I removed the Shwalbe Big One and tried a couple of other tyres.
First tyre to try, a Continental Trail King (29" x 2.4") plus tube. 1500 grams versus 530 grams for the Big One. The tread pattern was fairly aggressive off road. at 60 psi on the pavement , it was a bit unpleasant. At 50 psi it was a much nicer tyre. It was also a great tyre off road (for a novice). This tyre was borrowed from a friend, so needed to be returned.
Next tyre, a Maxxis Maxxlite Speed (29" x 50mm) from my own road bike. This is a lightish trail tyre I think. At 65 psi it was a bit skittish still. At 40 psi it was too sluggish. At 55 psi, the tyre feels great.
As per Mike’s suggestion, I’ve been mixing it up with some off road riding. With the change in tyre and more saddle time, things have improved a lot over the last week. I can now keep up with my better half whilst she is out on a run. This wasn’t possible a couple of weeks back. I have also completed my first 5 mile ride.
One interesting comment was that I should try shorter cranks. I’m running 125mm at the moment. Shorter cranks would be very interesting. Let’s see what happens.
I run 75’s on the flat with the Big One, and 89’s for hills, which makes it a very fast tyre. At last Unicon I had the best straight line speed in the lead group at the Marathon race, just lost a few seconds on the corners (due to having my seat too high rather than tyre issues).
I didn’t realize you have a Big One on your uni, Fat D. It’s a great tire because despite its volume, it’s very “pointy” which mean it feels like riding on a much narrower tire as its contact surface on the ground is very narrow. And it just turns on its own, you can fall into the turn much more than with other tires, which allows to easily ride in small circles despite the 29" size.
But it also makes it harder to ride and less forgiving. I scare myself with it sometimes as it has so little resistance forward in straight line and in turns - I’m nowhere near as competent as GizmoDuck btw, I don’t want to sound too much like I’m an expert!
Unfortunately, Schwalbe retired it after a short life. I guess people complained about frequent punctures - I’ve had two on mine in one year, which is way more than on the rest of my uni fleet (0 in total on the others). I think the replacement is the G-Speed or some similar name, a fraction heavier but with greenguardstuff. Anyone tried it?
Uhm a stupid question:
On what kind of wheel to you put the tire? I thought bke tires were narrower than uni tires. you can’t just put a bke wheel in as it doesn’t have the pedals in the hub.
Thanks for the feedback. I’ll try the Big One again in a few weeks when I’ve had a bit more saddle time. It will be interesting to see what 100 or so miles of riding has done for me.
Man, GizmoDuck, you are running short cranks. I was thinking of trying 110mm. Your 75mm and 89mm make the 110mm cranks look at bit tame.
80s require quite a degree of precision, especially when adjusting your speed - as I discovered when my customer 28 flew from under me and landed in the canal once, as shown in this thread from, gulp, 11 years ago…
As I’ve come to this great sport at the tender age of 49, I think super short cranks are going to be beyond me. I’ll be a happy man if I can ride a good 10 or so miles without feeling ruined on 125s.
I will try 110mm cranks at some point though, when I’m happy with the 29er.
Your old 36er feels great on 150mm cranks, although as we’ve discussed, wheel and tyre mass calm things down a fair bit.
I experimented with short and super short cranks when I was in my mid 40s. I had a lot of fun but concluded that it is better to learn to spin medium to long cranks, and put up with the speed limitations, than to put up with the compromises of control, torque, climbing, and descending that can come with short ones. There is a certain degree of competitive machismo associated with who can use the shortest cranks. It’s fun, but there are no medals for succeeding. I did a 10 mile ride on my 36 on the shorter setting the other day - yes it was faster for cruising, but I prefer the longer setting which allows me to stop, start and idle with confidence.
Work on getting solid on the 125s first. I was riding 125mm on 29er for a year or two before I switched to 110mm. When I finally did switch, I found the difference in feel to be pretty minor, and 29/110mm is now my favorite setup for around-town riding. If you go shorter than that, the leverage starts to feel quite a bit different, but 125->110 isn’t too bad.
This is probably the way to get really used to a certain setup. I always feel if I were to just choose my uni to ride for a long period, I might forget how to ride the other wheelsizes, but trying one size one trip and another size another trip, which I have been doing in the past month. I’ve ridden all my 8 unis in one month, but the 36" is harder to mount after riding a 20".
I should prolly look at the future as I will still be riding in 10 years time.
I will do like you and change to the shorter cranks as well and ride that for 1-2 years to make it feel normal. Currently riding with 150mm. You also ride 125 on off-road?
“Off road” ranges from flattish muddy or grassy paths to steep climbs and drops, rocks, deep mud, and fording shallow streams. There’s no on size fits all answer.
I ride my 28 skinny off road on uneven ground, bridleways and river banks on 114 mm cranks, sometimes on 125s.
I ride my KH 29 Muni mainly on 150s as I have a few short but steep climbs available to me. I can ride it off road on 125s, easily, but not at the extremes of steepness or roughness.
I ride my 36 off road or on road on 150s. Strangely, this is the same size as I have on my KH24 Muni.
Having tried all sizes from 80 mm to 170 mm on various unis over the years, my advice to you is to try it in sensible increments. If you put 110s or 125s on your uni, you could ride it tomorrow, but there is always a compromise.
Shorter cranks give you higher top speed and cruising speed on the flat, but not necessarily a higher average speed. They also reduce the risk of a pedal strike off road. Very long cranks (170 mm) can feel painfully slow, and strike the ground when you’re in a rut, but they give you loads more control on descents. 125s or 150s are a sensible compromise for most things until you are sure that you really need shorter ones.
Depends. I ride the 29/110 on easy off-road stuff; it’s fine when it’s not too steep. But I also have a 29er MUni setup with 165mm, a Hans Dampf and a brake for real MUni.
Everyone rides differently depends on what theyre used to. Size of dicks have nothing to do with it…I dont think, I might be wrong…
My favorite size for 26" is 140 with 2.75 dirt wizard, tons of control.
29" 127 with surly knard 3.0, nice fast climbs and decends with 127s! Ive learned to use brakes more often now for the quick drops and knarly rooted stuffs
Non geared 36" feels really light. 110 fast and smooth for flats, climbs great with 137.
Geared 36" 127 can still climb on trails on first gear,
110 for flats, still controllable on second gear. I still gotta figure I I still want to train on 150s, maybe in the next month or so…
I stick with a particular uni size for a while, then when I switch, its a whole nother favorite uni experience all over again. Love it!
Here’s the thing. Humor exists in order to allow us to define “in” and “out” groups. That is its social purpose.
When someone shouts “you’ve lost a wheel!” at us, they are not making a comment about our mode of transportation, they are asserting that they are the dominant party in their “in” group, and we are part of the “out” group. That’s why we find the comment annoying; not because we don’t have a sense of humour (“sense of humour” is code for “member of the social group of the person making the joke”), but because we intuitively understand that there is a dominance game going on, and we’re being cast as the subordinate in the game.
So responding to someone taking offense at a joke with, “lighten up, get a sense of humour,” ignores the fact that the joke very likely was exclusionary and condescending towards them. Of course, people in the dominant groups in the social hierarchy do this all the time. The important point is that the “humor” is not a side effect of their position in the social hierarchy, it’s actually part of how they secure and maintain their place in the social hierarchy.
Now that you’ve had your lesson in critical theory for the day, I’ll return to this post, which is about someone who’s been riding for 10 weeks and finds his 29er a bit twitchy, so the implication that he might try riding serious MUni with 29/125 is quite silly.
