Profile hub on a 36" wheel unicycle? (Custom Hunter)

Unicycles and Equipment
1

Has anyone seen or heard of a Profile hub being used on a 36" wheel unicycle?

Is this hub too “narrow” for such a large wheel? I would use the new UDC 36" rim and tire.

I ask because I am planning on having a custom 36" unicycle built by Rick Hunter. His “standard” bearing holders are 40mm and fit the Profile hub, although some of his customers have opted for “wider” setups to accept the UDC “wide” hub, and he has mentioned that he can machine a set of 42mm bearing holders and build it with them for an upcharge.

I have a Profile hub and I would like to use it on this 36er unless some one offers a good reason not to.

Any thoughts?

2

It’d be a bad idea.

Very few people break cranks on 36" wheels, so there is no advantage to having the super strong splined hub.

It weighs almost 1kg more than a bog standard square taper setup.

You can’t get short enough cranks for it for road use (145mm are the shortest)

It’s narrower even than the standard UDC hub.

The way in which profiles fail (where the creak starts) is due to putting in a lot of miles on them, putting them on a coker is a bad idea.

You could do it, but there isn’t much point when a square taper UDC hub is so cheap, and is going to be better.

Joe

3

I agree with Joe. It’s not a horrible idea. It will work, but with all the disadvantages of a heavy, narrow hub, which requires proprietary crank arms.

Put those profiles on a MUni!

edit: Don’t bother going with the 42mm bearing holders unless you want to use the new KH Schlumpf hub, or are really sold on the idea of ISIS for 36er use.

4

I always thought an Isis hub with the dual drilled KH 125mm 150mm cranks would be a nice setup for a 36er.

5

I agree, a nice ISIS hub would be something else on a 36er

6

For the amount of money you are going to put down for a hunter frame, why don’t you get a triton? It comes with 42mm bearing already.

7

Thanks for the responses.

Thanks, I really appreciate the informative responses.

I think I’ll go with the standard 40mm bearing holders to avoid additional expense. That will allow me to use the standard UDC hub, correct?

If I recall (I don’t see it on the Unicycle.com US web page anymore) there is a standard-spacing 36 hole UDC hub available, apart from the “wide” hub.

The standard 40mm bearing holders would also allow me to use the road version of the new 2008 Schlumpf GUNI hub, and the Profile if I wanted to go ahead with it despite the negative points mentioned above.

I am interested in the TRITON frame too, I am thinking of one of those eventually for a 20" or 24". The TRITON frame in 36" would be $520 shipped while I should be able to get by with under $440-$450 for the Hunter including shipping and CA sales tax.

8

If you are ordering the rim and tire from UDC why don’t you get a Nimbus frame from them as well?

I have a N36 and the frame is probably the part of it that I like the most. It is a very similar design to the hunter frames.

When you said that you wanted to build up a Profile 36er the first thing that I thought was “MUniCoker!” I really like the idea of a Coker that can take some abuse but I think that if I wanted a bombproof wheel I would go for the Nimbus (or KH) ISIS hub for the wider flanges. If you had the ISIS hub then you could go with the 137/165mm dual hole cranks.

This spring I might build one up myself but we will have to see how the moneys are holding out and if I can get a job lined up before I move.

9

The 2007 and early Schlumpf hubs use 40mm bearings, but I read somewhere that the 2008 version will use the same knurled bearing arrangment as the KH model. Details seem to be very sketchy, however, and the Schlumpf site does say 40mm not 42. However, before investing such a lot of money in a frame, I would send a quick email to Florian to clarify the situation.

STM

10

why not go with 42mm and just shim the bearing to 40 mm? Then you have the option to use both.

11

With all of these crank lengths posted, keep in mind the type of riding you’ll be doing.

If you’re going to ride much flat, you may want to go to 110mm cranks or smaller!

For rolling terrain, 125mm cranks are ideal (IMHO).

You may start out with 140+mm cranks, but if you do much riding you’ll quickly find these lengths will “hold you back” on flatter terrain.

I recently made the switch from 150 to 125mm and have put several hundred miles on the 125s… I wouldn’t even think of putting anything shorter on at this point, unless I’m riding some long steep hills.

In short, don’t limit yourself… if you do much riding you’ll want the shorter options!

12

yes, trevor b. in the bay area built his coker with a profile hub. it worked well.

I’d say get a nimbus frame.

crbin