This is an amazing achievement! Just some minor suggestions for the next time you try to beat the record:
- Get Phil Liggett to call the ride
- Get a drone for some overhead action
- Put a rear facing camera on that motorbike in front of you
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Fantastic achievement!! Great photos and story too. I salute your decision not to use a track. I have a little bit of an idea of how much mental strength and training that took - my hat is off to you.
Cheers from California,
Nathan
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Thank you for your messages!
Regarding my training, I have been doing split training sessions for several years now, during which I do several 5-minute intervals at very high intensity. This is the most beneficial session for me to prepare for a 10k. For the hour record, I switched to 10 to 15 minute intervals. The best sessions were definitely those where I did 4x10 minutes or 3x15 minutes.
To do this kind of session, you need to find a quiet road, i.e. with few cars. You have to be confident to give it your all. Itās not quite like cycling, where you can train almost always on different roads.
That said, I do this kind of effort in the months before a race. The rest of the year, my practice is different, I vary the pleasures with off-road, indoor training (free wheel, ultimate wheelā¦). For a few years now, I have been running between 2 and 4 times a week, I also practice slacklining at least once a week.
Moreover, in relation to my record training, after 2-3 weeks of training I broke my schlumpf hub. I had to stop training for about 2 weeks in early September, before a friend and local club president, Samuel Coupey, lent me his wheel (identical to mine: G36 + carbon rim). For my 10k record in 2019, he had already lent me his pair of gloves, I had forgotten mine. 
The last thing I didnāt tell you was that the inner tube broke about 15 minutes after the record. Samuel had used small squares of medical tape on the spoke holes as a rim tape, unfortunately with the humidity and pressure, one square slipped and the tube herniated in the spoke hole. I was lucky!
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Can you say what tire pressure you used?
As I said, it was a slightly too small square of tape that slipped into a radius hole. The inner tube has not come out of the tyre.
The pressure was around 47 psi. I have since taped 2 turns of electrical tape, as I have been doing for 2 years now with my 2 carbon rims.
It would be interesting to see some accurate measurements of rolling resistance based on tire pressure on a 36" tire. Iāve seen some results of normal bike tires but nothing on a 36". Just a gut feeling for me it seems that the higher the pressure is, the easier the tire rolls. I would think that when pushing the limits of speed or distance the higher press would be better.
Itās purely empirical, but above 50 psi, I feel the tire bouncing on every irregularity of the road. And the more it is inflated the more important this sensation is and the less efficient it is. Thatās my feeling.
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I think you are correct. Higher pressure is not always faster. There have been some article out on this. Hereās an example: Myths Debunked: Higher Tire Pressure is NOT Faster ā Rene Herse Cycles
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I like to go to the highest pressure that still feels safe in that it doesnāt bounce all around on irregularities in the road. For me this is around 55psi but that varies for everyone, and every tire. Iāve had some that I kept no more than 40psi in and felt the same as my current setup with 55psi. Also, as that article says, the bouncing around will make the ride slower since energy is being lost to bouncing the uni around rather than being absorbed into suspension of some sort which we get from our tires.
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Like I said it would be interesting to test a 36" tire as used on a unicycle. The linked bicycle tire article is talking about 25mm tires that are tested between 60 and 130psi. They do say that after a ābreak pointā of not much flex that higher pressures are not faster. They also do say that increased pressure up to that break point does make a faster tire. Because uni tires are loaded about twice that of a bike it is not clear what that break point would be. When used on a uni a tire at 65psi may not even be to the low flex break point. If that was the case it would follow that the article would support higher pressures for lower rolling resistance.
Should we get in touch with this guy ?
Of course, on a road unicycle the tyre supports twice as much mass as on a road bicycle. On a road bike, the tyre pressure is more than double that of a road unicycle.
But the volume of air in a 36"x2.25" tyre is much greater than in a 28"x25mm tyre (how much? 10 times? 20 times? more? how much?). In my opinion, this is important in the equationā¦
Thereās probably a second element to consider: a bike can overcome bouncy roads with more ease than a unicycle as they have less balance to keep. So, as unicyclists, we probably find the road bouncier than bicyclists. Then, they can run much higher pressure than what we can.
