Hi everyone,
so i just started unicycling about a week ago after a friends dad gave me his really really old 1966 schwinn 24" unicycle. it was just sitting in his basement for 48 years but its still in great condition other than a little rust. over the last few days ive been in my basement/garage because of the snow and ice outside getting only a few feet. A couple days a go i took a break from skating in a local parking garage to see if i could do any better and i actually could do it. Even better is the fact that my friend was messing around with my camera and took a short video of it.
I never imagined learning to ride a unicycle to be as fun and easy as it was and I’m really excited for when the roads are dry tomorrow (slippery, wet pedals).
Yeah haha, i was surprised at how fast i learned too. From what i read when i started it was going to take me a long time of only making it one or two turns and after only a few days im learning to turn. My only problem is how rough the seat is on the jewels, does that go away once i get used to it?
A little more nerdliness:
The Schwinn unicycles came out in 1967. It would be very cool if that one is from the “first model year.” Don’t know how much change there was during the early years. I know they started out coming with these silly triangular pedals. The ones on yours were probably added later (but not much later). Everything else looks original; Schwinns looked like that until around 1979 or so, when they went cotterless.
Jewel issues:
The foam in those old Schwinn seats had a tendency to disintegrate over time. I remember having seat foam turn to dust on me in the early 80s, so there’s a good chance your seat just doesn’t have what it used to.
Definitely consider a new unicycle before spending too much on that one. Though old Schwinns are hard to kill, they’re heavy, and the wheels aren’t very strong. Keep it as a learner. If you just want a seat you could get any of the ones that fit the Schwinn style mounting, which includes the KHs.
This is one thing I do remember about my (brother’s) old Schwinn. Sort of how a cheap pillow behaves.
It was also important to us to catch the uni whenever possible to preserve the seat even under threat of personal injury . The bumpers and handles on modern unis sure do take a beating in comparison.
I tried a search for those “triangualar pedals”. But no luck. Do you have any?
It’s not that the Schwinn seats were weak; they would never bend up like the old Japanese/Taiwanese ones. Just that the strong steel base would very efficiently cut through the vinyl cover. Amazing how weak that one detail was, but since the Schwinn seats were better than all the other seats at the time (you should have seen them), they didn’t fix it until they were “losing market” to Miyata. Their improvement was the Viscount seat.
No, why? Collectors’ items? I guess they would be. They were like block pedals, a solid black block, that narrowed toward the outside end to surround the very large bolt there. Not a pure triangle by any means, but much narrower at the ends than at the base. Stupid pedals. I think they used to use them on their exercise bikes also, but I did some looking on eBay and couldn’t find any examples.
If you really want some you could try Tommy Miller (The Unicycle Factory). There’s a good chance he has some.
That’s motivating! Those old schwinn’s can still inspire kids. I had one from 1972 till last summer. Ran it over with the truck and pounded it back into shape. Ended up giving it to my friends son in Ohio and he is riding it all the time. As for the seat… it is pretty much duct tape by now! ha! Instead of replacing the seat save a few more dollars like John said and get a different uni. You can always use that one for bangin around.
I really just wanted to see as I couldn’t imagine a “triangular wheel”. But your explanation curbed my curiosity a bit. Here I was imagining some pointed isosceles pedals.
