Well, today we were toying with a set up that would work well on off-road trails that are not as knarly as MUni routes but definitely not the same as street riding. We came up with some possible combos like my Yuni frame with a 24 inch Stout tire on a Alex DX32 rim, Suzue hub, 140 mm cranks and light pin pedals. This uni could be riden more quickly on trails than a 150 crank uni with a Gazz tire, say, but the knobby Stout would still provide good traction and koosh and rim and hub are plenty strong for the occasional hop and drop.
My uni pal tried out a 24 inch Maxxis type tire on a Bedford frame with a slightly narrower rim than my Alex rim but she found that this tire, with its narrower profile and softer sidewalls needed higher air pressure than my Stout and offered nimble but less than cushy ride. Her combo was fine on packed trails but not as comfortable when we encountered moderate rock gardens and roots.
We are still fine tuning and look forward to hearing from other riders who ride hard-core ‘gentle-off-road-trails’ (as opposed to hard core MUni).
Yes, we want to hear from other ‘trails unicycle’…
Erin, since I just replaced the frame on my Yuni Muni (check it out on my thread), I plan on doing something similar. I’ve got another 24" wheelset that is equipped with a 2.1 inch knobby and a unicycle.com wide hub. It will be going on my 26" Yuni frame, but I still haven’t decided on crank length yet
I have a TRUni but didn’t know it until now. It’s a 29’er with Sun Rhynolite rim, IRC Notos tire, 170mm cranks and pinned pedals. I ride it on double track dirt and gravel as well as relatively smooth single track. My “real” MUni with 24 x 3.0 Gazz is the way to go for rocky, gnarly stuff, of course, but the 29’er is fun when I want to cover some ground. I like to ride a 10 mile loop that’s a combination of dirt double track, single track, gravel road and paved road.
This setup isn’t ideal though; I usually run 35-40 psi in the Notos to give it some cush but drops are almost out of the question since the tire will fold over easily. More pressure is bone jarring and hard to ride through rock gardens. Even though the Sun rim is wide for a 700c, it’s not anything like a DX32.
I wonder if 26" wouldn’t make the best TRUni? There’s a huge selection of 26" tires out there. Seems like a Gazz 26 x 2.6 (with it’s stiff sidewalls), DX32 rim and 140mm cranks would work really well for this kind of riding.
Wow, those are pretty long cranks for the type of riding we are talking about. Is that a conscious choice or just what you happened to have at hand for this particular set up?
Yeah, good suggestion about the 26 inch wheel for a TRUni. You have a good point there as we have tried the 29’er on trails but it does seem a bit too big and yet it would be nice to have a little more speed than the 24 inch wheel can deliver. And yes I think a 2.6 Gazz could be a really fun tire to run for trail riding.
Hummm, who do I know who has a 26’er that I can test out as a possible candidate for the ultimate TRUni set up…?!
I’d say it is more demanding than xc; perhaps, like ‘easy MUni’. Not just packed dirt roads but actual trails, sometimes single track, yet without the big drops of MUni and none of the structures sometimes found on MUni routes.
