Yeah, maestro8 (Jason H) is my best uni and climbing buddy – who also came to Vietnam.
corbin
blush
I’m no more an authority on GUNI’s than any of you…
I have a 29’er Schlumpf unicycle…and I’ve always maintained that it’s faster on the flat…because you have to regard it as a 43.5" gear. It’s even faster on slightly hilly terrain.
But the 29" 1:1 mode is not much good on the road unless you have really short cranks (like say 100mm), so you can’t factor that in when considering speed on varied terrain too much. You also have to factor in shifting…which you have to slow down for. Also once you start throwing in hills and varied terrain, then it’s still a higher gear, and often a 36" wins out.
That’s probably why all the fastest riders at UNICON XIV marathon were on ungeared 36’ers. But it suited the terrain. Given a different course, it may well have been different.
Having said that, if the gear ratio on the Schlumpf is a bit closer (eg 1:1.25 and 1:1.5), then I would think it may be even faster varied terrain.
I like short cranks (= short legs), and find it more comfortable to ride. If I ride for the length of time on a unicycle as on my bike…I’m definitely more tired after riding the bike. My toughest ride was a double century on the bike with 3200m of climbing…it’s way harder than almost anything I’d done on one wheel.
I’m back down to riding my ungeared 29’er with 100mm cranks. It’s fun to go back to something lightweight and simple 
Ken
My thoughts exactly. Didn’t see your post
Wow! That’s a lot to take in. And people wonder why we have so many unicycles 
I guess as more people ride geared 36"ers, there will be much more information.
I guess for a point-to-point 2000km ride, a geared 36" looks to be a good choice. Climbing can be done on the smaller gear. From watching other unicyclists, some have a natural faster cadence and some do not. I figure I go as fast on 125mm cranks when compared to the 110s (unless I concentrate harder on spinning faster). So, the opposing views on crank lengths do make sense.
And for a general multi-purpose tour (city, offroad, road, hills etc), a geared 29" offers more versatility. Gunis are definitely the future as they just give you more options.
Thanks for the input. And thanks for the thoughts on unsupported touring too (ya carrying 4kgs is defintely better and more fun than 20kgs).
More research and more questions to come… 
I’m glad that a consensus seems to be forming; that a 1:1 gear ratio (I prefer to call it direct-drive) is what works on hills. I’ve found that even with long cranks on my gunis, that the effect of an upslope or downslope is magnified with an overdrive, as opposed to shorter cranks on a direct drive.
If the terrain is fairly even, though, gunis rule. The few great riders who can maintain high cadences on a direct-drive to get their speed may or may not want to get the same speed with lower their cadences on a guni. But I do. And I thnk most riders would. It’s not so much important to exceed 20mph, as it is to have a more comfortable and sustainable cruise at 15.
So when a hill arrives, the solution is to kick it down into direct drive!
My dream touring unicycle
I can’t wait to join the world of GUNI! Here are the specs of the my new 36er:
(Sorry to pete that I didn’t but the Florian Green…at $1500 it is an amazing deal)
Wheel set
- Nimbus stealth pro rim
-14 g stainless spokes
-KH/Schlumpf hub
-Nightrider tire
Cranks
-Lightweight Qu-Ax ISIS cranks (165s to start with)
-Wellgo M1 pedals
Frame
-Triton Sponge Titanium 36er w/ magura bosses (6-8 weeks!
)
Seat
-Custom Wallis design carbon fiber base dual foam core seat (when Scott can get to it:) )
-Thompson seat post
-KH handle (all I’ve ever used, light and what I like)
Brakes (if I find them necessary)
Magura HS33 (I thought about a drag set-up but I’ve been convinced that this is the way I should go)
My favored style of riding is mountain steeps and fast descents. I’m trying to keep it as light as possible for climbing but with that extra GUNI kick. I also commute 20 miles round trip to work, this hopefully I’ll cut my communting time some. Shame I can’t make the lobster but I’ll post pics.
So far I’ve collected the wheelset. Everything else is on order. I hope this comes together sooner than later so I can stop obsessing and start riding.
Hi osmundo- that sounds like a really nice set up. I am just wondering why you are not going to use a handle like the T7 or similar set up? I have found the t7 to be a really important addition to my 36r. It gives me much more stability for fast riding (something you are sure to be doing in overdrive), comfort and confidence when climbing hills. I have heard mixed opinions about the brake options as well- some riders change back from magura’s to caliper because of the feel of it- and didn’t someone comment about the quality of the braking surface on the stealth pro rims? might effect your decision if you find it.
Anywho, hope it all goes really well. I am looking forward to see what a triton 36r looks like as well so post pics asap!
mark
I just like the KH handle. I have gotten to where I ride with both hands on for both asents and descents. I use it to shift my weight and I feel plenty stable. I don’t feel I need a larger, weightier handle. Perhaps someday I will change my mind, but so far I like just the KH.
