I really like the hand shifting idea
That is a really neat setup if a little ’ Heath-Robinson’
I had thought about some wireless reciever servo setup. Based inside a milled out crank
Shifting at the push of a button. Mmmmmmmm
But unfortunately well beyond my mechanical skills to prototype one.
Any way. Was dreaming and thinking about shortcuts around the problem. When what I really needed was practice
Doing better at the shifting now. At 150mm. But with the change to 125 I’m back to fallin off all the time
Practice practice practice. Fun fun fun
Yeah, that struck me as the worst promo video ever.
It also looks like the riders are coming pretty close to having pedal strikes, just turning on a flat floor. A pedal strike at speed is not a fun thing. Road camber might not even be rideable on the Huni-rex.
I definitely agree with this. I recently joined the road (bike) racing team at school for the same reasons that I ride a guni. I like going fast and I like pushing hard, both reasons I ride a guni. On a ungeared 36, I feel like I can’t actually work my muscles hard enough to be satisfied after a ride (unless I’m doing a ton of climbing, which is scarce around here). Note that I ride my ungeared 36 every day to class, but that is less than a mile each way. I love the feel of a single-speed uni and maneuvering through the throngs of students is super fun. However, I enjoy the ungeared 36 for that sort of challenge and not the athletic one.
Also, since the end of Unicon, my hub has been built into my 26" muni. It allowed me and Mark Lavis (napalm) to complete a freaking amazing muni tour in the Swiss Alps that would not have been possible on a single-speed. The ability to ride technical terrain but also cover good distance on the easy trails and roads was perfect. I love the way that a geared muni can take a trail that is monotonous on a ungeared muni and turn it into a total challenge and adrenaline rush.
I live in an apartment up at school. I have a trials, 2 20", a 24" (just sold), a 26", a 29", 2 36ers, and a road bike, plus two huge tubs of parts. I keep the small unis under the bed with the tubs of parts, the munis in my car, and my 36ers and bike (disassembled) in the laundry closet. I’m sure your space is very tight but you would be surprised what you can do. Last year I was in a tiny dorm room. I lofted my bed and kept 7 unicycles underneath - I had to rig up quite the rack to make them all accessible, but it can work.
Ungunis are awesome, just like Unicycles and clean Underwear.
Ungunis are awesome, just like Unicycles and clean Underwear.
Ungunis are awesome, just like Unicycles and clean Underwear.
It was somewhere in the Schlumpf thread, folks felt like it was a step backwards, also it would still be heavy and expensive, so the concensus was why not just get a guni.
I’d like a downshit hub on my 36" for climbing and steep tech descents, I really have no need for a taller gear on my 36er since I only ride off road, but to have a fixed downgeared hub would be worthless since I already ride most everything in 1:1.
Yup, still picking the feathers outta my teeth on that one
Maybe this is the tar and feathers issue, but if you want two gears, why not go with a lighter 24/26/29 guni? I’m generally in agreement with you about using the 36 off road, but it doesn’t seem to make sense to downgear a heavy wheel, when you can upgear a lighter wheel to achieve essentially the same overall effect.
That’s exactly my thinking. My G26er in 1:1 climbs like a regular 26er, except it’s a bit heavier, which I’m used to now. Actually the weight of my GUni setup is probably about the same as a non-GUni 26er that uses a heavy duro 3.0, since I use a much lighter 2.25 folding bead. And in high it’s faster than my 36er is offroad, and much more efficient and practical for climbs than a 36er. Having said that, a standard 36er in MUni-mode is still a hoot to ride offroad, and you don’t have to worry about shifting, or the sometimes “awkward” sensation of pushing a heavy gear, where the wheel is always trying to get ahead of you!
I spent half a day riding off road 36ers with Jan back before Unicon. We rode nice sandy single track and open hardpack fire trails through the forrest adjacent to the coasr. He was changing gears up and down as simple and quick as you do on a MTB. He also rides 125mm cranks, and was considering changing the pedals to the 110mm hole. I was on my 36er guni with 137mm cranks, and Lars from unisalg.dk was on his UNGUNI (happy Ken?) with 114mm cranks. By the end of the ride there were bit where each unicycle was best suited to the terrain, but the biggest factor was still the riders skill level (to which Lars the mountain goat clearly had the most of)…
Wow, that sounds like a ton of fun.
