Greetings,
I’ve often read on rsu about the desire many MUni riders have for a fat
3.0 Gazz tire, but I see that a 2.6 tire is offered on many models of
mountain unicycles. I am wondering who is using the smaller tires and
whether or not they feel such a tire provides a benefit particular to
their style of MUni riding?
Cheers,
Jason
I use a 1.75 size and i have never had any problems where it would have been better to be big.
-Eric
I think the reason there are so many models with 2.6 tires is that until very recently, there where no cheap frames with the clearance for a 3" tire. Now that the Yuni MUni is available, I think most of the ones with 2.6 tires are out of date. The one exception to this is if you are more interested in cross country riding, in which case you might want a 26x2.6. Personally, if I were going to build a cross country machine I would use a 29x2.1, but some may prefer the 26. I can’t think of any advantages the 24x2.6 would have over a 24x3. That’s not to say that it isn’t a perfectly good size for most terrain, just that its not really ideal for anything.
Ben
Let me guess, you dont do 2+ foot drops?
Let me guess also that Catboy has little or no experience riding a fatter tire on trails? But then he would be spoiled.
I think most of us, at least us “old timers,” started out on 1.75 or otherwise “regular” unicycle tires. I didn’t get something wider until I built my first MUni in 1996, and even then I frequently had to fall back to my trusty 24" Miyata.
But when I got my DM ATU with 2.6" tire in 1999, the world changed. Trails that were barely rideable became easy. Stuff I couldn’t do before became doable. All the trails I rode got knocked down a notch in difficulty!
And I rode my 2.6," and I enjoyed it. Until this year, I really didn’t think too much about how big a difference it would be from 2.6 to 3.0. But I found out for sure when I got my Steve Howard prototype. The same thing happened. Hard trails became easy, and impossible trails became rideable.
Now I’m spoiled on the 3" Gazz, but I don’t have one! Still waiting for the red Wilder frames for my next MUni.
As Ben said, 3" tires used to be more limited in that they didn’t fit many frames. More frames are now wide enough, so you have that option. But they also tend to be heavier, and the 3" Gazz is very heavy. If you don’t need all that tire, you save a lot of weight by using something less fat.
But the 3" tire definitely eats up more terrain than a smaller one, and I can’t wait to get my next one!
Stay on top,
Actually i do drop much higher than 2 feet and i dont see how my tyre would affect that at all. i recently do about 4.5 ft drops and dont have any irregular problems.
I popped on Ted the Wonder Boy’s ™ 24x2.6 Gazz while on a past trip to vist the MUC -and I liked it alot.
Unless you haven’t noticed, 3" Gazz’es are tanks. HEAVY. The 2.6 is more responcive, making it better for transitional riding where you might have mixed urban/trails/off-road.
True, the old saying ‘Jack of all trades, master of None’ applies, still, the versitility is appetizing. It has high enough volume to be good in a hop, while being light enough to do alot of hopping. Until we see a high volume slick or semi-slick (which the 2.5 Hookworm might fill- I’ll let you know when mine arrives), the 2.6 Gazz is a good substatute. It’s easyer to keep up with the pack on lighter riding with the considerably lower rolling resistance (compared to the 3"), especialy on concrete.
It has a place; depending on the ride, it might be the first choice.
-Christopher
Re: Tire sizes for MUni
When I started we were on 26x2.1" tires and later 2.35" tires. But then soon
after (this was early 1999), we switched to the 24x3 Gazz and never looked
back. Having used both, I can’t imagine not having my fat tire. I would
probably take up freestyle or something if I ran out of 24x3 tires. Luckily
I have a large stash and that won’t happen any time soon!
—Nathan
“Jason” <nospam@nospam.no.no.no> wrote in message
news:3DC3005F.682DEB3D@nospam.no.no.no…
> Greetings,
>
> I’ve often read on rsu about the desire many MUni riders have for a fat
> 3.0 Gazz tire, but I see that a 2.6 tire is offered on many models of
> mountain unicycles. I am wondering who is using the smaller tires and
> whether or not they feel such a tire provides a benefit particular to
> their style of MUni riding?
>
>
> Cheers,
>
> Jason
I also put a cheap 1.75 knobby on my first unicycle for muni. It worked OK. But them i tried the gazz and the arrow racing savage,(I have the savage, my riding buddy has a gazz). Where i ride, there are some serious rock beds, and with a 1.75 that i had on my old uni, i didnt stand a chance of making it through there. Now, with the savage, i plow through there like none other, except last time where i went to fast and UPD and hit a rock, but thats a different story. Try a 3 inch tire, and then say you like the 1.75, if you truly do.
Enough rambling
Scott
The advantage for a 3" tire for dropping is that it sucks up downward energy and makes it so less damage is done to the crankset )pedals in my case(.
4.5’ seems pretty huge to me for a tyre that size. Surely if you had a 3" it’d soften the landing heaps and you could do even bigger drops without hurting yourself.
On a slightly different topic, has anyone tried skidding on a unicycle? I’ve only gone muniing once one the 20" that I’ve got now. I’ve recently got a new 2.1" tyre but it’s a cheap unicycle and it used to have a 1.75" tyre with no grip. I was going down a slippery fire trail and I skidded quite a few times for about 20cm and kept going. I diidn’t actually plan to skin but I stayed on and it was really fun! You should give it a try if you’ve got a tyre with no grip.
Andrew
Just watch the George Peck video once and you’ll see that a fat tire is not necessary to ride any kind of terrain or to do any kind of hops or jumps (large drops not sure about). The key thing is that one’s style must change. Skinny tires take a lot more technique, that’s all.
I’m not talking about overall speed through a course, just riding a course or section with the intent of “cleaning” it.
Loose, deep sand and skinny rails (the rails are not MUni, anyway) may be an exception.
But don’t watch it just once… watch it again and again.
I dont skid much, but i would imagine it happens a lot in icy conditions, or in iced over ponds lakes, river, whatever, especially with a slick tire. The only problem is when you want to leave 
in regards to what andrew_carter said about skids, i have done that. sideways is way fun. i got a new tire. ive got a 1.9x20 kenda kontact tire. it seems pretty good for most things that im doing. i ride mostly urban stuff and its an ok off road tire, but mostly a street one. i used to ahve a wussy little cheap 1.75x20 wimpy street tire and it sucked. i always skidded. it was quite amusing, but not useful.
hi
it would make sense to have a fatter tire because it would be easier to to ridealongs then to have a skinny tire right??? 