I’m just a unicycle noob who can’t even complete 1km yet. But I have high hopes of unicycling being my new way to “go running” sometime soon. (Supposedly a 24" is similar in effort and speed to jogging… That is definitely NOT the case for me now, its more like 6x the effort, but anyway…)
As such, i would like to track avg/top sppeed and distance to see how my skills and fitness are progressing over time. What are folks’ favorite way to do this?
The Nike Run Club app is great for running, is there something similar for cycling that anybody recommends? I was also wondering about adding a cycle computer, although the mounting might be less than ideal (with no handlebars: clamp it to the seat post? Then its protected from falls, but you can’t see it while riding?)
It might be interesting to have an odometer too, especially as it relates to things like tire life/rotation too and just knowing total unicycling miles).
That is also not the case after many years of riding. For the opposite reason, it is pretty much impossible to get my heartrate up anywhere close to where it would be when jogging, since the speed on a 24" is limited by my maximum cadence, not my cardiovascular system. That comparison may be true for one person, at one point in his fitness and riding skill, but certainly not in general, not even as a rule of thumb. (Without sounding like bragging, I’ll have to add though that I’m pretty well in shape, and that I’ve been unicycling for a very long time to add some perspective.)
I don’t track unicycle rides, but for running I’ve recently bought myself a GPS watch, and I really like that experience. No need to make sure my phone is charged enough, easy to glance at to check my pace, and the GPS (at least in my case), is a lot better than my phones. If you don’t need it to be a smartwatch as well, you can find these watches for very little money used to try it out. Would work well for the same reasons on a unicycle too.
I’m another one on Strava, logging unicycles as bike rides but with clues in the title and often details of their exact configuration in the description. At 24" with short cranks can be a lot faster than most people would jog, and as @finnspin points out, a lot less effort! But of course this depends on your fitness and familiarity with unicycling. When you are new unicycling can be very tiring.
As an example of potential speeds here is one of the last times I cycled my 24" with short 89mm cranks.
Yes, that is moving, ~6 minute mile, would be a pretty impressive running pace (sorry, I’m American, I had to convert it. We should really adopt the metric system…)
My Uni comes with 127mm cranks, I hadn’t really even thought about changing them, but maybe it will be worth trying later when I have more skill.
(They are pretty inexpensive really)
I will give Strava a try, thanks!
That would be a good idea. I had one of those for running, but it died about 1 year after getting it, which I was not happy about. I have a Fitbit versa, wich works ok for steps, but not much else. Might be time to get a better smart watch. It would be nice to see electric unicycle stats on my wrist too, which most of the Samsung watches support with the EUC world app.
That is a problem I wish I had, LOL… I am about 40 lbs overweight, and I run about 12:00 mile pace, and a 2 mi run is difficult right now. I used to be able to run a half marathon around 10:30 /mile, but not anymore! I am trying to get back in better shape though.
I’m using Mi Fit with Mi Band 3 smartband. I’m using “bike ride” activity for unicycle. It gives lots of stats. Quite useful that you could suspend or close activity tracking by touching the band.
See attached picture of my first return from work to home month ago:
I’ve got a Samsung Galaxy Active 2 watch and use it with my Samsung phone. It’s a smart watch
I also use Strava, and tend to note what uni I rode with what crank length.
A question. For people who put Unicycle in their Strava account names, do you tend to use 2 Strava accounts, one for unicycling and one for other activities? How do you switch accounts? Is that easy?
I just have the one account. I considered multiple but the thing is I cycle a unicycle (not a supported activity type), a penny farthing (not a supported activity type, they don’t even have fixie), a footbike /kick scooter (not a supported activity type), in addition to my bikes and ebikes. How many accounts should I have?
When I mention crank length I do that in the description, not the title, otherwise the title is too long and I must admit I sometimes forget.
I use a hard wired $4 LCD bike computer odometer speedometer to track my current, max and average speed, trip distance traveled and overall distance traveled. It seems to be very accurate, reliable and the battery lasts for years.
That’s a nice setup. I think I will mount that odometer under the seat because I have no handlebars but at least I will have the trip and total mileage of the unicycle that way. My saddle is the same one I think that’s clever adding things to it so that you can hang a under-seat bag or whatever I might do that too
It’s funny my Fitbit doesn’t have much in the way of apps, they are mostly useless, but I just noticed it has Strava on there LOL.
I guess one useful app!
Definitely going to try that one out since I would be able to have visibility right there on my wrist hopefully.
Yep, Strava is certainly supported by a lot of devices and that is one of the reasons why it is so popular. I use a KaiOS phone and this is the only service its help app can sync to.
