Centennial Park, Sydney. Inner East, about 3 km from the CBD.
There is a 3.7km loop road around the perimeter of the parklands. One of the two lanes is a dedicated bike lane and cars can travel one way only on the other lane. My new favourite unicycling location.
Really interesting to feel my upper leg muscles working hard and left hip fatiguing when travelling at constant high rpm for me (115rpm) for 11-12 minutes.
Also realise I have set my aero bars/ elbow rests at the lowest position, where I have to be aware to keep head up and seated posture with engaged hips otherwise I feel the lower back is “complaining”.
No. Most Americans are helplessly tied to the imperial system. However, longer distances are not unfamiliar, particularly when it comes to cycling and running. I’d say a good number of Americans have an idea of what 10K is (after converting it into their heads into miles), but would be hopelessly lost if someone said they were 1.82m tall (myself included).
I used Km in my post because I’ve been riding on an Olympic style track, so meters are easily accessible to me. If I had gone another 600m, I would have mentioned that I went a mile. Hope this helps!
Rough calculation of rpm. Please let me know if I messed up the calculation.
Distance traveled. = 3700m
36” wheel circumference 2.75m
Number of revolutions of wheel to cover 3700m = 3700/2.75
=1345 revolutions
At 21 km/hr ave speed, it takes 10.5 minutes to cover 3700m
60min/10.5min =5.714
3.7km (in 10.5min) x 5.714 = 21.14km/hr
1345 (rev in 10.5min) x 5.714 =7685 rev/hr
7685 revs per hr / 60 = rev per minute
=128rpm
Following on from that I’m just calculating that if I can spin the pedals on a 36” unicycle at 128rpm with a schlumpf hub, then the distance travelled per revolution is 1.5 x 2.75 m = 4.125m
4.125m x 128rpm = 528m/min = 3168m/hr =31.68km/hr = 19.685 miles/hr… might be wearing the big skateboarding knee pads for that when the time comes.
To the schlumpf hub owners, am I missing something. Is there more friction with Schlumpf hubs that make it harder to “spin”
At that point, wind resistance comes in quite heavily (even on a roadbike with a much more aerodynamic position than a unicycle), the difference between 25 and 30 km/h is very significant. There is friction in Schlumpf hubs, but that really is not the dominant effect versus the aerodynamic losses. While riding a ungeared 36" is mostly about the skill of pedaling fast and less your aerobic fitness, on a geared 36" I think the aerobic fitness starts to actually become a real factor.
(Also you can save a lot of math by calculating the same thing with 21*1.5=31.5 ..)
Oh yeah, bring it on! Still waiting for my schlumpf hub. I’m thinking about doing a full rebuild and keep my KH36 intact.
Even thinking of asking Jakob of Flanberrium to build me the V frame he made previously, if that is possible. I am getting more and more comfortable with a semi aero position with elbow pads same level as seat. I am even cornering at intersections with elbows on aero bars. I just enjoy riding that way.
Just commuted to work today for first time with 127mm Crank length and was pleasantly surprised to climb the 2 hills I thought I couldn’t with shorter crank length. Found I just needed to lean forward more using the aero bars as a controller for the amount of lean. And standing up on the pedals too.
To work, averaged 12.9km/hr, coming home, Averaged 13.5/hr for 13.7km each way, elevation gain 155m. My intention is to do that 3 days a week. Mon wed fri
Have you thought about using an old school bike speedo with the magnet and sensor. You could mount the magnet on a spoke, sensor on the frame leg and display somewhere out of legs way like on handle bars if you run them.
When you set them up you have to input tyre circumfrence to convert into speed but if you put it in as say 1000,100,10 or 1 depending on how many digits Speedo wants then you will have a rpm reading which would be live.
Had three separate very relaxed idling breaks over a 3km trail while the pups were doing their business.
Being able to look down the trail, sideways to the dogs, or below at my wheel all while being smooth, controlled, and relaxed.
I came close to biting it when my tire slid out on a wet boardwalk and I barely ran it out.
I’m still taking the ride as a win.
That’s not exactly true, by doing that you would rph (if you set one, you would get mrph). You should set it at 17.7 (1000/60), so you would get rpm. And you would need a sensor set in metrics unit, if you use the imperial system, you would have to do more conversion.
I was starting to wonder if I would ever see this day. Today I was able to ride a few feet, without hanging on to the chain link fence. Two or three times I might add!
I will typically use metric measure if I’m talking with people that aren’t American, Canadian or British. I’m not quite as fluent in metric as I am in imperial, but I’m pretty close. It’s just a matter of being understood. I’m pretty sure cycling enthusiasts have a good idea of imperial wheel sizes, but distances in miles, feet or inches or weight in lbs are only likely to create confusion.
Even amongst different native users of imperial measure there can be plenty of confusion. Americans don’t use stone for weight. So if someone tells us their wife weighs 20 stone, well that seems like way less than 150 lbs so she’s probably pretty slim. Also, US volume measurements are smaller. A US gallon is smaller than an imperial gallon.
So, as a Canadian, I think we have a very mixed up set of understanding measurement systems. We should all know metric since it was introduced and made law in 1976, however. I found the following chart from a Reddit user which pretty much sums it up:
been working on different balance tricks to sharpen my skills for muni and some other minor tricks just for fun and today I made some big steps forward. let me say my idea of muni and the real meaning are not the same for me light to medium trails is prob the best I will ever get to but I get excited when I make these improvements. so any way I have been practicing hopping without holding anything with my hands. until today the best I could do was come to a stop and stand and hop 1/4 turn in either direction and from either foot forward, BUT today I was just about 4 inches from a full 180 hop with no hands, a few times
next thing I have been working on is riding forward and do a rolling hop with a 1/4 turn, land, stall, make a hard 90 deg. twist backwards and ride backwards, then while riding backwards hop 1/4 turn, land, stall… and that’s as far as I got so far, still need to work on getting my balance to make that hard 90 deg twist and ride forward out of it.
for me light to medium trails is prob the best I will ever get to but I get excited when I make these improvements. so any way I have been practicing hopping without holding anything with my hands. until today the best I could do was come to a stop and stand and hop 1/4 turn in either direction and from either foot forward, BUT today I was just about 4 inches from a full 180 hop with no hands, a few times