I have recently gotten into muni-ing. i thought i was only gonna be a trials type of guy but one thing has lead to the other and i find myself going to a mountain bike trail 3-5 times a week and riding for atleast and hour on the trails. I even went out and bought a CamelBak LOL.
heres my deal though. i have a KH20 with 127mm cranks. Not the best for muni-ing. I can’t make it up any hills and end up walking alot of the trail because of this.
So heres my debate, do i spend 700 bucks and get a KH24 free ride, with the brake or do i spend 2k on a Santa Cruz or Trek full suspension mountain bike…
My debate that i’m having is will there really be that big of a difference between the 20 and 24 to justify the 700 bucks. I want to be able to cruise the trails and make it up the inclines, and not spend as much time walking. With the bike i know i could have a blast and spend the entire time pedling and no walking at all. But the attention that you grab on trails with a unicycle is awesome, everyone is always so nice and asks questions and give you props for doing the trails on 1 wheel.
So i guess the question is will i notice a hige difference on the trail switching from a 20 to a 24?
You won’t be able to climb any better with a 24 than a 20. You probably just need to work on your climbing technique, unless the trails are really that steep.
Having just sold my full suspension mountain bike to by another unicycle, I heartily vote for getting the muni.
i used to do some MUni on a 20" and ound i was going slow as. i thne switched to a 24" and go at a decent speed. i have recently tried again on my 20" and found that it is fairly similar to riding up hills, i think you just need to work on your inclines. i rekon go for the moutain bike if you are gonna ride 3-5 times a week because its simply a lot faster and better to do jumps and stuff that might be on the trails, but then again riding MUni is heaps fun as well.
not so true, riding big hills is way easier on my muni than on my trials. i say go for the freeride - i did and i will never regret it. trials unicycles are just too slow to get around on the muni trails and you will enjoy it much more on a 24. beside, the kh is a beast and you’ll find yourself wanting to ride more and more. i have only managed to go muni twice so far since i bought mine, but that was only a few weeks back and when i took it for its first ride ever (my first muni ride ever) i really tested myself and my cycle more than ever (just ask Andrew Carter, he seems to spread rumors about me all the time )
Muni on a 19" trials uni isn’t really muni. The wheel is too small. It doesn’t roll over things as well and it’s harder to keep the cranks spinning when you have to stand up and pedal (you’ll tend to end up pedaling a half revolution at a time whether you want to or not). A real 24" muni is worlds different.
You don’t need a brake on a muni. Skip the brake and save some money that you can spend on the bike. Get both a bike and a muni. Compromise on the bike a bit if you need to save some money. A muni and a MTB are both fun and in different ways. The trails are very different on a muni compared to on a MTB. No sense depriving yourself of the fun of muniing or mountain biking, so get them both.
Shhhh… I muni and I also have a MTB. I don’t take the MTB out much, but when I do it’s fun and different. You can have both a muni and a MTB.
yeah i really want both…i found the bike i want a Jamis Dakar XLT 2.0…such a nice bike. And i want the KH24 LOL…
Its such a decision… both would be so much fun and each would bring its own experiences…
BUT, there is one problem, transport. I drive a Toyota Mr2 (spyder 2001)…a mountain bike wouldn’t fit that well, but a uni fits nicely in the passenger seat. So in the end i think the uni would just be a better idea.
I don’t know maybe buying both is the right idea…haha, if only money grew on trees.
Hee Hee. This is how our family went from one unicycle to eleven in three years.
It sounds like you want to rationalize getting the MUni before the MTB. If you currently have any type of MTB, get the MUni. The 24" with big cranks will make a big difference. BTW I agree that brakes on a MUni are waste of money for most people.
I ride a KH24, and it’s great. I have 175mm cranks, which are good for climbing, but kinda suck for speed. I can climb almost every hill in the trails where I ride, and many of them are steep. Although, it seems that some walking is often a part of a muni ride. It’s well worth it once you get to the top, and you get to ride down.
You are not an expert yet. Though you can learn to ride up all the hills on your 20", a larger wheel will be much nicer, especially for covering any distance.
That’s easy, even if we don’t take into account your little car. Buy the unicycle, have a much nicer trail-riding experience. You only need a brake if your hills are extremely steep. I don’t have one. Do this, and you save at least $1300!
Or, spend the $2000 and be just like every other mountain biker.
BTW, you probably want to invest at least a little of that $1300 in a helmet and some pads if you don’t already have them. No disassemble Number Five!
It really made me learn the technique to jump over things that I cant roll, in any pedal position, and it specially helped today. I was riding down a steep, steep hill, then came to a ledge about 4 foot straight down, with a logg sitting in front of it, I had to jump at the position I was in, and I cleared it then kept riding down to the other rode.
What I really like about doing muni on a small wheel is the difficulty that comes with it, hills are really hard to climb, well, the hills I do, a lot of the hills on local trails are easy, but the ones I ride, just out in the middle of nowhere, the climbs are extremely steep, and make me use every once of energy to get up them.
When going down steep hills, I love it even more, how hard it is to keep me and the uni under control, it makes for a great challenge, specially when going down a loose dirt\gravel hill, with trees, with most of the time, the wheel was a few inches buried under the dirt, omg! what a blast!!!
I still want to get a 24 Muni so i can really say I have a muni, and just to get the experience of riding a bigger wheel, but the difficulty of controlling a small wheel on the steeps, I love it.
Toyota has something special for us: many models have a special bike rail that you can fit inside the car. This is a must!
I own a Toyota Yaris Verso (a very small car!) and can stack inside : 2 mtb, a Coker, another uni + luggage + passenger …
Go muni. You can always save up for a mtn bike later. Remember, mtn bikes don’t need suspension either, I’ve no suspension on mine and it hasn’t slowed me down yet
Hmmm. Just ask in the unicycle forum whether to buy a unicycle or a bicycle.
The difference between a 20 and a 24 is massive. It is a bigger jump in rideability than between any other two adjacent sizes. A 24 is “only” 4 inches bigger, but that’s 20% bigger. That’s 20% faster at a given rpm, and it’s easier to keep the rpm up too.
(The gap between a 24 and a 28 is also 4 inches, but it makes only 17% difference.)
Who needs brakes on a 24? Only if you are going to do long descents and want to save your knees, or if you are going to do exceptionally steep and technical stuff.
Clearly the Muni without brakes is cheaper, more portable, and possibly more fun than the boke. There is less to go wrong, and it’s less likely to be stolen.
But it is slower.
A 29er will handle off road and cross country stuff, and cruise at sensible speeds - slower than a bike, obviously, but it is a reasonable compromise.
You could a muni without brakes and one of these sweet mountain bikes for considerably less than the $2,000 full suspension mountain bike. Who needs suspension and gears?
After a while going up hills on a 24" gets super easy. When i started muni i was on a 24" and had to walk up every hill but now i go up faster then bikes! I ride a torker dx ‘06 and it has held up for me on some 7’ drops and on lots of extremely rough terain. It’s cheaper then the KH24 but the KH sounds real groovy too.
or do i spend 2k on a Santa Cruz or Trek full suspension mountain bike…
)
how about you say 
I ride a torker dx ‘06 and it has held up for me on some 7’ drops and on lots of extremely rough terain. It’s cheaper then the KH24 but the KH sounds real groovy too.