Questions about custom built 50" unicycle

Unicycles and Equipment
1

“@aws” has posted some amazing things on this group such as his custom 49" - 50" unicycle. I have attached his images below.
I have some questions, I am hoping he would be willing to answer or someone else might have some insight on.
My questions are regarding the wheel.

  1. is it a custom rim or from a penny farthing rim?
  2. What was the chosen method to attach the road tyres to each other? Was it steel or kevlar tyre beads and how was it attached?
  3. How did the tyre ride, could you feel the bumps and joins? How safe would you recon this is?
  4. How was it inflated? Tubeless, customer inner tube?
  5. Did you buy and cut spokes or make custom spokes?
  6. What was the chosen lace pattern? As I see the two unicycles have different patterns and looks like a different spoke count?

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The tires are not pneumatic, they are hard rubber with a small hole for a wire that holds them on the rim. See this video to see how they are made/installed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxSDOzDoO-w&t=25s

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3

Did you know, that you can mention users putting an “@” in front of their username? @aws will mention the original builder so that he will get a notification and hopefully can answer here.
The Questions about the tires are already answered by Jim.
The rims are custom. When you zoom in, you can see, that they both have multiple joints. Those were smaller rims before, that were rolled to the bigger radius. In this post (german) @Ulkicycling describes, how this is done. He made a custom lightweigth 36" rim before carbon 36ers were available.

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I know about the solid rubber-style tyres for penny farthing type bicycles, but from the images, it looks very much like a 700 c road tyre on account of the tread, tan sidewalls and visible joints. not sure if my eyes are misleading me.

5

I didn’t know about the @ thanks. I did see the joints but wasn’t sure if a certain manufacturer may have done it. Thanks for the referral post.

6

Oh, you’re right! (And Jim wasn’t.) Those are joined Continental Giro tubular tires. Maybe @aws could chime in and tell us a little bit more on how he fabricated those unis.

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@aws we need answers! Please!

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8

Whilst trying to find inner tubes for my turducken wheel

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I came across this two ended tube
https://a.co/d/fpQSpP0
If you look around on the forums hard enough you can find @saskatchewanian who sewed two tires together for a 36”. I was already trying to make a pneumatic 49.5” by sewing two tires and two tubes together but I think 2 of the two ended tubes is a better option. I hope I helped

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9

@Gidian @Eric_aus_Chemnitz I found a tutorial by @saskatchewanian on how to make a frankentire!

Then we use the two ended tubes!

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Or get a custom TPU inner tube. Just got one made by a Chinese factory for $20 for my 36"

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Love that tire image!

12

Thanks, I’m going to get some cheap tubless schrader valves, remove the cores on each except the 12” and put each valve through the next tire. Hopefully the air should pad through the open valve and fill all the tires