’t really be a big deal =)
Not a bad name for a new rim ! Byza is a bit over 190 lbs. I know a maker has to be able to sell x # of parts to turn a profit. It’s easy for me to say Kris should do it ! As the sport grows maybe the numbers would work, for a line of heavy weight parts. Although maybe it would just move the break further up the chain. So an extra heavy rim and spoke setup would mean broken hubs or other more costly parts.
It does seem like we aren’t going to catch on in Samoa unless something is done. I have not studied this , but I wonder about the possibility of adapting motocross parts.
I can certainly see why Kris doesn’t want the cost of redesigning a whole new uni for large guys going big. Yet making the 1/2 ton-3/4 ton etc. concept worked for trucks. Ultimately it does seem like more metal will be the only way to keep parts from bending under heavier loads.
more small holes or an hourglass shape should do the trick.
there is NO way that I should have to maintain a top of the line unicycle that much. I am NOT up for truing/tightening my rim after every ride, and I think that most of the people on here will agree when I say it is unconventional to true out your rim every time. I’m not going to mess with my unicycle after every big drop or gap. I do them too much. there is no way I am going to put that much effort into my unicycle for a ride. IT ISN’T worth it!
oh, by the way, a bunch of my nipples broke. i was truing them with THE RIGHT SIZE spoke wrench(no i wasn’t putting an unreasonable amount of pressure) and they torqued and cracked. i am not sure if they are just defective or cheap, but that is lame.
Truing rims can be a pain, agreed. But my point doesn’t have to do with whether it is or isn’t a pain or whether or not it is acceptable.
My point is that if you don’t maintain your rim, you are going to take it out of true regardless of whether it is drilled or not, because proper spoke tension is a way bigger factor than drillholes.
This is all the more reason why I will buy a KH20 over the other guy. I think it is awesome that we have such an involved designer/manufacturer involved in the input process!
Any chance that we will ever see mag wheels from Skyway on your KH gear? That might make for a very sturdy uni.
I’d probably stay with spoked wheels for now because they are the most versatile for truing and for keeping the same hub if you need to replace the rim.
Kris! This is a bit OT but I’m having my '07 KH muni’s drilled rim switched for a large marge rim which will be laced with new spokes to the existing KH hub. QUESTION: My local LBS (Cynergy in santa monica and very highly recommended by John Long) cannot locate 13g SS spokes, but does have the 14G. Will the 14g be sufficient strentgh for the LM and the KH hub? I weigh 145 lbs if that helps. Thanks!
PS: The other part of my questions is, if they can’t find the 13g, will 12g fit the KH hub, or is that just too heavy of a gauge? Thanks again!
I just had the “pleasure” of my local bike shop staff pulling thier hair out trying to locate those spokes as well. The owner told me that the two best wheel builders in North America have never even heard of them. I’m having them rebuild my KH20 with the toughest 2.0 spokes they can get ahold of with brass nipples just to make the strongest wheel that they can for me. I’m not too worried about it though cuz it’ll still be at least next year before I’m doing anything hard/tall enough to make the thing flinch.
“2.0”? I’ve never heard of that guage! Btw, I’m now told that the Marwi 14g black SS with brass nipple, NOT alum are what I should use in my case. The 14’s are easy to get I’m told also. But “2.0”…never heard of that! If that is the gauge, that would be the thickes, heaviest spoke I’ve ever seen!
