This may sound dumb but i was looking at unicycle .com and it has a street catagory, whats street?
Thnx
Aaron
I don’t know, but it’s probably an all purpose unicycle
I think it’s just a regular unicycle.
no knobby tires, plastic/rubber pedals, and an uncomortable seat.
(but I’ve been wrong before)
Re: Whats a street unicycle?
A street unicycle is for riding on residential roads - typically cobbled roads, with terraced houses each side. This distinguishes it from:
An avenue unicycle, found on slightly more up market residential roads with large gardens, and many roadside trees.
A boulevard unicycle: ridden on long straight roads with evenly spaced trees down each side, and often with pavement cafes.
A lane unicycle: typically ridden in rural areas on roads which follow field boundaries and have no pavements.
A crescent unicycle: designed to be ridden on very quiet residential roads which are curve and join the main road at each end. Typically ridden by retired people who own caravans and have garden gnomes.
I hadn’t realised that unicycle design had become so specialised until you asked the question. ;0)
And many thanks to Harper for building the Highway Unicycle…
Re: Whats a street unicycle?
>This may sound dumb but i was looking at unicycle .com and it has a
>street catagory, whats street?
>
>Thnx
>Aaron
>
I’m not sure either. They appear to be general-purpose 20-inch units, though
the Freestyle category looks pretty similar. I think it would be a good idea
for them to put a brief note there with each of the category links, to indicate
what each type is used for, for those who don’t know. Freestyle, Freestyle
Advanced, Trials and Street categories are all mostly 20-inchers, and the
difference isn’t immediately obvious to a newcomer. I expect that their
“Education” page, under construction as of now, will probably explain all of
this.
- Joe
=============================
If Teddy Grahams crackers
were shaped like goats instead of bears,
would they be Billy Grahams?
Ok ok, here’s what I gather from the whole naming convention. Unicycle.com didn’t invent any of the names for it, but rather borrowed them from other extreme sports. Touring obviously comes from the bicycling (long-distance) group. Muni is simply an adapted name of mountain unicycling. Trials is also done with mountain bikes and bmx, very similarly to what we do.
Street unicycles, then, I like to compare to skateboards. They’re the ones designed for pulling 180s and 360s, 720 uni spins, grinding in skateparks, doing fancy breakdance-like poses and the like. You could also compare this to flatland BMX. The tire is smaller and a bit fatter, and the pedals and cranks are durable. They’re made to take this kind of abuse. If you’ve seen UNiVERsE, this category of unicycle came from Dan Heaton’s model when he does all of these techniques.
Freestyle is designed more for accuracy and smoothness. It’s not designed to grind down a pipe or bench; that would throw the tuning out. A good freestyle unicycle will have good foot support on the frame, meaning a flat crown. This allows for gliding, coasting, one-foot, and stand-up (on the frame) techniques. These are a more delicate type that are best suited to those who have balance beyond the mind’s comprehension level (though those of us without that kind of balance can have even more fun trying to pull off their stunts).
Trials are similar to street… in fact I’d almost interchange the two. Trials cycles have even fatter wheels… about as fat as they get. The axle, hub, and cranks are now more important, as more hopping is involved. The idea of trials, as I understand them, is to get passed obstacles. Hopping onto/over obstacles, riding along really narrow ones, etc. Pedal grabs and a high jump are very useful for this area of skills.
For all of these cycles, a 20-inch wheel is usually the choice as a matter of control. They don’t go as fast, but it’s easier to put the wheel where you want it to be, and other factors.
If anybody finds anything wrong with my explanation, bring a bucket-helmet, shield, unicycle and lance to Las Vegas, and we’ll joust it out.