I have a few questions about tires, just recently got a unicycle and I use to commute by bike twice a week.
I’m 150lbs. I’m going with the hookworm 26" tire because I’ll mostly do streets.
For hopping and drops, I read around that people have their tire pressure low but I was wondering about that. First off, they say put enough pressure so you can still be springy but not enough so your rim will hit when you land from a drop. But since you’re on a unicycle and you’re jumping and dropping down 2-3ft, how do you actually tell if your rims are hitting the ground without actually damaging it before you can tell? I would also think that a higher drop would cause your tires to give way even more and rims going down more. How do you inspect your tire to make sure it has enough pressure for your ride but not low enough to damage the rim - your inspection procedure.
What about the tire’s own minimum psi number? In connection to number 2. Like on my torker with the kenda tires, it says 40psi is the minimum, would I ignore that number if I want to do a little trials (for the sake of the example, the uni can withstand it)?
To find your ideal pressure for jumping and dropping etc start with the tire harder than necessary then keep lowering it until you feel the tire is less stable or you are starting to get rim strikes, then add a bit more air.
You can safely ignore the minimum PSI value on the tire.
Yeah about the rim strikes, if it does strike, especially on pavement/cement, wouldn’t that have damaged your rim then? And what if a 1ft drop won’t cause it to strike but a 2ft drop does (am I right to assume that a bigger drop would cause the rims to reach even closer to the ground?)
Or is it something you just have to risk in order to find the right psi for that tire.
Probably making a big deal about a small thing, I’m just a bit too cautious I suppose, I’m just prone to frustration/stress when things go wrong and I have to troubleshoot and get it fixed.
EDIT—Oh yeah I was wondering since you guys said ignore the psi minimums on the tire, what about the maximum and about how far can you exceed it until it is bad?
If you start at 25 psi, and find that too hard, then drop it to something like 5 psi, then yeah, you’ll probably hit your rim hard and FUBAR it. But if you drop your psi a bit at a time until your either happy with the pressure, or you can feel your rim just starting to hit (and then go back up a couple psi until you don’t), you’ll be fine. Rims can take a fair amount of abuse.
Yes, a bigger drop means you will need to run higher pressure, since you’ll have more force coming down on the wheel.
As far as max psi’s go, I would think you’d be fine within 5 or so psi, but I’d generally try to stay under that. That’s just me though.
For me, I hop on it and feel a good bounce to know that my pressure is right. But I’m a pretty light guy so tires feel a bit too soft with too little pressure
I just feel a bit off holding with my main right hand. And…I forgot to add the S after hand and wrist. I fell in the pushup position, but my left arm has been hurting the most. I’m trying to gather enough couch change to get me a Harbinger workout glove with wrist wrap.
Okay, I have questions about tire changing. Been looking up on a few youtube videos about it. Haven’t changed a bike tire before since I ride but not that much.
I hear a lot about avoid pinching tires or something, can someone describe what this means? I think I have vague idea but not too sure. I heard of pinched flats, but I’m guessing unicycle double wall rims don’t have that issue?
I got the oracle and it’s coming with the duro wildlife 26x3 and I’m guessing the inner tube is the heavy duty 3" one as well. I also bought the hookworm 26x2.5", I’m not sure if it comes with its own inner tube but if not, will the duro be okay? I was planning to take off the duro tire, keep the inner tube and just switch it with the hookworm. I plan to do a bit of hopping and jumps so the heavy duty is alright (but mostly do road riding as commute/messing around).
Anything you think I should watch out for? The only thing I seem to notice is to not pinch the tires and inner tube, rotate to see if there’s any unevenness to the tire, pump it up and see if the side wall where the tire meets the rim is even…is what I got so far from the videos.
When changing tires, be careful not to pinch the tube with your tire levers (if you’re using them) and putting a hole in the tube.
The Duro tube will be fine with the Hookworm as would be nearly any 26" tube.
I put my tube in and mount my tire, inflate to about 10 psi, then walk the tire while pushing down on the tread to make sure the beads are pushed in all the way and seated. Then I deflate all the way, and inflate to the pressure I want. Make sure your valve stem is in straight. I’ve ripped of waaaay to many valve stems becuase I trying to force them straight with air in the tire.
