I am not new to unicycling, but I have recently (by recently I mean school got out for winter break so I find myself with nothing much to do so I stare longingly at Kris Holm unicycles) come across new terms such as ‘splined.’ can someone tell me what this term means?
Nobody seems to have replied yet, so here’s a quick explanation:
Most unicycles (certainly the less expensive ones) have the cranks attached to the axle using a tapered square shape on the axle, commonly known as “cotterless” (to distinguish it from the older “cottered” axle with a cotter pin). These are the common fittings for cranks on bikes (almost all bikes for the past couple of decades have used this cotterless type of crank). It’s a pretty strong way of holding the cranks and is much better than the old cottered method, but…
Unicyclists who do lots of jumping (i.e. trials and muni riders) often put more stress on the cranks than the square taper can take, making them come loose, creak, and wear out. The solution is to use an axle with splines (lots of small ridges, a bit like fine cog teeth) that fits into an appropriately shaped hole in the crank. This gives a much stronger interface and helps to prevent the loosening problems. The downside is it’s more expensive to make splined components (so they cost more to buy) and because it’s not a standard bike fitting the choice of cranks is more limited (different makes of splined axle use different numbers of splines, so cranks and axles can’t be mixed). But if you’re doing heavy riding the strength gains are worth the extra cost. Common makes of splined hub are KH, Onza, QuAx and Profile.
For normal riding (and the type of cross-country/light muni I tend to do), the less expensive square taper hubs are strong enough as long as you make sure they don’t get loose.
Thank you very much. I should probably get a splined uni because even though my Schwinn is one of the toughest I’ve ever incountered, I don’t think the cranks like my stunts very much.
Does anyone know any unicycle hub with 48 splines?
The thing is that i found these really cool white cranks that i would love to use on a unicycle.
thsy are all preety now, but after a few petal grabs and grinds they look like crap. take your cranks and spray paint them white!
those cranks are sexy…
I dunno about hubs for 'em though…
Profile hubs are 48 splined. I don’t see why you’d replace profile cranks with a lifetime warranty with some other cranks just because of the paintjob.
I do!!!
You would need to find out if those Deity cranks are really compatible with the Profile hub. They could be using a different spline size/depth than Profile even though they are both 48 spline.
Then you would need to make sure the Deity cranks are using the same size axle as used on the Profile unicycle hub. Profile makes two sizes of splined spindles. The Race and DJ spindles are 3/4" diameter and is the size used for the unicycle hub. The SS is an oversized spindle (I’m not sure of the diameter) for BMX abuse. Cranks designed for the SS spindle will not fit on the unicycle hub. The Race cranks are the lighter weight cranks that fit the 3/4" spindle. The DJ (dirt jumper) cranks are heavier weight and more beefy but still fit the 3/4" spindle.
There are cranks from other manufacturers that are compatible with the Profile spindles. I think those cranks are made by Profile and rebranded for a different manufacturer. So it is possible to find cranks from another brand that will fit on a Profile hub. But you’ll have to do some double checking to determine whether they fit the standard Race spindle or the oversized SS spindle. So be careful if you buy different brand cranks for the Profile unicycle hub. There is no guarantee that the new cranks will fit.