I didn’t mean to imply that the uni or rider couldn’t ride off road. I’m just wondering about the durability of the shifting setup if the uni took many hard falls on rocks, etc.
Interesting point - from all the comments about it making for a really heavy uni I was assuming it was extremely heavy, but checking the specs it’s only actually ~800g heavier than a standard ISIS hub. As you say, that’s less than the difference between a heavy and light tyre - given a suitably light setup you could easily make a guni lighter than the standard Nimbus ones people ride around on without thinking “this is heavy” - even my one which I have a light tyre on. I do remember thinking mine was a bit heavy when I had the Duro tyre on, but not all that awful - could still hop it etc. - and I’d happily trade that off for a high gear.
It’s more the bearings. My 26" Schlumpf (before I owned it) lasted one ride on a muddy race before the bearings packed up, and then it had to be unbuilt (biggest waste of time ever), and shipped to Switzerland, and came back several months later.
The hub on my 36" lasted less than 2000-3000km before it broke and I had to replace it.
Absolutely. The mechanism is so much simpler! Also from the photos, it appears to be very solidly built. No comparison to a Schlumpf in the amount of moving parts, or need to ship it back to the manufacturer if something goes wrong with the drivetrain.
The cable shifting setup was quite complex in itself, and even the maker admitted it was a “kludge” (my word; not his). Schlumpf are complicated enough in the first place. And yes, I stand corrected; I’m pretty sure it was Denmark, not Netherlands.
That is not to say I wouldn’t buy the thing if it were offered for sale!
I haven’t ridden one of those, but I’ve ridden unicycles with upgearing before. They work. This one is different in that the pedal axle is below the wheel axle, which creates that pedal strike issue. Not sure how much that would affect you for place-to-place riding, but you would definitely have to limit how hard you turn.
In the video, you have the same problem many manufacturers have; no Unicon or EUC handy to provide you with a pool of skilled unicyclists. So you end up with mostly people who are new to it, and haven’t mastered the thing yet.
Basically the lack of a low gear. So in the right situations, no problem at all. Plus the mechanics would again be simpler than a Schlumpf. But on a 36" wheel? It would only work until you got to your first hill of any steepness. Then you’d be walking. For a geared MUni, you’d be walking the technical sections.
For the same reason a lot of XC MTBkers are going with 29" instead of 26". It rolls over stuff easier, and has more traction because of a bigger contact patch.
The only difference with unicycling is that on smaller wheel sizes (26" or 29"), we are essentially using bicycle technology, which is lighter, stronger, and have far more choices than a 36" wheel, which is unicycle specific.
If you managed to build a 36" wheel with similar spec to a 29" mountainbike wheel, then it could work. Or even to a road spec. I’d love to have a carbon fibre tubeless 36" wheel with slick, kevlar beaded racing tyres.
It’s a shame- I’ve be very into seeing how it moves when ridden by someone who’s experienced on it.
Personally I wouldn’t want it on a 36-er: I’ve concluded that for the type of riding I do, even an ungeared 36-er isn’t practical, due to the hills (at least without cranks longer than 150 (for the uphills) and/or a brake (for the downhills).
I was thinking more of a 24/26" so it would basically be a general purpose uni for commuting, that has more speed than other small wheels, but without the issues of a 36" (storage, safety etc).
Having seen the vid of that unicyclist on the 24/26" schlumpf riding a trail fast and looking very much in control, I was wondering if the huni-rex could acheive a similar flow, without the downsides of the schlumpf?
I realised yesterday that there’s another crank issue- the huni-rex comes with 125mm cranks, and, given the problems with pedal strikes, it’s clearly not going to be an option to install my favoured length of 150mm.
No way is it going to work on the hills round here, with 125s.
