umm this thread took off in an unexpected way…
haha yeah, and yet only 10% of my total! 
Yeah, kind of like the US deficit, gasoline prices and Charlie Sheen’s “violent torpedo of truth” tour! 
Wait, scratch that last one, haha!
“Give a man a poorly made unicycle, and he might ride for a day;
Give a man the freedom and motivation to build a great unicycle, and he can ride for life!” 
-Terry Peterson
My wife and I both drive Toyotas.
Nooooooo. Really? 
My favorite (I didn’t watch them all) was the Epic Fail where he goes right across the top of the pallets and out of frame. Then the unicycle gets air on its way toward the camera! That’s a great outtake.
Ha Haa… You’re really quoting yourself… Twice in one post? Hmmmmm 
Haha. As soon as I wrote it, I thought, hey, there’s my new sig! Both happened at the same time.
I would say that Michael Thonet actually invented the idea of a catalog.
Sorry, never heard of him. Is he a giant retailer? I knew that history would be a little rough; just an analogy of what large chain to compare to. And I don’t know what countries Sears is in.
…has anybody actually come up with a list of distributors?
Any such list should be broken down by country. For example, Renegade.com is (was?) the exclusive distributor of Koxx-One in the US. But to get those same products in another country means you need a different source. Depending where you live, it often makes sense to buy from the distributor in your own country (if there is one). Shipping in from other countries can get expensive, as well as slow.
Your are talking about something like this?
http://www.unicyclist.com/forums/local_links.php
Just to bring us way off topic, a more famous Terry once wrote:
“Build a man a fire, and he’ll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he’ll be warm for the rest of his life.”
Terry Pratchett
Wow, that was an interesting read haha… I gotta say well done Julia, you done us proud :P.
I have a high experience with a very wide range of unicycles, but mainly koxx-one, KH and NIMBUUSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS.
I’m gonna keep this short :P… Nimbus is GREAT!!! Its fantastic :). They make good unicycles for street/trial learners. But Nimbus trials unicycles are worth exactly as much as they cost…
This is one of the best threads I’ve read in a long time.
First… 2 things to do.
- Thank you Julia for making one of the most interesting discussion threads we have had for ages.
- I would also like to openly apologise to you if felt I was getting at you, that was never my intention at all. People who know me will know what actually upset me, it was the Wallmart comment (thank you SpaceFmK for your explanation and apology, it is gracefully received).
In the trials area we have been, on the whole, aiming at producing a reliable but very affordable unicycle. This is the Nimbus Trials. It has changed as times have moved on. It started with cotterless cranks (before ISIS or splined cranks were seen on unicycles). It moved to ISIS and was fitted with the lightweight Qu-Ax cranks, this kept the price down and was only good for light weight riding really. We changed to the Ventures, these have been mixed… they have been very sensitive to thread stripping, hence recommending for harder riders to switch them out. Recently made a big change, we have designed a new rim super strong rim, a new lighter weight hub and redesigned and reprocessed (is that a word?) the ventures so that they should be have comparable strength to any of the other topend cranks at the same weight.
When I made my comment about the Nimbus Wheelset I was talking about this wheel, and I do believe that you would be pushed to find any off-the-shelf wheelset as strong.
Nimbus has traditionally stayed away from Aluminium frames, leaving these to KH and others to work with. The Ti frame was produced over 5 years ago and was one of the first purpose built Street frames on the market. It is certainly a high end frame and moved the market on dramatically, being both very light and very strong. It was designed for what the street riders were doing at the time (I agree with Julia that the frame is less appropriate for modern tricks).
We have also just released the Equinox. It is very very new. It uses the same design as the Eclipse frame that has done so well on the freestyle side of things and make it available to street riders. Lets see how it goes…
Thank you everyone for the comments on sponsorship. This could be another topic all together. Although a lot of UDC sponsorship is for events, UDC do sponsor riders as well, but it is done on a country by country basis. Generally we aim to pick up-and-coming riders and help them to progress. In the UK we have purposefully tried to pick one rider from each disciplines who we think would be helped by sponsorship.
Roger
+1
I agree totally. Qu-Ax are not low end. They are a fantastic part of the world of unicycling and they have moved unicycling forward in leaps and bounds.
If we have a horary award for “Unicycle Heroes” I would nominate Egon Becker.
Roger
I would nominate John Foss
Wow this thread is diverse!
Yes - there are a number of “heros” in the unicycling community that generally stay behind the scenes, but without whom our sport could never be where it is today. Egon is one, John is another, Roger is one himself, and the Cotter family is another, just to name a few.
In terms of equipment, the unicycling brands most involved with the riding community generally understand that the biggest barrier to growth is not each other, it’s the size of the market. So we carve out our niches and try to contribute as best we can in those areas.
Kris
Kris you are a hero of the unicycle work also
I have a Qu-Ax 29" with the red isis hub and Qu-Ax lightweight 145 cranks, although this is marketed as a lightweight setup not for big drops it handles anything I can throw at it.
+1
This is indeed the best thread I have read through in a while here in the forum. It was quite informative and also had some videos 
I especially found Julia’s post about how she got her unicycle to be of great importance. While you might be creating the worlds best unicycle - It will not be of great commercial value without marketing.
There are many different ways to market your products and some of the big differences between the various manufacturers is in the way they will market and distribute their products.
Nimbus unicycles of qu-ax unicycles could be compared to toyota cars (at least here in my small country). They are great rides, affordable, well built. In most cases they are not “sexy” or target the extreme riders. Toyota also has a different brand - Lexus, which caters the needs of a different high-end audience. Qu-Ax has QX products and UDC has a great range of high-end products as well, but while toyota made a smart choice to totaly differentiate the brands - in the unicycling world this is not totally the case.
KH / Impact are Lamborghinis - every one wants to have one and they look great - but they cater the needs of a very specific audience (which is a big part of this forum). But please keep in mind that the forum holds a little over 20’000 users (100-200-300 active?) but I would estimate (and I am guessing a little here) - unicycle sales yearly around the globe to be in millions.
This might be a reason for UDC to invest less in the kind of marketing julia is looking for. But it certainly should not hurt UDC to invest some thought about how they can not only create great unicycles but also create a great name for their in-house brand.
I do believe sending Julia the best street / trial unicycle you have for testing would be one step in the right direction 
and might bring her back to the interesting discussion here 
And one final point - I find it remarking that 2 of the people helping to shape the present and future of unicycling (Roger and Kris) participate in forum discussions like that - +1 for that
Well Said Raffi!
Very elloquently stated!