In the “unicycles for sale on other sites” thread, I recently mentioned how I picked up one of those no-brand cheapo Chinese unicycles that you always see on eBay, Amazon, and AliExpress among others.
You know the ones I’m talking about - they almost always have this crazy yellow and green tire.
Since a few of you have mentioned owning these before - and them potentially being acceptable learner models but obviously not meant for anything but basic riding - I figured I’d do a review on one. Obviously somebody is buying them, so I figured I’d take one apart and really document what goes into them, since the online listings are always so vague.
I took a bunch of pictures and was originally going to do a forum writeup, but ended up making a video review instead.
Pretty funny vid!
Did you sell it on cl afterwards?
To insert on the forum, you have to get the link to the classic youtube page, paste that link but replace https by http. The forum code predates https for sure, but that still works.
Ha, thanks for the tip. I think I’ve got a handle on it now.
I’m honestly not quite sure what I’m going to do with this thing. I originally thought about keeping it as a learner model for friends, but that hub is probably going to explode at some point. So I might just let them ride my Nimbus while I ride this thing.
Maybe I could put it in a clear plexiglass cube-frame and hang it on my wall…
Enjoyed! I’ve come pretty close to getting one of those with basically the same idea in mind but never quite gotten to the point of clicking the button. Maybe it’s a little too much like some of the unicycles I already have.
We’ve heard that those tires wear out really quickly, as if they’re some kind of really soft foamy stuff or something. But $10 closeout bmx tires are great shopping cart stuffers when your order qualifies for free shipping. And lots of times there’ll be a bike at someone’s curb on trash day with at least one good tire on it. Plus what’s at Walmart, Target, etc.
I agree about no drops or hops, maybe unless you’re very small and light, and maybe not even then. With a decent tire pumped up reasonably hard, it could be good for freestyle type skills like idling, backwards riding, one-footing, and tight turns or spins. I ended up with a pair of 89 mm steel cranks, and my 20" Avenir is pretty much dedicated to that kind of stuff these days with them installed.
Keep us posted please! I’m interested in seeing how far you get on it.
Typically I throw my 20" Nimbus trials unicycle in the passenger seat of my car (only a two seater so I can’t bring my Nightfox) and bring it to work with me, so I can have something fun to do on my lunch break. This morning I decided to bring the Shenzhen 9000 (the new name for this creature) instead.
It’s honestly quite surprising how light this thing is. Sure, it’s because of cheap components, but it still feels about half the weight of my trials uni and transporting it was a breeze.
Since buying a new “real” unicycle is off the table for a while, and since I love to tinker, I have this urge to do some sort of bizarre customization with this thing. I might sand down the frame and inspect that weld, and potentially reweld it if necessary. Then I might paint it some crazy color (metallic purple), add a better tire (maybe something like a pink Gusset Pimp), find a way to garage-fab up some better bumpers, and potentially even swap out the whole wheelset for something of decent quality.
Is it worth putting the effort into? Hell no. Will I have the most unique polished turd in the world? Hell yes.
I learned on one of those. It actually isn’t bad as a first unicycle but once you start to be able to ride for a few minutes at a time, you will want to give it away or dump it at a thrift store.
