Did a search and hundreds of threads came back but did not want to read all to try and find this. Just started unicycling and have 50 hours on a generic 24" x 1.95" Kenda tire. After only 50 hours large areas where the tire is bald and isolated areas where the tire is down to bare thread.
Is this normal after only 50 hours of riding on asphalt and concrete? I’m just learning (longest ride is 4 miles without a UPD) so it’s not like I’m doing anything special?
Then I go to buy a new tire on Unicycle.com and it’s $30 for a 24" x 2.13" but then they want $17 for shipping. Don’t mind the $30 but the shipping seems extremely high.
I depends on your riding style. Beginners often ride with large yaw motions scraping the tyre as they apply pressure on the pedals or pushing the saddle with their thighs.
One trick i use is to rotate the tire 1/8 th of a revolution with respect to the rim. The wear spot will then move away from the “90-degrees with respect to the pedal” spot where wear is usually most severe.
Why not do a web search for the tire you want or go to your local bikeshop and ask if they have a tire that fits? As a beginner it shouldn’t matter too much what tire you get, just make sure that there are no large “corner” knobs on the tire. You want the tire profile to be somewhat round. (As a beginner you probably don’t want large knobs anyhow, come to think of it…)
Unicycle.com is a great website for niche products, but I guess the tires are mostly just stock bicycle tires that happens to be great on a uni.
You can rotate the cranks 1/5 turn every month or so to distribute the wear on tyre and spokes. Been doing this for 3 years and plenty of tread left on both the 2 tyres I’ve used for that time. Maybe your tyre wear is very localised?
With experience your riding will be way smoother and the tyre wear will be less than on one of those two wheeled contraptions that go so fast round corners!
Some tires will wear faster than others. I got a new tire for my trials, I have about 10 hour of riding on it and I can already see it wearing out.
Kenda makes super cheap tires and super good tires. If your’s came stock on a uni it’s probably a super cheap one. Go see your local bike shop, I’m sure they can get something for you. I buy all my tires at my local bikeshop(not that I work there but hey, it’s just closer and they (we) have sweet options…)
There is no better 24 inch unicycle tyre for ordinary riding on hard surfaces than the Maxxis DTH 24 x 1.95
Firstly at about 400 grams, it is not much more than half the weight of the many common 24 inch tyres. Once you have experienced the incredible performance difference this makes you won’t want anything else.
It has a dual compound tread with hard wearing rubber in the middle and softer rubber on the edges for great grip on cornering. Don’t let the surprisingly shallow tread fool you. I have done well over 1000 km on mine and it isn’t near worn out yet.
It does have very thin sidewalls so is not suited to big drops or riding on big sharp rocks but it is fabulous on the road. Having said that, the Maxxis silkworm technology used in the case is surprisingly tough.
New riders are particularly rough on tires because they spend more time torquing the uni left and right to stay up, and less time actually rolling forward.
Anytime I change my cranks (which I do 8-10 times a year on my 36er) I rotate the cranks, ie., take them off and put them on at a different angle.
If you don’t rotate the cranks, you’ll wear through the tire in the hot spots and the rest of the tire will be like new.
Once your skills get better it will not be as much of an issue, but it never goes away 100 percent.
Uneven wear on a tire is normal for a unicycle. For normal riding you will tend to wear the tire more where the pedals are vertical, more so where your dominant foot is down. If you do many more turns to one side you’ll wear the tire more w/ that foot down (eg left foot down for left turns). If you idle more w/ one leg than the other it will wear more w/ that leg down. If you hop a lot, it will wear more w/ the pedals horizontal, more so w/ your preffered foot forward.
One option is rotating your cranks, but I’ve stripped & broken axle bolts partly from repeated tightening. What I do is keep an eye one wear and if I notice a spot wearing more I deflate the tire & w/ it still on the rim turn it 90 degrees or to where the wear is least (my Muni tire that’s REALLY HARD so I take one side off the rim and turn it).
Thanks everyone. Answers were all right on and made sense. It was wear on just two spots. New tire coming and will rotate tire or cranks to give the tire more life. Thanks again.
