MUni tire on the road?

Is it bad to use a MUni tire on the road?

Not really, I have ridden my 19" trials for hundreds of kilometres on the road. There is likely some more rolling resistance, but that only means more training :flexed_biceps::flexed_biceps::leg::leg:

One takeaway from yesterday’s muni ride was that it’s bad to ride a 26x4ā€œ tire at 8psi on the road. Barely rideable, especially when the rider is exhausted after the fun part.
Pump it up and the main issue is worrying about prematurely wearing the tread.

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Yeah I was wondering if it was bad for a MUni tire to be on pavement for long rides, cause if not I don’t see why road/cruising/touring tires exist at all.

Road tires have better grip on pavement, roll smoother and make less noise. Also, some geezers care about rolling resistance.

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It’s not bad for the tire, it’s bad for the rider (to some extend). Some riders are not bothered by it, but a ā€œMuni tireā€* is louder, has more rolling resistance, wears a bit quicker and is generally less optimized to be good on the road.

*There really is no such thing as a Muni specific tire, they are mountainbike tires that just happen to be mounted on a unicycle. Similar for almost every tire on a unicycle, except for 36" and 32" tires.

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Yep, I had a couple UPDs recently because the tire just sticked to the ground and I couldn’t twist the uni. That was with a fat tire at 8 psi.
I would normally pump it up to ride on tarmac but this time I kept the pressure that I had dialed in during the preceeding muni ride, and check it at home with my pressure gauge.

Because the muni tire sticks to the road more, it enhances my balance and it is less twitchy. I have more road riding than offroad riding and ride most with the 26 and 29 muni’s. To me they are very comfortable.
Though possibly for road camber a narrower road tire will work better.

8 psi is insanely low, how do you ride that at all? I have my unis at around 35-40 psi.

Yeah, shorter cranks are much easier to use with a higher tire pressure

My cranks are 114mm.

The 26" Hatchet has a fat tire which is meant to ride off-road at pretty low pressures. The maximum pressure for the tire is around 20 psi which doesn’t sound like much, though with the amount of volume inside the tire there’s actually quite a bit of air in there. I can ride just fine on the road with it at 20psi, though at the lower pressures it’s meant to be at… It’s a strange sensation to say the least :sweat_smile: I think some people describe it as a magic carpet ride, or that the unicycle feels like it has suspension (boing boing boing boing).

I am planning to get the Nimbus 26" after riding someone else’s 27.5" Oracle, just barely being within the inseam restrictions with my legs almost completely straight. I have always wanted to ride MUni.

Like MrHydra explained I ride a fatty - these tires are ridden at lower pressures. Mine can officially be ridden as low as 5psi. For most of my rides I started with a high-ish pressure, then lowering the pressure until I was happy with the way the tire rode. During the last ride I increased the pressure again at some point, but that didnā€˜t work out. So I lowered it again and measured the pressure at home with my newly acquired gauge. For future rides I will be able to dial the pressure in more quickly.
Some sections of my trail were covered with many roots; riding over them is way easier with low air pressure (was still pretty sketchy with many UPDs) - a fat tire is able to offer just that: low pressure with little risk for snake bites. That said, Iā€˜m planning to build a 27.5ā€œ wheel with a 3ā€œ wide tire down the road. Iā€˜m curious to see in person the differences in behaviour.

Really the biggest benifit of a Muni tire, is you can ride it on anything, tarmac, earth trails, grass,gravel, mud, snow, sand making it hugely versatile, its not designed for road use, but they all cope just fine with the correct tire pressure. Mainly I ride in country parks, which are often a good mix of surfaces, or trails which can be either gravel, earth or tarmac. Its more, a ā€œdo it all tire set upā€, not ideal for distance road riding, but they cope just fine. You get used to what you ride, all my unes have fat muni tires and get ridden on whatever I feel like on that day. Yes they make a bit of noise, but I dont mind that, people can hear me coming :rofl: I prefer my tires pumped up and quite solid, reading other peoples comments

so far only rode with muni tyre (24x2.8). I observe that as soon as an asphalt path leans only a litte bit sidewards i struggle to keep myself upright. I wonder if this effect would be less with a 24x2.0 road tyre. I thimk sooner or later i will buy a different unicycle dedicated for asphalt road.

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It depends on the tire. Some road tires are very sensitive to road camber and some not.

I’d actually add to that, it depends on the tyre but I also find it depends on the crank length. I had a 24x2.8 tyre which I liked with the standard 150mm cranks and still found ok with 137mm, but started to suffer from camber steer when I went down to 125mm.

I found the hookworm 24x2.5 on 150mm suffered from camber steer but it feels better on the 125mm.

I really can’t work out how it works, what makes a ā€˜good’ uni tyre! I guess it’s just trial and error until you find one you like and get the right pressure.

We’re in the same boat. Of course, there are several threads on the forum. When I’m thinking of buying a new tire I’m searching those threads first.

Don’t forget also the relationship between the tire structure and the pressure (and the loop of causes is complete).