Has anyone ordered one of these unicycles yet? I was pretty hot on getting a 28" until I read about the flange width now I’m not so sure.
I’m gonna get the 28" model too. I have no reservations about it, I simply pointed out that a 28/29" wheel (i.e. 700c rim) is as big a rim as I’d care to mount the hub to.
This is the best invention yet that’s been made available for sale. If we don’t support it, no one else will have the manufacturing facilities to do it. Viva Schlumpf!!
I think it would work OK with a 700c rim. It’s not ideal, but should be OK. You might have a problem if you run a brake because the narrow hub will make the wheel more flexy which could allow the rim to rub the brake pads. For road riding and cruising it should be fine. If you do want to run a brake then you might end up needing to fuss with the wheel build to make sure it’s as good as possible and fuss with the brake to make sure the pads retract from the rim as far as possible. But that’s just speculation right now. Till someone actually builds one with a 700c wheel and finds out through experience whether the wheel is too flexy to work well with a brake. Using a good strong and stiff rim should minimize the issues.
Re: Purchasing Schlumpf Unicycle.
On Tue, 15 Feb 2005 18:57:07 -0600, “unisk8r” wrote:
>I’m gonna get the 28" model too. I have no reservations about it, I
>simply pointed out that a 28/29" wheel (i.e. 700c rim) is as big a rim
>as I’d care to mount the hub to.
-
Who else have already ordered a Schlumpf geared uni? What wheel
size? -
Has the Schlumpf uni been given a colloquial name yet? I read about
“shifty”. Lame if you ask me.
Based in part on the posts with positive experiences gained during
Florian’s USA tour, I’m strongly considering to order a 28" (actually
29" with Big Apple). I was in doubt whether I’d want to wait for a 36"
version but reading about the narrow hub and the possibility that a
wider hub may be made at some point, I think 28" is the better option
now. The next doubting point is crank length - input welcome. (I
prefer 125 mm on a 1:1 29".)
In the other Schlumpf thread Gizmoduck asked about service life. The
Schlumpf website’s heartening prose about this:
“Durability: - The unicycle hub is made similar to our bicycle gearing
systems. They have a life expectance of at least 50’000km without
weared out parts. You can expect a very high quality of all gears,
bearings and shifting parts.”
and:
“Maintenance: - After assembly, we lubricate with a special grease,
good for many thousand miles.
Indeed, each SCHLUMPF gearing system (like the ones for bicycles) has
a slot screw, where you can add some drops of bicycle oil or some
special SCHLUMPF grease once or twice a year, if you want to keep
highest efficiency for many ten thousand miles.”
and:
“Warranty: - 5 years for perfect function”
Sounds good enough to me.
Klaas Bil - Newsgroup Addict
people who unicycle are shyly exhibitionistic - GILD
Re: Re: Purchasing Schlumpf Unicycle.
Wow that makes me all the more want to get one of them. I think it would be realy cool to have.
Schlumpf offer an optional brake off-factory so at least they have confidence that it will work.
Klaas Bil
I reckon it should be fine for a 700c rim, and maybe a well built Coker. After all, my Coker had a narrow Suzue hub on it before and it worked fine for me (60kg). I don’t know how much narrower the Schlumpf is compared to a Suzue though. It might be worth seeing if a disc brake tabs could be fitted if you’re worried about wheel flex causing the wheel to rub on rim brakes.
How many spokes are in the Schulmpf? 36? That would basically get you a touring or 29" MTB rim, which should be plenty strong. My new Road Bike which I’m getting tomorrow (2004 Cervelo Super Prodigy) only has 16 spokes/wheel 
There are specs for the hub on the Schlumpf Innovations web page: http://www.schlumpf.ch/uni_engl.htm
It has 36 spoke holes.
I’m thinking in terms of ultimate wheel strength. A wheel built with a narrower hub isn’t going to be as strong as one built with a wider hub. That becomes more important the larger the wheel is.
There have been Coker wheels built with the Suzue hub and other narrow hubs. With the Airfoil rim it’s an adequate wheel. Just not as strong or as stiff as it could be. The flex would only be a problem with a rim brake. But the flex would also lead to premature spoke failure due to the flex putting more stresses on the spokes.
It may be possible to custom machine an adapter to fit a disk brake on the hub. The hub is designed so that it can be taken apart. On one side of the hub is an access plate held on with about 10 screws. When you remove the screws and plate you can access the guts of the hub to do servicing. You could design a disk rotor mount that would bolt on over that access plate. That just might work.
A Coker wheel with that hub would work. I wouldn’t let the narrow hub prevent you from doing it if you really wanted a geared up Coker wheel. Just be aware of the limitations.
Loads of people have big apples on suzue hubs without problems, even in very tight clearance frames, which suggests that the flex is minimal if you have a well built wheel. I know I’ve never had tyre rub on my 29er. If you do 5 foot sidehop drops on a 29er you might want a wider hub. However you’d probably want a stronger rim than a 29er rim too and would probably be best off with a 26" or 24" wheel.
Agree that on a coker, if you wanted to fit a brake you’d need to be pretty careful about truing the wheel nice and tight.
I’m really tempted by this, but I just don’t really have the money spare right now. Grr. I’m hoping someone will get one to bring to the British Unicycle Convention or something so I can play on it.
Joe
Re: Re: Purchasing Schlumpf Unicycle.
Schlumpf said that there are 30 people that have pre-ordered them.
What’s the chance of just buying the hub so you can build a 36 incher around it?
JL
You can’t buy just the hub because it requires a special modified frame. I guess Mr Schlumpf doesn’t want to sell it on it’s own because a badly built frame could make the hub not work so well, or break.
Joe
…ideally the 29er variant.
Until this week I wasn’t too tempted, however, after reading “Florian Schlumpf in Seattle” thread and seeing the videos of the mechanism, the on the fly shifting, the engineering, the positive comments, the… I suppose I will need to start saving, and working out an excuse for the other half, Coker speeds without taking over the car boot (trunk) on holidays probably won’t be acceptable.
Re: Re: Purchasing Schlumpf Unicycle.
It’s Schluni of course!
That’s one of the reasons this forum is so cool and useful. You can find out so much about what’s going on in the global unicycling community.