Hi all…
I have been unicycling for about 6 months now… I learnt on a 20" Tawainese
unicycle which was built for someone considerably smaller than myself, currently
6’3" and a bit… Feeling somewhat addicted after being able to ride
(relatively) comfortably, I decided to buy a 24" uni of my own…
I purchased a 24" Tawainese uni which was considerably taller - that is, it had
an excellent seat post which I could extend far beyond that of anything that
seemed intuitively safe. It lasted for about 2 weeks before I welded the crank
to the axle - it had cotter pins which constantly caused me a great amount of
frustration - and consequently resulted in the demise of the axle. It snapped
just near the weld after some heavy duty riding…
My next purchase was a home made 7’ uni (some bicycle making dude from around
Brisbane) which needed a little bit of work. Man, riding that thing for the
first time was just awesome! After a couple of minutes of sitting on it resting
my arm on the roof of my parents house, I took (what I first thought was going
to be a suicidal lunge) a casual ride up the length of the driveway… After
much deliberation that week, I decided that I would launch an assault on a local
mountain - about 5km of steep winding road, with periodic bus loads of people
laughing as I strained, and wobbled my way up to the top…
Having found myself attending a conference in Singapore recently (sans
unicycle), and contemplating a three week backpacking (whirlwind) tour of
Malaysia and Thailand, I decided that I should buy a unicycle to tour around
on… To my amazement, I found a 16" uni with an insanely small seat pole - I
mean, I had to double myself up, while holding onto two counters just to sit on
the thing, let alone ride it anywhere… I even contemplated buying it
(although, touring on a 16" uni … need I say more?! :). A few days later,
being somewhat hungover after the conference banquet, I happened to chance upon
south-east asia’s only other uni - a 24" Tawainese SEM imitation for S$160… To
my dismay, it was again way TOO small 
(and no chance at all of extending the
seat to a respectable height…)
On arriving home after a month of freedom, I found it hard to settle back into
the stress of working and tutoring etc… again. I did get organised though, and
a friend and I finally ordered SEMCYCLE’s - in Australia, fully expensive. They
arrived after a couple of long days; we assembled them and to my horror… yeah
you guessed it.
It all ended well though, and we just received the EXTENDED seat poles -
albeit secondhand extended seat poles… (I still have to have them on the
ultra high notch 
Sometime soon, I plan to build a 5’ uni with gears - from what I understand,
this may be an exercise in futility, however, I will have a uni that will fit my
long legs! … I also have a friend going to Japan in a few weeks, and I am
thinking Miyata, although this may seem a little excessive after just recently
spending a small fortune on my SEM.
Just out of interest, for those that ride a Miyata giraffe, how do they rate?
Cheers, jason