Thanks a lot to John Childs and John Foss for the information on bent rims and
slipping sprockets that I asked about. I’m archiving this stuff on my hard drive
so that I can refer to it next time I need some work done on my unicycles. John
Foss’ story (below) hit home with me because I’ve had similar experiences with
bike shops. I had some work done on my giraffe a couple years ago. The mechanic
at the shop refused to believe that the chain needed as much tension as it did,
and said that I was certain to break it. After explaining to him that I had had
less tension on it and it continually slipped off, he refused to put the final
touches on and tighten it. I took it home and did it myself later. It sounds as
though other unicyclists have gone through the process of trying to educate bike
mechanics just as I have. It can be pretty frustrating. You have to feel sorry
for those guys; they’ll never know what it’s like to ride on one wheel.
As for purchasing a better unicycle, I really have my heart set on one
of those two chained DM giraffes, but all the recent Coker publicity in
OOW and on the newsgroup has me thinking about one of them too.
Anyway, thanks again for the information.
Carl Trachte Morenci, AZ
> > A less drastic way is to use strong RED Loctite. This is the permanent
> > loctite. And then tighten the sprocket on like heck along with a lock ring.
>
> That’s right. I once had a bike shop do this with a batch of six Schwinn
> Giraffes my friend and I had found at a school in Ohio. They were all the
> older kind, with the screwed-on sprocket. But the bike shop second-guessed me
> on the red loctite. “That’s permanent” they thought, so they used green. I
> tested one of the cycles in the parking lot and nearly fell on my butt. I
> marched back inside and told the guy at the counter that I wanted the other
> mechanic, the one that wasn’t colorblind, to put on the red loctite. Tell
> the bike shop we mean red.
>
> That was in a big, reputable bike shop, with lots of mechanics (Brands, in
> Wantagh, NY). Problem is, with something like a unicycle, they always seem to
> assign the doofiest entry-level mechanic because how complicated can a
> unicycle be? The parts should be thoroughly cleaned of grease and dirt before
> assembly, then tightened, as John said “like heck” or better. Sprocket
> tightness is a major safety issue on giraffes.
>
> The lock ring style of screwed-on sprocket is basically defective manufacture.
> Like an old Chevy Corvair, it’s engineering that should never have been
> allowed on the road because it’s simply dangerous. Later models of the Schwinn
> Giraffe had the bottom sprockets attached with three bolts.
>
> Stay on top, John Foss, the Uni-Cyclone http://www.unicycling.com
>
> “It’s never too early to be Friday” - John Foss