Last year I bought a mongoose squid off Craigslist for 45 dollars, It was a little rusty, had cranks so long they would bottom out if i turned to hard, and a freaky wide and tall sidewall tire that mounted on a ultra weak 20inch single wall rim, it screamed department store junk, but I wanted another uni and needed something to take my mind off of things.
anyhow I recently traded a fugly fixy 700c bicycle for a 20in torker lx, so the old worn out toys r us uni was fair pickings for a Frankenstein project, so I talked with a local bicycle guy one day and he had a 36 hole deep vee front rim without offset that was laced to a large flange hub, he said I could have it if I was going to build a 700c uni out of it, so I quickly agreed and proceeded to disassemble it the moment i got home.
since I wasn’t sure if I was going to botch the whole thing I didnt clean any rust off the cranks or hub, and cut the spokes off the wheel of the 20 incher since it was worn and I was not planning on salvaging the rim or spokes that were pretty shot.
one night of diet dr pepper and no sleep and 12 cramped fingers later I had a 28 inch rim spoked to a uni hub. the next day I went to a freinds shop that had grinding tools and he helped me grind away the seat post area of the squid frame to clear the tire. Amazingly the .32 inch wide crossover tire fit so I didn’t have to run a .23 and risk pinch flats more. I rode it around a Wally World parking lot the next day, the rim was not quite straight and I looked at the lacing and noticed I did not cross over the inside spokes, “doh” seems getting a full nights sleep is important when wheel building :o so I took off all the inside spokes and re wired them in the appropriate cross pattern and put everything back together, not forgetting the rim strip (forgot it at night and it popped, I know im noob) aired it up taped some chopsticks to the frame and trued it up.
now I have a 700c unicycle and it cost me near nothing and gained some experience building a wheel on a uni hub.
I think if I ever get some spending cash I will order me a 36 inch rim, and spokes and hub and just build a 36er for cheap.
But man that’s cool. I’m amazed that you fit that in a Squid frame. A chunky 700c tire is lots of fun for tooling around on the street. Good job there.
Unfortunately a 36er rim is $130, spokes are $72 and a good hub (ISIS) is $65. Not to mention a tire at $82 so it would still be expensive. You’d have ~$349 (you could shave $35 off if you went with a square taper hub) in just the wheel alone with no cranks or pedals. So then you’d need a frame. Assuming you could get another cheapo uni to mod for $50 you’d be at ~$375-$400. Oh, I forgot cranks. The cheapest ISIS cranks are $24. Or if you went with a square taper hub you could probably use the cranks off your cheapo uni. So then you’re at $375-$425 and it wouldn’t be anywhere near as high quality as the Nimbus Titan which is $450. So it wouldn’t be worth bothering with unless you could buy a cheap used 36er rim and tire. Both are very hard to find.
I have a old crappy phone, I took some pics and messaged some people on my contact list, I will either get them to email me them or I will find my memory card adapter and put it on my hard disk within the next 2 days, maybe ill get a pic of me downtown by sum xmas lights tonight
well my decent pics i took were not recognized by my computer for some reason so i took some at home re-sized and here they are, I know they are not very good but that just hides the rust.
Just realized I have that same style of 700c deep V rim lying around. It’s a rear wheel that’s meant to have a freewheel or fixie on it, but that doesn’t matter, as I’d have to replace the hub with a uni hub anyway. Thanks for getting me thinking about this, though.
Thanks for the pictures. They’re plenty good enough to get an idea of what you did. It looks perfectly usable and I’ll bet it’ll be a lot more enjoyable like that. Have fun!
it barley fits, the wheel is slightly off to one side, but so was the factory tire in the frame. it rides fine, but eventually I will pull off a crankarm and find a washer or something to put in, maybe make a custom spacer with a pipe cutter, If I come across more used uni hubs, or odd wheels like maybe a 29er mtb or similar I might build some more unis, It is a shame I no longer have a welder because a custom uni frame is so simple to make.
