This revived thread is giving us another reminder about “never say never”. Mikefule now rides with 165s.
I hope I never said I would never use the unicyclist.com website for posting. I may have felt that way in my “newsgroup days”, but now I’ve given up.
Klaas Bil
Q is the distance between the pedal parallel to the axle, cran that splay out more will have a higher Q so there is less chance of your heel contacting the crank as it comes round. Tractoring is when you ascend a hill more or less half a revolution at a time, so long crank length is very important as you require all the force you can muster.
Very Interesting.
I found this thread to be very interesting. I want to thank everyone for the good input. I ride a KH24 with 165mm cranks. I ride sometimes with a friend who is 15 years younger than me, (I am 35) and a little bit more skilled in specialty riding. (He can wheel walk some and ride one footed.) He rides a Semcycle 24 with 140mm cranks. In sprints he puts me to shame! However we love riding technical single trails and he is always UPDing with the shorter cranks and walking up hills that I climb no sweat. He wants to get 150mm cranks but Israeli soldier salary is $150 a month so he will have to wait.
Kris Holm always used 165s until he put a break on his MUni. Only then did he switch to 150s. I myself am sticking witht he 165s since I love the tough rugged terrain. Also I don’t like having a break on my Muni.
Unicorn
I’m still using the 150s on my 26x3" muni. I don’t think I’d want to use anything shorter for my riding (there’s a fair amount of very rocky stuff and a few steep hills on my usual routes) but I have no intention of going back to longer ones either. I’ve become a big fan of 150s, they’re a good combination of “spinability” and control on this size wheel.
EDIT: I don’t use a brake by the way.
Rob
Awesome. thanks for the many helpful responses. I’m with Unicorn in that this thread has been quite helpful and interesting. I’ll have to post my experiences with shorter cranks or a new wheelset (whichever I end up going with) whenever I get it ordered. Thanks!