Update: 100mm pedals!
So despite being winter I’ve been able to ride the 36er to work 3 times a week thus far for January! And I’m getting more proficient with the 125mm cranks, with only a rear dismount for traffic lights or conditions and very rarely a real UPD. Despite winter conditions and usually the necessity to stop once to take off a jacket after about 20 minutes (temps around 0C, 32F), my times have been in the mid 50s for the 16km: 54, 52, 57, 53 minutes.
Monday I had a near-perfect (meaning mount and absolutely no dismount all the way) until a car stopped in front of me at a green light on a steep uphill (manual transmission and he stalled the car) and I had to dismount. Then Tuesday I had a real perfect!! in 52 minutes!:D:D
So then I started thinking again about crank length. A friend gave me some 100mm pedals a while back. At that time I was like, “I’ll never be able to ride those!!”. I looked at some of the threads here and almost everyone was running 125s or 137s on the 36ers… but a few people had 114s and about 2 entries with 100mm on a 36 (plus a crazy one with 74mm!!). So I kept thinking about it, and then Wednesday night about 11pm I decided on a whim: what the heck! I mounted the 100mm pedals, raised the seat accordingly and took a short ride down the street around midnight. I was able to ride away immediately the first time and it felt pretty good, so I decided to try it for the commute. Some time in the night I was thinking how crazy I was but, whatever…
Well, the 16km commute went quite well with the 100mm pedals. Although I was actually a touch slower at 57 minutes, my max speed was 22km/h. On the way to work I did pretty well navigating intersections and I mastered all 3 uphills and 2 big downhills, plus the 180 corner! The slow maneuverung was different with the 100mm pedals but I did all right and felt pretty much in control. However, I went slow, which explains my slower time. And I was cautious as to top speed. So I would say I showed that I could do the commute safely with the 100mm pedals and there is potential to go faster!
The commute home was harder. I think it was a combination of the darkness making it harder (especially mentally) plus the fact that I was tired from work. I had to dismount probably 10 times total and took 73 minutes. But this includes 2 dismounts where I had to walk at least 100m to find a suitable help for remounting, as I was in no condiontion to try the free mount with 100mm pedals, so I didn’t take it as a real setback, but rather the learning process. The only really scary thing is that the seat is SO HIGH. The height difference compared to 127s is considerable and a LOT higher than with 150s (5cm higher!). I think the regular static mount seems daunting at that height, so the rolling mount is probably the way to go. Or, in the last week I first mastered the jump mount for the 19" Trials and then for my 24" Muni, maybe the jump mount is an option?
Anyway, tomorrow I work from home and it’s supposed to get cold again and snow, so I will have a few days to recover and see if I try the 100s again (I think so), or switch back to the 127s… If I were to stay with it and practice, I think sub-50 times should be possible with the 100mm pedals (NOTE: just under a year ago when contemplating a 36er for the commute, 50 minutes was my very optimistic future goal).
With the short cranks I think I used a bunch of different muscles that don’t normally get so much stress in biking and “normal unicycling”. Some muscle in my hips (hip flexor maybe) feels crazy and I can feel muscles in my calves and the bottom of my foot. OK, this is also after 5 straight days of riding, including a Muni and Trials ride on Wednesday… I felt pressure in my knees but I didn’t have the feeling that it was overstressing or really bad for my knees… I’ll have to see how I feel tomorrow.
I read somewhere on another thread that riding the 100s is like floating, and I think that really fits, especially when riding in the darkness. It’s a pretty cool feeling, although I kept having to remind myself it’s not like a dream, as if I have a UPD at 18-21km/h in total darkness it could kind of hurt. Anyway, still enjoying the 36er!!