Unicycle.com and their shamless self promotional logos

General
1

My little sister and I started unicycling just a few months ago. We both purchased Tokers. I have a 20" DX and she has a 24" LX. As we have slowly been developing our skills we decided we both needed another unicycle. She needed a 20" and I a 24". We can’t really swap our unicycles because of the major difference in our heights. I’m so sort that her seatpost would need to be cut in order for me to ride her 24".

We decided to order from unicycle.com. I ordered the red Nimbus II 24" and she the blue Nimbus II 20". In the pictures the unicycles were pictured with unicycle.com stickers on them. No big deal. Our torkers came COVERED in Torker stickers that were easily removed by peeling them off. They left no residue.

As expected my unicycles arived with unicycle.com stickers on both the left and right forks. Upon peeling off the unicycle.com stickers I realized that the stickers also took off some of my chrome and what didn’t ruin the chrome left such a thick residue that even goo gone wouldn’t remove it. I wound up having to scrub it off which left my fork with a nice satin finish where the sticker had been. Which pissed me off.

Why would unicycle.com put such a strong adhesive sticker on their unicycles?

Also in the pictures of the unicycles, the saddles were just the simple Chris Holm style. Which to me implied that’s what I was getting. Yes, they were the Chris Holm style, but embroidered across the back in rainbow colored letters was, yes, you guessed it… UNICYCLE.COM and to make matters worse my sisters seat said UNICYCLE.CO M. The M wasn’t even attatched to the .com where it should have been. It was just off floating on it’s own little plane of existense. The description of the unicycle did not say they were unicycle.com brand saddles.

I don’t know if I would have purchased a unicycle from unicycle.com if I had known about all of their self promotion tactics. If I was happy with my purchase (ie stickers that didn’t damage my unicycle, un-embroidered saddle) I would gladly tell everyone I know to buy their unicycles from them. Now however I am not.

Unicycle.com should really put the stickers in the box with the unicycles so you have the option of putting them on if you’d like. They should also include in their descriptions that the unicycle saddles are embroidered with their logo. This was a bad business decision on their part and they have no lost me, my sister and maybe even some people at my club as customers.

I might be one of those weird people who care what my unicycle looks like, but I’d rather have the option of customizing the way my unicycle looks instead of having someone else do it for me. And if those options aren’t available it should be included in the description of the product.

Fortunately I am very artistic and fixed the destroyed chrome with some very well placed shiney star stickers. I also colored in the rainbow colored letters on the saddle with a black marker. This is all I could have done short of having to buy all new parts for my already new unicycle.

What do you think?

2

i had kinda the same experince, I found that Un-Seal worked like a charp for getting the goo off.

i dont know why they really put those dam things on, there an annoyance and thier ugly, this is one of the reasons i have started using Darren, his stuff is cheaper, better, and his stickers have betty on them!!!

3

I also completely forgot to mention the gold emblem on the front of the seat post tube. It was a gold circle with a picture of a unicycle next to the words .com. It took a lot of elbow grease and a butter knife to remove it without any damage to the frame. The large coin like emblem was not even pictured on the online catalogs pictures.

4

Darren is completely going to kick my butt when I see him in a couple of weeks. Everyone I know told me to get my unicycles from him, but I was stubborn and just went ahead with unicycle.com. This is where it left me.

5

A screwdriver gets off the gold thing in like 2.45 seconds.

6

You needed to contact them before any modifications if you wanted any type of resolution.

Since your on your way to fixing it the way you want, how about sliding a small exacto knife under the embroidery stiches (sp?) to remove it all.
(carefully)

My sympathy to your plight.
Ordering by mail comes with suprizes sometimes.
( I had problems with my Torker by mail )

7

I think unicycle.com are in desperate need of a logo change. If they had a cool logo maybe people wouldn’t mind if it was embroided on the back of their seats or stickers on the side.
When I got my Nimbust 24" Muni recently I coloured in the logo with permanent marker, not so much that you can’t see it, because I think they’re great guys and deserve a little advertising, but just because I really hated the pink and purple letters. I do think unicycle.com are really good, and provide great service (in NZ anyway) but I really don’t like the logo. Someone should start a poll to see if the logo should be changed…

8

Just live with the flippin’ stickers. Every bike shop puts them on. I get discounts because I bought my unicycle at Westside Cycling and left the sticker on. It’s also a Schwinn, so I didn’t want to blemish the frame by removing it. The Schwinn logo’s kick ass as well. The only complaint I have towards decals is the warning lable they put at the upper part of the right hlaf of the split frame which reads something along the lines of “do not ride this BICYCLE without reading and understanding the owner’s manual…”

Anyway, I personally care more about the performance of the unicyle than the looks, and by removing some of the chrome, you have exposed the steel whick could leave dabilitating rust. I sudgest you get some enamal touch up paint from an automotive parts store and dab that on.

Oh, another thought- bleaching the logo on the saddle would kick ass.

9

Wow,i wish MY unicycle had a gold emblem.thatd be cool.and id rather have unicycle.com stickers and embrodery than…well,nothing.except for the sticker that wouldnt come off part.

and its Kris Holm not chris.

I still wish i had a gold emblem.

10

When I got my Muni for unicycle.com I didn’t mind the stickers or the logo at all. I am real happy with unicycle.com. I do understand your points, and don’t blame you a bit for complaining. Have your talked with unicycle.com about this problem?

When I buy a car the first thing I do is remove those dealer stickers. They come off without taking the paint off. With reasonable care, the uni stickers should come off without taking the chrome off as well.

11

well my unicycle came with these black flames on the sides that i didn’t ask for. but meh. i’m not complaining :slight_smile: mostly cuz at least they still LOOK GOOD!

12

That’s odd. The saddle on my blue 24" Nimbus II has “Kris Holm” embroidered on it. I don’t mind the stickers at all.

13

I hate stickers on my uni, unless I put them there meself. They should totally come with the stickers that you can put on yourself, I want a smaller unicycledotcom one for my nalgene bottle.

14

jsm - i guess it depends on when you bought it. i think darren’s getting some KH saddles that have “Bedford Unicycles” embroidered into the back soon. so my next purchase will probably end up with one of them. (as long as it’s colour coordinated!)

15

I think the Unicycle.com embrodiring came out around the same time as the comfy handle.

Here is a picture of my brothers seat that came with his nimbus trials uni.

16

no this is not true my friend has a unicycle.com kh replica without comfy saddle. also I think the colors on the saddle is kinda fruity. but oh well

17

The saddle seems compfy enough, it’s just ugly from the rear.

18

if you have a company, the best way to promote it is by labelling the produce you sell. “shamless self promotional logos” are everywhere.
cars.
mobile phones.
biscuits.
airline cutlery.
ad infinutum

19

i’m sure we all understand why they do this

at the same time i suspect there’ll be a fair bit of agreement on the idea that a sticker that damages the finish on the frame is not the world’s best idea

as, i suspect, we’d all agree that any such self-promotory (is that even a word yet?) branding should be ‘known’ or be ‘reasonably expected’

i would reasonably expect a sticker, but specialised embroidery is something i’d like to know about beforehand

‘caveat emptor’ is one thing
accurate/up-to-date catalogue pics are quite another

20

I was a little upset to receive my new 05’ KH-24 only to have uni.com stickers plastered to the inside of the frame legs. As someone else said, put the stickers in the box and let the consumer decide whether he wants to put them on his frame…especially when they pay a lot of money for a high end uni.