Just wondered what’s the furthest anyone’s ridden a UW? And how super fit do you need to be to ride it a decent distance?
My uni skills improved tremendously after I started doing the ~1 mile commute to work and back. Once I’ve got the hang of the BC (noooo, I won’t be riding that to work!) I’d like to get a UW from unicycle.com and thought it’d be cool to trundle around town on it. It’d be way cool if I could actually use it to get places.
Is that top speed sustainable, or do you have to sprint? Sounds really fast, anyhow 36" is HUGE - I’ve seen pictures of those things occasionally (maybe it was yours…). I suspect I’d go for 28" - I’ve heard moderately large wheels are better for beginners.
All sounds reasonably promising, although I’m sure you’re way fitter than myself. Maybe I’ll start off by riding it to the cake shop round the corner - the best kind of exercise
anything over 28 you have to design yourself
up until 36, the more fun they are (for me at least), the easier they are to get up to speed, and the more sustainable top speeds are
once i mastered the 36, i immediately sold my only other, the 24.
i would recommend the 28 for the best mass produced version available, but just like unicycles, a 28 is merely a big 24, and will never be anything like a 36
that top speed was not really attainable (with the practice i put in…) but 14 or so definetly is
Brian,
That 36"UW looks fantastic. Did you build it yourself ? If so, do you have any hints/tips/plans for the construction ? I have a discarded steel Coker rim and was considering building a 36"UW.
i designed it, the club welder welded it. the rigid frame keeps the whole UW solid, but there is slight warp between each ‘spoke’ (but those will never get any more warped as the frame is completely solid)
my ‘cranks’ are set at 165mm and i think this measurement works perfectly (i just welded crank tips to the cross bars to hold in the pedals. the bars are 3/4" steel tubing. we made the frame larger than the rim, laid the rim down, and then marked/cut the frame and welded it on. (pulling and holding the rim to the each bar to make sure the weld was centered)
while any design would probably work, the big holes i have in the design (coincentally) make it great for over the shoulder carrying. this would be very awkward to transport if i couldn’t ‘sling’ it.
this is a great way to keep your discarded coker rim alive and kicking!
it’s really really fun…if you can appreciate the excitement of a coker over a muni, this is the same thing
pm me if you decide to build one and need some sort of instructions
36" is HUGE - I’ve seen pictures of those things occasionally (maybe it was yours…). I suspect I’d go for 28" - I’ve heard moderately large wheels are better for beginners.