Today while I was playing around with my new cranks I put one on my uni so that it was at 90 degrees to the other. Having mastered the kangaroo uni, I thought this might be a more difficult challenge.
I could idle almost immediately and rode 2 wheel revolutions within minutes. Soon after I went for a 100m stretch with no problems. Then I got the freemount on my second try.
So how did it ride? Well it’s kinda like riding one footed but with both feet on the pedals. If a kangaroo uni can be likened to jumping forward with both feet together then the 90 deg out of phase uni is kinda like skipping along. It’s actually easier than kangaroo uni as it’s easier to get over the top of the pedal stroke.
I guess going backwards would be more of a challenge, but I didn’t try this!
I find they ride better with fireballs and 170’s, rather than walls and 114’s. with my Muni I was able to hop with the cranks in bnoth positions, not just in the lower position. on my 20", I have no chance at anything but pedals down.
>
>Today while I was playing around with my new cranks I put one on my uni
>so that it was at 90 degrees to the other. Having mastered the kangaroo
>uni, I thought this might be a more difficult challenge.
Personally being a proponent of ‘gradual’ learning, I think that
Profile (and other splined system) owners could have fun going from
180 degrees to, say, 170, then 160 etc, to a full kangaroo. Has anyone
tried this?
Klaas Bil - Newsgroup Addict
"There are 1,929,770,126,028,800 different colour combinations possible on a Rubik’s Cube. "
Just ride around on your Profiles for a while and the cranks will loosen up.
On my muni I can pull one crank off by hand. The other crank is still a bit too tight to pull off by hand, but it comes off with minimal effort using a bearing puller. When the cranks were new they were a real PITA to pull off the hub. Best to wait a bit for the cranks to loosen up before trying to remove them otherwise you’re likely to swear so much while trying to get them off that your parents will take away your unicycle.
A bearing puller like this one
<http://www.unicycle.com/shopping/shopexd.asp?id=419>
works very well to remove the Profile cranks. You can get them at auto parts stores. Hopefully you can get them in Australia. The auto parts stores call them pulley pullers or gear pullers, but we know better - they’re bearing pullers and crank pullers.
There are also pullers with three arms. These are more common than the Evercraft design. The three arm design works well for pulling off bearings, but doesn’t do well at all with pulling off Profile cranks. You might still use the three arm design to pull off Profile cranks but you have to get very creative and use something like a u-bolt to give it something to grab on to. Be warned that I have not tried the three arm design to pull off a Profile crank. I don’t know if it will work.
<http://www.unicyclist.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=18640>
Thanks a lot John. I noticed that about the Profile loosening quickly. The right hand crank is on nice and tight but the left one is very loose at the moment after having just tightened it a few days ago. I don’t think I’ve got the crank far enough in though (onto the axle). I’ve got a spacer in there at the moment that I don’t think should be there. Surely it’s not normal for Profiles to loose after a day. Is it the sort of thing that gets less of a problem after a while? And one last thing, isn’t that a bad thing that the cranks loosen up? Doesn’t that show some sort of deformation or something?
The first time I tried to take the cranks off when they were brand new I ended up pulling the axle out of the hub by about a quarter inch or so. The axle is just press fit with a keyway. I had to pound the axle back in so it was centered again. Somewhere in that process I started swearing a lot at it.
Check to make sure the axle is centered in the hub. If it is not centered you can pound on it or use some sort of press to get it centered again.
There is a little shoulder in the crank above the splines that the retaining bolt rests on. Make sure that shoulder still hangs out over the end of the axle when things are tight. (does that make sense?) Add enough spacers so that there is a gap between the shoulder and the end of the axle when things get tightened down.
The first time I ride after re-installing the cranks they will get a little loose. Tightening the retaining bolt again fixes things. After that the retainting bolt stays tight.
Remember to put some anti-seize on the retaining bolt threads. This help a lot in being able to get the retaining bolt really tight.
The fact that the Profile cranks get loose on the splines after a while is not a good thing. But it’s not a really bad thing either. Even with the cranks a little bit loose on the splines I don’t get any squeaking. As long as you keep the retaining bolt really tight you don’t really notice any looseness when riding.
for mine it takes almost a full hour trials ride to settle in after a relubing. Also, after a half hour ride I found that my cranks were a little loose, and forever after I can get my cranks on/off with two fingers. so make sure there tight before and after every ride!
