I have what I consider great news about uni.5
I rode my usual commute today in near-record time. The 13-mile ride took
just over an hour. What’s so great about that is: This is the same time I
achieved on my Coker. What this means is: I was able to get the same speed
over a great distance with Greg’s amazing little machine as with my
familiar Coker.
Until today, I was afraid I was going to have to report that over a
distance, uni.5 just doesn’t cut it compared to Roger the Coker (with its
4.3" cranks). As it turns out, I just needed more time on Pandora (Dubya,
uni.5).
More evidence: I was able to make it up a very steep hill with Pandora
today on just my third attempt (it took more tries when I switched the
Coker to its shorter cranks). This suggests that a Coker rider just needs
time to get comfortable with Pandora – NOT that Pandora is inferior under
certain circumstances. In my case, these epiphanies came between my 90th
and 100th miles of riding uni.5. So it just takes a LOT of time to master
the differences.
More evidence: I finally raised my max cadence on uni.5. Until today, the
fastest cadence I’d measured was about 145rpm. But this afternoon I just
let it fly, and on two occasions got the rpms up to 165 over a whole
minute (this required a long hill). The flat ground rpm record was 145.
These #s are pretty close to my Coker speeds (where my max cadence on a
hill is about 200rpm). I also finally cracked 7 minutes for the Brooklyn
Bridge (1.4 miles); the fastest I’ve crossed it on my Coker is only a bit
faster (6:30). The important thing is that I was able to maintain a speed
of about 13mph over an entire hour.
Two problems: (1) The cranks on uni.5 are the kind that angle out from the
wheel (is that ‘flanged’?). Given (2) the increased wiggling experienced
when riding a smaller wheel, you need stright cranks bc otherwise you
constantly have to readjust your footing on the pedals. This readjustment
can be scary when you’re heading downhill at 17mph, and that’s partly why
I never went as fast as possible on uni.5. Greg, see if you notice the
difference.
The skinny: uni.5 performs just about as well as a Coker, but it takes
awhile to get comfortable on it. In my case, it took over 90 miles. With
shorter STRAIGHT cranks, uni.5 is probably equal to my Coker in most ways.
Today was my last day of beta-testing uni.5 (tom’w and Sunday I’m letting
club members have a go, so I’ll pass up further rides). I finished with
100 miles (30 of them today).
Thanks again, Greg!
David Stone
Co-founder, Unatics of NY
1st Sunday / 3rd Saturday
@ Central Park Bandshell
1:30 start time after 11/1/01