I have a 2005 Kris Holm Freeride unicylce that I bought about 1.5 months ago. My problem is that the crown (silver part that the seat is attached) began coming loose from the seatpost itself (black tube leading to the crown). It got to the point that the entire crown with seat comes right out of the seat post. My question is: has this happened to anyone else? And what would you advise I use to glue it back together. I drilled a hole through the crown and post and put a 5/32 screw through the whole works but the torque broke the bolt in about an hour.
The KH Freeride has a rail adapter on the seat and uses a regular bicycle seatpost.
That silver part is what I call the guts. It’s the part that clamps to the rails of the seat.
Most bicycle seatposts press the guts into the seatpost and then use some sort of adhesive to glue the guts to the seatpost. That works fine for bikes but is not reliable for unicycles. Unicycles put a lot more torque and twisting stress on the seatpost and if the guts are just glued on they can eventually fail.
Yours failed pretty quickly. Seems that might be a warranty issue. Contact whoever sold you the uni and see if it’s covered by a warranty. Even if it’s not covered by a warranty I’m sure Kris will want to know so he can keep track of what is failing and what needs to be improved.
The real solution is to go with the Thomson seatpost. The Thomson seatpost is machined from one piece. The guts are not just glued on to the post. The guts are actually part of the post. It will not fail the way the KH post failed.
Mine hasn’t budged. They would have replaced it under warranty if you didn’t butcher it. At this point you should toss it and order a new one. Nothing will work like the original.
That’s a different style seatpost than the one Theo broke. Yours is a standard unicycle style seatpost. The new KH munis use a standard bicycle style seatpost similar to this.
The seat post on the new KH’s is the weakest link…like John said, go to a Thomson and forget about it. Still go get a replacemnt KH post under warrenty and sell it on Ebay.
Yeah, I have a Thompson on my mountain bike which I’ve had now for close to four years, and it is awesome. I realize that mountain biking doesn’t put much side-to-side torque on the seat but it’s a good post.
I used some JB Weld on the broken post and put a stouter bolt through the works and have a feeling it will buy me time until I can get to a bike store and pick up a post.
I realized at the time that drilling the hole could shoot my warrenty to hell but I also realized that it could take up to two weeks to get a new one through KH or Unicycle.com. I could not wait that long, as I had plans with a friend to do some riding and needed a quick fix.
It’s amazing just how poor quality the seatpost IS on the 2005 KH Freeride. It is something I would expect to find on a junky bike from Wal-Mart. Admittedly, I am a bike guy from way back and a hardware nerd but that seatpost is a piece of crap!
Your KH seatpost was probably assembled incorrectly or made from parts that were out of spec. That’s the only explanation for it failing so soon. Maybe it was assembled with not enough adhesive or whatever kind of glue they use. Maybe there was some cutting oil on the parts when they were glued together. There’s lots of ways that it could have been messed up during assembly.
There have been cases of other brands of similar seatposts failing in the same way from the abuse of muni use. The adhesive or glue gives way and the guts get separated from the post. Some of them have been high quality expensive seatposts. The KH isn’t the only brand that’s ever failed in that way.
Do let Kris know that the seatpost failed. There is a contact email address at KrisHolm.com. He needs to know what’s failing so it can get addressed.
To be completly fair, I should mention that I am a lean 240 pounds (not fat) which surely had some ill effect on the lifespan of the seatpost. I don’t do drops higher than 2-3’ (skills aren’t there yet) but do use a lot of body weight in my quick turns. I will be picking up a non-pressed seatpost ASAP.
I was going to post a new thread but searched first and I think this is my problem. I don’t have a KH seatpost but it’s simular. I’ve had it for a little over a month now and just a few days ago my seat started twisting. At first I just thought the seat clamp was loose but after closely looking at it and twisting it back, I noticed it was twisting where the seat post and rail adaptor thingy connect (see picture). What is the best way to fix this or isn’t it fixable and I should just get a better seatpost that is one peice like the Thompson? Any suggestions would be great. If I had someone weld it, would that work? JB weld probably wouldn’t be strong/durable enough, right?
You probably won’t be able to make any repair last, and it definately won’t be worth the time needed to fix it. The standard KH rail post is only $20 - not really worth fussing about if you’ve used it a lot.
Pick something cheap up at the local bike shop, or snag a Thompson - the whole thing is a solid piece up to the clamp, and they’re not kidding about it being indestructable. The worst I’ve managed to do is snap the bolts.
I just had the same thing happen with the KH seatpost on my Coker. I have only had this seat post a short time on my new 36 Nimbus frame. I was thinking about putting a bolt through it, but after reading this thread I will see if UDC will replace it.
You must be looking at the thomson masterpiece post, that one is very expensive. Look for the thomson elite, its around $70 usually and you can get them for much less on ebay.
They should have a warning when you order a KH unicycle with a rail adapter haha, I don’t think that your post was assembled incorrectly because there are many more people with this problem, I had the problem myself and like you I drove a bolt through it but the long term solution is getting a CrMo seatpost or something like the Thompson even though it’s expensive!
My KH did this too. Warranty replacement one has been fine and dandy though.
I guess the seatpost is low quality, because the cost of the KH parts is so much less than the cost of posh bike parts. I mean you can buy sets of road-bike cranks that cost more than the entire KH unicycle.