I dunno about the T7 handle. I just took mine off, and I don’t really find much difference (except that the unicycle is way lighter than with a t7). There are only two things that annoy me, the first is that the T7 looks more cool, the second is that I don’t really have a handy place to put a bell.
I think the high gear ratios we’re using are mostly so high, that it’s hard to say whether this is an effect of the mechanism of gearing, or just because it’s a high gear though. Even on my 29er with 125s, the high gear is equivalent in leverage to 100mm cranks on a 36. And on the 36" with 165s we’re still talking 105mm crank equivalent leverage, which is pretty short for hilly areas.
Joe
When you pass Beau Hoover on the road, you know you have an equipment advantage. Doing a RTL simulation race from San Francisco to Santa Cruz, Mike Scalisi did just that; after Totally Doable beat Yellow Line Fever down the coastline, Nathan went home and ordered a Schlumpf.
Maybe we would have beaten them on equivalent equipment, but it has been obvious in our experiments that every rider in the Bay Area who’s gotten comfortable on one is faster on a geared uni than he is on a plain 36er. As phlegm notes, this isn’t true in 100% of road conditions; there are some uphills which are too much work to do in the high gear and too slow in the low gear. But over the course of a long ride, it’s been pretty clear that the GUnis are faster.
For unsupported or lightly-supported touring, I would be torn between a geared 29er, and a stock 36er. The geared 29er is easier to transport and manage, and is more versatile. The stock 36er is mechanically simpler and less likely to fail.
In either case, I would use a steel frame, for reliability and repairability.
Riding unsuported
I read of a guy who put two of something like these on his 36, front and rear, plus a camelpack.
W/ the rear rack and backpack (not quite enough storage for him to go unsuported) it was more difficult to make sharp turns, stop suddenly, and freemount, also he had to lean forward more than usual while riding. I don’t remember how it handled when he added the front rack.
I am actually looking at getting a rack for my unicycle like the one you posted. The problem is, however, that all of them have angles. I don’t think anyone makes a straight rack that attaches to a seatpost.
This might not be an issue though because if I used an angled rack, it would just slant down like this \ toward the seat post. This would hopefully allow me to bungee a sleeping bag and sleeping pad on the top and some tools and other heavy things on the bottom with a wedge.
Getting some bulk/weight off my back would help and then all I would need to carry on my back would be 3 liters of water, food, and light weight layers.
I am finalizing my gear for my pittsburgh to dc ride and further unicycle tours this summer. I will make a post when I get everything together.
I hated having a rack on when I tried it, it makes the unicycle handle like a barge, even when unloaded, and once I put 3 kg of junk on it, it was really very bad.
I have ridden with a sleeping bag strapped onto the bottom of my seat at the back. If you strap it tightly with a strap over the seat to stop it falling down, and a strap round the seatpost, you can make it so that it doesn’t wobble, and stays parallel to the seat. It affects handling way less than putting a rack on, I did 150 miles like this no problems.
I think racks and panniers are great on bikes, as they don’t massively affect the handling, but they are way less useful for unicycles, where they typically make the ride suck.
Joe
Last night I bought the Topeak QR Beam RX Beam Rack - E-Type.
It attaches to my seat post and it slants up.
The weight of the rack and a bag on it alone has not really felt that much different. My balance is not thrown off at all with little weight on it, and I am going to try strapping my sleeping bag to it and something underneath it and see how it feels, but so far it seems like it will do the trick. I think the slant of the rack (all seat post mounted racks will slant up on a unicycle seat post) helps with the balance. If it was a straight rack the weight would be further out, but since it is slanted and close to the seat, it really doesn’t seem like it will affect the handling too much. I will take some pictures and test it out in the next few days and report back.
What’s the weight of the rack?
with the side mounts for paniers, it is 545g
I will probably remove the bottom side mounts though and save some weight since I will not be using paniers.
Hey, a random thought, is that no-one has suggested a 24" geared muni. It’d enable touring over proper technical muni, plus you’d be able to do the easy bits at almost coker speed.
Possibly not the right thing for rides with much road, but it’d be great for more remote trips.
Joe
It would indeed make a fantastic unicycle, and there’d be some situations where it would certainly be the best option. But as for The Ultimate Touring Machine? Probably not.
It’s still there on my wish list though.
STM
Joe, this is what we’re looking at for our Panama trip. There are some dirt road sections, and even some regular roads once we hit Panama City proper, and for those, a 1.5 gear-up 24" might be nice. Then there will be gnarly jungle sections and rock canyons where the technical abilities of a 24" muni are the thing to have.
Sounds cool. I did some backcountry rides in new zealand on the geared 29 and i was totally wishing for a smaller wheel on the really technical sections.
Joe