that sums it up.
walking up & down mountains in horrendous weather, rowing/running/riding from point A to point A, running up a moving escalator, unicycling. all silly, pointless things but they make you feel good. why hop your uni onto a high rail to do a rubber skinny latte?
As for using a Coker rather than any other uni for distance, that’s obvious. I limp along at about 2/3rds coker speeds on my 24". the larger balance envelope & smoother ride means your concentration levels don’t need to be as high and you can ride for longer. the height advantage is significant. compare a 4x4 to a compact car, it’s very much the same feeling. riding a bike is boring & easy.
No it’s not. OK… that’ll probably get me flamed on this forum
But I agree with the general point. I come from a cycling background (mainly commuting and touring, with a bit of time trialling and mountain biking) and got into unicycling a year ago. I live about 10 miles from work and usually ride a bike. Before I had the unicycles it would be a choice between a quick blast down the road or use the mountain bike and follow some trails, which would takes a bit longer but makes a nice change. Since I’ve had the 26" uni I don’t think I have ridden my mountain bike to work at all - when I feel like a change from the road bike I always choose the uni. It takes me over four times as long on the uni, but I just find it fun. Practical it certainly isn’t (at least not with my current level of skill), and if I need to get there quickly I’ll take the bike every time, but that’s not the point.
I’ve no Coker; I use 24x3 and 26x3 munis and occasionally a 29-er.
Also got bicycles but rarely ride them.
For me, in comparison to bikes, the uni has the following postives-
comfortable, balanced upright posture (no leaning forwards and handlebars)
lower speed = more safe
controlled purely via feet and hips- no having to reach for the brakes when you want to stop or go slow down a hill
much simpler mechanically; no having to adjust/replace brakes, derailers etc
can ride both on road and pavement (sidewalk) according to my judgement of which is the safer/more appropriate
hands free for carrying stuff
The downside is the amount of sweat and therefore laundry that goes along with riding a uni
The bike obviously has many positives as well, including-
speed
being, apparently, the most energy efficient form of transport, beating cars, walking and all animals
anonimity- although the uniqueness of being on a unicycle can be great, sometimes I get a bit sick of knowing that I’m attracting a lot of attention, and it’s a relief to just get on a two wheeler and become invisible again
Bikes are great, and so are unis; ultimately I just seem to prefer being on one wheel.
I don’t do much distance riding, but I kinda wish I did. I love endurance sports, running mostly, 'tis the greatest feeling in the world. I don’t know why, but I love pushing myself farther than I can go.
I do it for many of the reasons stated already…
Fun to do, like sitting up high, working on smooth riding technique, aerobic exercise, upper body exercise also, especially torso.
And one that has not been mentioned yet… I like the uniqueness! I tell someone I rode 10 miles on a bike and most don’t think much of it. I tell them I rode 10 miles on a uni without a UPD, they think I’m superman! I like it!
Unicycling for distance is a new challenge for me. I’ve done 2 centuries on my bicycle. But a century on a coker? May never happen, but … we’ll see. Metric century for sure some day.
Oh yeah, I like to watch the people’s reactions when I’m riding my coker. It’s not that I’m needing the attention (at least I don’t think so), I just enjoy it. I love to see them smile when I’m approaching. Spread the joy!
Thanks Bevan, for starting such an interesting thread. It’s always interesting when we psychoanalyze ourselves.
Everyone else has eloquently covered what I would have said, except for maybe a couple of things:
As the Harley riders often say, “If you have to ask, you wouldn’t understand.”
Because I get my picture in the paper/magazine.
Because I’m a showoff.
Okay, maybe those last two are the same. And I’m not always feeling like a showoff when I ride my Coker to work instead of my bike (or car). The Coker is a better workout. The Coker is better training for the other forms of unicycling I do.
And perhaps most importantly of all, the Coker is more challenging. The bike is just too easy.
So I’m wondering if your purpose is to understand Coker riders better, or to get a better idea of whether you want one. If you haven’t ridden one much, you probably haven’t experienced the feel of a big, heavy wheel rolling you along with good inertia. It doesn’t ride like my 45" hard-tire wheel, and it doesn’t ride like smaller ones; even my 29". A Coker is a Coker.
Question for Bevan: Why ride a 20" to school when walking is probalby faster, and less hassle because there’s nothing to park or lock when you get there?
Dang, Obie, you’re becoming nothing but a wiener. When was the last time you posted something useful/helpful/informative? If you can’t go 21.5 mph on your unicycle doesn’t mean we can’t.
Given the choice between a bike and a uni for distance, I’d choose the bike mainly because I can carry all my stuff in panniers. Do you really carry your sleeping bag, clothes, food, and repair gear all on your back with a unicycle? My experience is that large backpacks are uncomfortable for long rides.
With a bike, I can choose to ride slower if I want. I can choose to ride a fixed gear if I want a harder workout. I can ride offroad if I choose the right bike setup. My fixed gear bike is very low maintenance. All the supposed benefits of riding a unicycle long distances are things that can be done on a bike, except that carrying stuff is far less convenient on a unicycle. Can you carry two large paper bags full of groceries on your uni?
Also, it seems to me that a bike allows me to take in my surroundings more fully because it does require less focus to stay on it, but maybe I’m just not experienced enough on my uni yet.
a 20" is still usually much faster than walking (in my experience anyway, I suppose it depends how you ride it :P).
However, if riding a 20" for a couple of miles is your only experience of long-distance riding, you don’t have ANY experience of long-distance with a coker or 29er.
Having used a 20" for a 4 mile (each way) commute every day for a month during the summer, and now owning a shiny new 29er, I can safely say that the two bear almost no resemblance to each other.