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The bicyclerollingresistance.com site is quite interesting. They do use a set load of 42.5 kg (94lbs) and a diamond place rolling wheel to simulate a real road surface. Tires are tested at 18 mph / 28.8 km/h. Of course they do not show any test for a 36" tire but they do show results from a huge range of bicycle tires. They show test results for road bike, mountain bike, CX/gravel, tour/E-bike, and fat bike tires. I did pay $4 for a pro membership so I could see all the posted test results. In reviewing the info posted on the site it is clear that for essentially all tires from 25mm road tires all the way up to 4" fat tires, increased pressures do result in lower rolling resistance.
Because of the increase weight on unicycles it would not be reasonable to directly compare the bike results. However just looking at their tour/E-bike category with pressures listed from 30 to 75psi I see about a 10% reduction in rolling resistance was posted going from 45 to 60 psi.
In reviewing the hundreds of tires tested on this site it would be totally reasonable to assume that our 36" uni tires would also show a reduced rolling resistance with increases in tire pressure. Our 36" tires would likely not be as comfortable at higher pressures but for pushing the limits of speed and distance it may be just the thing that breaks that next record.
Such a stunning achievement @toutestbon 
Iām late to the party in terms of commenting but Iām super impressed by this and all the ingenuity that has gone into your training and the wheel you ride.
To say my KH26 Schlumpf is my most prized unicycle and what got me hooked again in this amazing sport / part time is no word of a lie.
One day when COVID is more controlled I really hope to ride with and meet more unicyclistsā¦ but while that isnāt viable now, this forum and all the great endeavours those that post here share, will suffice.
Congratulations and happy riding! 
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Increasing pressure will pretty much universally lead to less or equal rolling resistance in a steel drum test.
The question is: āIs the power you save from reduced rolling resistance larger than what you loose from being shaken around more?ā. The power that is lost from your body (and unicycle) being shaken is power not propelling you forward. Thatās what the Rene Herse Cycles article linked above calls āsuspension lossesā. The āpureā rolling resistance is just half the equation to how the overall losses change with tire pressure.
I would expect that on unicycles comfort/suspension from the tire is more important than on a bike, since our balance is less stable - even on very smooth roads imperfections have much more of an impact.
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Yep. On a perfectly smooth surface the ultimate tire would be rock hard and the only reason for it not to be metal would be traction.
Pneumatic tires were what really enabled the development of the bicycle so itās kind of ironic that bicycle racers spent so long riding on super hard, super thin tires in the belief that they would be faster. The cushioning effect of pneumatic tires was what allowed them to get past the penny farthings and boneshakers, but for some reason they then tried to make a pneumatic equivalent of the old solid rubber tires.
I agree, there is room for more analysis on this issue. The one organization that does test rolling resistance does use a diamond plate steel roller to try to match real world conditions. I did request that they test a 36" tire but they said they did not have one to test and more importantly it would not fit on their testing apparatus.
On my one day rides of 50 to 100 miles I have always used 60 to 60psi and that seems to work well for me. These day rides were on not so smooth pavement and some compacted gravel surfaces. At the very end of my 100 mile ride I noticed no ill effects from the slightly bumpy ride but I was about at my limit of just keeping the wheel rolling.
I need to underline that the different PSI are also related to an higher or lower saddle. @toutestbon seems to ride with an high position with a slight knee bend: he has less leg suspension than a lower saddle, but he can push with more power=> he need a lower PSI to have the tire absorb some road imperfection and use his only to push/pull
@JimT use a lower saddle (I remeber I was impressed when I saw his pic about 50Ā° of knee bend) he uses more his legs to absorb road imperfection so he needs a higher PSI to get less rolling resistance and get better results with the power he spend for pure pushing the pedals.
So it is important to consider the saddle hight. I use high saddle: I prefer lower PSI. With lower saddle I can understand I could raise my PSI using more my legs as a shock absorber
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I hadnāt thought about that, but it makes sense to me.
In this regard, I have two remarks to add:
- The first is that forcing / putting power on the pedals is not really compatible with a low saddle position. In addition to a biomechanical handicap (muscularly itās more interesting to push on the pedals from a straight or almost straight leg position), there is an increased risk of knee injury.
- The second remark echoes the first. My everyday unicycle is a 36" with triple insert cranks 117/138/159. To put it simply, I set the seat height high with the cranks in position 159, a position I only use for long climbs. Similarly I use 117 for descents. I donāt change the height of the saddle because pedalling doesnāt require any power. The fact that the knee is bent is not a problem.