I’m looking for designs on how to build a tandem unicycle. I found someone who can weld but need designs to give to him. Any help?
Mark
I found a little:
Tandem
A “fair number of expert riders” have ridden “front-to-back” tandem unicycles, including Ken Fuchs.
Two Japanese riders are pictured - this picture is from a, since defunct, Japanese web-page. Unfortunately, I could never read the caption to give them credit.
Klaus and Roland Bartl, from Munich rode on a tandem unicycle, 70 km (43 miles) ride along the Danube river from Passau, Germany to Linz, Austria. This was a Guinness World Record.
Steve McPeak built a tandem in the 1970s where one rider sat above the other. He then rode it (with an assistant) on a high-wire. This appeared on a television show (along with his tall unicycle, described above).
Anyone?
The Unicycle Book by Jack Wiley has a picture of Steve McPeak’s tandem giraffe uni. The book is now out of print. You may be able to find it at your library.
The problem to making tandem unicycle is that if you have someone if the front and back then it’s not that likely that they are the same weight. Even if they both pedal the same wheel then it doesn’t matter how fast or slow they go to try and balance, they will fall due to the un-even weight. Think of it like a seesaw and the middle is the wheel; even if they both sit very close together the seesaw will still tilt in one direction. I’m not sure how that one in the pic. did it put it’s still worth a try.
I have seen a father ride a sociable tandem (side-by-side) with his elementary school-aged daughter. Big weight difference. The bike tilted slightly toward the daughter. Duh.
Uneven rider weights will not be the hard part! Having watched expert riders Ken Fuchs and Sem Abrahams struggle with a front-back tandem, I know it would take a lot of practice for any pair of riders to have success at it.
Re: tandem unicycle
“carsonpalooza” <carsonpalooza@NoEmail.Message.Poster.at.Unicyclist.com> writes:
> The problem to making tandem unicycle is that … it’s not that
> likely that they are the same weight. … they will fall due to the
> un-even weight.
And to think I though I saw a picture of a tandem being ridden on this
[http://www.unicycling.org/btdt/unique.html] page. Silly me, now that
I know it can’t work. Thanks for clarifying.
Ken
That’s definitely wrong. You don’t need the same weight. You can balance this by moving the mass center to bring it above the support point and that’s by tilting the tandem. I drove the tandem with people weighing much more or much less than me. Recently, we reactivated our tandem after very long time:
That’s so awesome. Posting the video here:
I realize this thread is eleven years old. But just in case anybody’s still interested, here’s a step-by-step set of plans I found online. No idea if they’re any good or not, but they might give you a starting place. (Me, I’m still trying to learn a regular uni.)
tandom
Absolutely amazing! I can’t wrap my head around turning.
Great job Klaus,
and very funny as I also know the area of the film pretty well.
If you need an enthusiastic beginner as a second man around munic or the alps, just tell me. 
I’ve been riding such tandem, but the BB’s were below the wheels center, and we would be seated facing. In that position holding eachothers upperarms was the key for sufficient communication to be able to ride for a few revolutions after about as many attempts.
Help
Mine is made from the rear halves (seatpost back) of two old girls schwinns, with horizontal dropouts. That is what was available back when I was a young man. You can see it in my album just click on my name and you sill be directed there.
Lobbybopster
some tandem unicycle details
ok, I put some pictures of construction details online:
Very nice, thanks for posting.
I like that you used a motorcycle wheel. Makes sense for the added weight. 