i hopped off a picnic table and made a dumb lil error, causing me to land with all my weight on the saddle. Where the seatpost connects to the seat is now bent slightly down…not so much that you can see it if you were looking at the unicycle from afar…but enough to definitely notice a difference in riding.
i checked it out all the way around and don’t see any cracks or anything like that.
it still feels solid when I do ride, but i’m too afraid to go down stairs or drops now because i feel like it may be weakened now and prone to snapping randomly.
oh, and its one of the cheap udc chrome seatposts. they are the only ones that come long enough for me. im about to order a couple more now… if knows of a better seatpost selection than udc has please let me know! : )
kh 350mm aluminum ones aren’t long enough for me on a 20.
so do you think it’s still safe to ride as I was before?
or too risky?
It may be a little weakened, but it would be weakened more by bending it back to the original position. There’s nothing wrong with those posts for the price, just try not to land on it with all your weight.
I did the same on a bad landing with what may have been the same type of post (basic Schwinn/KH mount post). Not only did I land on the seat, due to a failed bail in mid-jump after losing pedal contact, I landed on the front of the seat while the wheel was partially blocked from being able to roll out. Fortunately I landed on the, uh, let’s say non-fleshy part of my crotch. But the seat was angled downward by a large amount, making for a very annoying remainder of that ride.
I bent that post back into shape with a hammer and it’s fine for normal use, but more likely to bend again in the future.
and yeah, thats basically the same exact thing that happened to me. I had this feeling that something was wrong as i was landing so i tried to get off…lol i ended up landing on my back, but it was in the grass and i didnt get hurt.
Your post is made of mild steel. Heat it over the stove until it turns reddish, and you can bend it any way you want, with no loss of strength. If you bend it back and forth cold, it will weaken and crack, but hot, it will move like butter.
If you can afford it I’d recommend getting one of the “long neck” unicycle frames, either the Nimbus or KH. That way you don’t need as long of a seatpost and you can get a higher quality seatpost… I really love my long neck KH20!
A long neck costs the same as a thomson with a short frame. The thomson is the same price, regardless of length. And a long neck frame with a crap post is still going to end with the post breaking.
The mild steel post is fine to keep riding on, but you should start looking for a replacement, since it will break eventually. Primo “The Rod” posts are pretty strong, but they tend to fail at the welds. Thomsons are by far the best, but they don’t come in 22.2.
If you bend or crack an aluminum post, replace it. Steel, don’t bother.
I doubt a stove is gonna get that post to cherry red. Hell, a stove is barely enough to get large lathe toolbits up to straw blue. Even if the stove did get it up to heat, keeping the heat in any way local would not be easy. Never mind the health problems involved in heating chromed steel, even if it’s not up to full welding temperatures.