I don’t ride long-distance properly, but as bits keep falling of my bike, the 29er is more and more becoming my everyday transport, and i enjoy it far more!!
Funny, but I just read HardcoreCokerRider saying something about that in another thread (or was it this one?). Yes you can carry the bags, but you surely wouldn’t want to do it all day!
Yes, carrying lots of gear on a unicycle, without a way to attach it to the cycle, is a big hassle. Wearing it on your back puts more weight on the seat, which is bad. When Pietro Biondo rode around North America (about 12,000 miles) in 1983-4, he used a low giraffe with panniers. He carried nothing on his back and had a choice of gearing.
For big cargo on a Coker it might be possible to rig some panniers down below the pedals, but it would take some engineering, and would probably only get you minimal space without scraping the ground or otherwise making your life difficult. For less cargo you can use a rear rack, like the famous Uni-bago of Scot Cooper. I want to get a rack on the back of mine for work clothes on my rides to work.
No, I’m not saying the uni beats the bike, especailly when you get into multi-day trips.
Yes… well I’ve carried heavy-ish plastic carrier bags full of shopping home- the low center of gravity makes it work quite well.
What you say about bikes is true, the downside is that it takes cash to get the kind of stuff you need.
I’d like a decent set of panniers for my bike but, in the UK it seems to cost £60+ for a rack and panniers- money that could be put towards another uni
You’re right about a fixed gear giving a good workout, but again, getting a fixed gear bike either means a substantial cash outlay or the complex process of modifying a geared bike (I know it’s straightforward in principle, but, when you look into it there’s issues like vertical dropout problems etc).
And even then it’s not got the mechanical simplicity of the uni- you’ve still got a chain and brakes (alright, I know some don’t use brakes, but I think it’s generally recommended to have at least a front brake) to maintain.
Interesting to think about the uni/fixed bike contrast though- as many fixed bike enthusiasts are into it for the purity/simplicity and the ‘feel’/connection with the road; I wonder if they’d find the unicycle a natural progression, after all the unicycle is essentially a fixed gear cycle, just another step on in terms of simplicity.
I was once going to send an e-mail to Sheldon Brown who runs a very well known and respected bike site which has a lot of stuff on single gear/fixed gear bikes and send him some links to decent distance uni/muni stuff; I wondered if the fixed/single gear community knew about the rise in unicycling and how they thought it related to what they did (I never got round to sending the e-mail though).
It’s funny…the more I think about getting attention on my uni the less I seem to get…when I’m just admiring the scenery, before I know it I pass somebody saying, “way to go”, or one of my favorites…spoken by a young woman on a cellphone, “I just saw a guy on a unicycle”. The person on the other end must think she’s nuts!
I think the only time really wish I was on two wheels instead of one is when I’m UPD-ing in front of people! (happens very infrequently, but man…it hurts the ego lots more than the hands) I UPD far less on two wheels and rarely around others!
I ride distance on a Coker to have fun with the family, stay in some sort of reasonable shape, and to get warmed up for big rides in the mountains in summer '05.
Dude, seriously, just shut the hell up. You have no clue what you’re talking about in this situation (and many others for that matter).
Ya see, I was talking to one of my best friends (not best unicycle friends, best friends on earth; I have a key to his house, that tells you something) about an inside joke. It had nothing to do with you.
Dang, John, you’re becoming nothing but a whiny little bitch. When was the last time one of your posts didn’t have crying in it? Everytime someone says or does something you don’t like you have to tell everyone. You’re not the forum police. Nobody cares that you’re upset. So shut up. And don’t come back with that ignore list bullshit either because I don’t care at all.
Yes, my onza was still faster than jogging to school, and it gave bikers runs for their money due to the steepness of the hills.
I rode the onza because I loved to practice gliding on the way home, and there were also a few trials obstacles to do right in front of school. Eventually I moved up to a 24x3 fireball uni, which I haven’t ridden in 6 months.
To list some of the distance rides I’ve done (note all of them are muni rides, and probably by coker standards are nothing):
Downeville: 17 miles
Tahoe Rim: 12 miles, at altitude
A day of finals in school where I rode to and from school 4 times. 2.1x2x4=16.8 miles, all done on my onza.
I haven’t ridden a coker, and it could be a great feeling, but I also love to bike, and love the feeling of just sitting up, hands at my side, and cruising down a hill at 30. You can’t do that on a unicycle.
Dan, I don’t know about you, but when I get my bike going around 40, I make damn sure there’s nothing around to make me fall.
Unidaddy: I am pretty sure that once you are upd’ing hard enough to land on your hands, it’s a fall. A upd implied that you stayed standing. Also, I prefer to fall from my unicycle than from my bike. Imagine going down at the entrance to a crowded high-school quad. On a unicycle you have the excuse that it’s only 1 wheel. Noone forgives a biker.
You may be fast enough to run out your highest speed on an Onza, heck…I might even be fast enough to do that, but I’m definitely NOT fast enough to run out coming off my Coker at top speed (which for me so far is only about 15-16mph, but going off at top speed probably means I tried to recover the balance and couldn’t…translation: leaning way too far forward and thus going even a little faster with my panicked head leading the way). I’m too old to impress anybody here, or even to try. But I will cling to my definition of a UPD as long as I need to, and so far that means through today. I’ve fallen before, I’ll fall again. I’ve actually had the experience of going over the handlebars of my mtb and landing on my feet…I don’t suppose you’d call that a UPD (I did, however, throw my arms behind me in the traditional olympic-style acknowledgement of the Game Creek judges…Ta-DAH!!). Sorry I misused your definition of UPD. I’ll get over it.
