Coolio
Red menace
UNISK8R,
Bravo, An extremely inovative frame and drive system, Our community needs more people to design and build what we want and need. I agree with a disc brake, and the coda has the same properties you desired. I like your work!
Barefoot?
Barefoot?
Barefoot??
Not My Foot., Oh , crap , busted and on profile picture too, Darn!#*$%
Understanding ratios on the Red Menace
Hi Pete,
I’m having a bit of a time understanding how 1.96 is accomplished from1.96 (28x20), is it a matter of compound sprockets giving the driven cog a greater ratio. My head starting to hurt. 
Thank you,
Tom
I’m not sure if Pete is on this forum much at the moment.
There are two pairs of sprockets and two chains. The 28 on the crank drives a 20 on the jackshaft. The 28 on the jackshaft (fixed to the 20) then drives the 20 on the hub.
So the drive is two pairs of 28:20 in series, which is (28/20) * (28/20), or 1.4 * 1.4, which gives 1.96.
Rob
Thank you.
My head has now gone from #Hurting to #AboutToExplode.
Sorry, just not the mechanically-mathematical type.
I admire this stuff from a distance and hope to one day ride it, but don’t you dare try n insist that I understand it.
It’s a bit like David Copperfield in that sense.
Sorry, that was supposed to be a quick explanation of the gear ratio for the poster above. It’s just two simple “bike” chain drives one after the other, nothing that should cause any head explosions :o
Nothing like as hard to think about as epicyclic gearing in a Schlumpf/Harper hub!
You admire him from a distance and one day hope to ride him? 
Or are you talking about the Dickens story… still sounds weird.
Rob
Ok, that does it.
YOU come clean this stuff off my screen.
Oops.
[Note_To_Self: Reread posts before posting them.]
…erm…it was the best of posts, it was the worst of posts?
How difficult is this unicycle to mount in the different gear settings? Try as I might I cannot for the life of me mount my own 36" guni in 1:1.5 high gear mode. I always mount in 1:1 and shift on the ride but with so many different gear combinations it must be very challenging to mount every time you change it.
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You just revived a 9 year old thread. You might have better chance of getting replies by creating a new thread with a title that resonates with your question, and linking this thread as reference.
The Red Menace was just recently sold: https://unicyclist.com/t/red-menace-geared-36-unicycle-for-sale
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I was aware it sold and I didn’t want to post in his sale thread. He linked his own thread so I thought it would be more appropriate to post in his own thread that he had linked in his post
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Mounting is made easier by the long cranks - 170 mm I think. In addition to making the effective gear ratio not as high it makes the pedals lower. It also helps being 6’ tall. I was able to free-mount Red Menace in its highest (1.96:1) gear ratio without two much trouble. Static mount.
I’ve only ridden it in 1.21:1 ratio lately, and free mounting in that gear is easy.
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Thanks for the reply, might just be something I need to practice a lot at. I’m slightly shorter at 5’11 and I have pretty good control in high gear but because I can change down I tend to do that when it gets difficult. I guess when you have that gear in you just get used to it after a while since you don’t have a crutch to fall back on in downshifting.
What length cranks do you have? That makes a big difference.
I had 165mm cranks and later switched to 150mm but I couldn’t mount high gear in either
Hello. Felt like I should contribute to the conversation, as I’m the new owner of the Red Menace and don’t want the ownership of this unicycle to fall off of the radar. Lots of people still seem to have questions about it. I haven’t had the chance to ride it much recently due to a few mechanical issues that required tools I didn’t have to fix, and now with the weather getting cold.
I’ve only rode it in its 1:1, 1:1.21, and 1:1.44 gear ratio so far. It’s not too difficult to free mount with the change in gears, as long as you use a perfect static mount. The only thing that makes it hard to ride is the fact that it’s way faster and harder to stop at higher gears, which adds to the fear factor. I’ve only been able to ride it consistently at 1:1.21 so far. This is the first gUni I’ve ever touched, so it’s a very unique experience.
Another factor that goes into the unicycle itself that I haven’t thought about is the fact that the frame and moving parts on the uni are very fragile, making me more wary of UPDs. The way the uni falls if you ever drop it results in the saddle having some contact with the ground, as the bumpers don’t cover the entire contact zone of it. The saddle is quite unique, so I definitely don’t want to be tearing it. That’s just one of the things that make me more nervous about dropping the uni. You can definitely tell that it wasn’t built for taking crashes consistently. I’ve since became familiar with the entire system that drives the unicycle and can take measurements on various parts if anyone’s interested in how it works and wants a more in-depth view on how the machine truly works.
Now that I own the unicycle, I definitely wonder how fast a unicycle could truly become using this sort of prototype concept on unicycle gearing. As a final note and question of my own, I wonder sometimes what the “fastest” unicycle in the world is. Essentially the unicycle with the largest theoretical wheel size. I’ve theorized that the Red Menace could actually be the technical record holder for that, seeing as it has the highest gearing I’ve ever heard of on a 36er (1:1.96). I’ve also heard about the legendary 73” wheel unicycle, but wonder if that could really beat the Red Menace in a race due to its awkwardness, weight, size, and the fact that only two unicyclists in the world (that I know of) are actually tall enough to ride it. Just wanted to ask for kicks.
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You should probably ask @toutestbon about that, he knows a lot of things about fast unicycles 
BTW, there are some 3.6:1 freewheel hubs. If you want to have a theoretical winner, that’s probably the one. But you certainly won’t find anyone who can ride faster with this beast than with a traditional Schlumpf hub.
Depending on what you call “fast” - is it on a straight line, when commuting, on a 10k race, … -, it is hard to define which uni is the fastest. For example, I personally think that the fastest uni you could build for a 10k race would be something like a carbon rim and V-frame 36er with three gear ratios around 1.2:1, 1.5:1 and 2:1. If you want to go for a straight line speed trial, you probably could increase the gear ratio to something like 2.5:1… But you’ll have to start that beast!
If you want to commute fast, you’ll want a light and agile uni - something like a 29er with three gear ratios around 1:1, 1.5:1 and 2:1.
So… Really hard to define what’s the fastest uni 
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I can’t say anything about the Red Menace. I don’t know if this unicycle is as efficient (and reliable) as a schlumpf at the same ratio. I think and hope it is more reliable than a hunirex, which I find interesting for the current price, but there is a lot of play, it is heavy and without optimization you have to tighten the parts regularly.
Then talking about the fastest unicycle is a question of engineering, but to achieve a performance, you need a unicyclist. There are other dimensions that come into play, notably physical dimensions: strength, velocity, coordination, cardiovascular adaptation, biomechanics…
If the unicyclist could be replaced by gyroscopes and motors, probably only the wheel size or ratio would matter. On the motorway, you go faster in 5th gear than in 4th gear.
But probably it’s not that simple in reality. The more force is applied to the pedals, the harder it is to maintain balance. Finding the right cadence is an element of performance. At a guess, I would say that the unicyclist should be able to keep a cadence above 100 rpm. By optimising the distribution of support (pedals, saddles, handlebars), you can pedal harder while keeping your balance. It is therefore important that the unicycle is rigid both for the transmission of effort and for maintaining balance.
For my part, I imagine that a 36" unicycle with a ratio between 1.8 and 2 would allow me to use longer cranks (165-170mm) while keeping a pedalling frequency around 110rpm…
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