No. That’s an expert “you wouldn’t catch me dead on the thing.” Now, dead OFF of the thing is a different story.
There are certainly riders better than me (WAY better than me) who could shift SOME kind of unicycle on the fly. And it would be cool, it really would be. It wouldn’t be practical in my opinion. You already shift the uni-bike on the fly, how practical is it?
Shifting gears on a one wheeled vehicle, which as you know is already marginally stable, would be difficult and dangerous if done on a system with extremely low backlash. To be practical the rider would want to shift gears at high speeds, it’s a road cycle. You have ridden the uni-bike and a unicycle. How do the balance envelopes compare? How do you like going from one balance envelope into another on the uni-bike at cruising speed?
Another interesting thing is the application of vehicles like the uni-bike and Blue Shift. My opinion is limited to high-speed road machines which is of some moderate interest to me. Doing skill development, standard skill routines, trials, and technical MUni on a geared unicycle seems counter-productive to me. The goal is speed, if I want to pirouette I’ll do it on a 20" freestyle. But as soon as a talented rider got onto the uni.5 they wanted to idle, ride backward, hop, ride one-footed, do uni-spins, wheel walk, you name it. To me, it’s like trying to pole-vault with a sewer pipe. A sewer pipe is shaped like a pole vault pole. Sure, you can do it but you can only do it poorly. But you can take the same thing and move waste with it like gangbusters.
Then again, look at some of the things that people race. Tractor pulls, monster trucks, certainly there are faster things that are easier to make, just not so esoteric. People drag-race semi’s. And it’s cool. Just not practical. How practical is high speed commuting and touring on a unicycle? Oh-oh, I dug a hole for myself.
I aint’ one of em, but I think shifting would be easier than you think, if there wasn’t too much play in the system. I don’t know about that quarter turn on the Sturmey-Archer, but I’m interested in gear ratio information (anybody?) and whether cranks can be mounted directly or if a chain is necessary (I suspect the latter).
It’s about as practical as the unibike; partially for the challenge of making it work and learning to ride it, but additionally for making MUni riding more fun and less painful. My Sem 26 is geared too low for the street or flat trails, and much too high for my weak right knee on the downhills. The unibike is not practical for MUni because of the handlebars. I was lucky once. I don’t want to push it, when I know I’ll be falling on the trails. I plan to use a 20-inch wheel, geared at 1:1 or less on the low end, and 1:2 or more on the high end. This would give me a nice range for road and MUni. My alternative is a Uni.5 or a Sturmey-Archer hub in a 20-inch wheel. I don’t know if either is strong enough for drops with a 180lb rider??? Maybe you need a guinnea pig (emphasis on ‘pig’)?
I feel more stable on a unicycle since my feet are directly under me, and the ability to pedal in reverse offers more control than braking. Unicycles also steer much better. The front-to-back envelope is about the same when the unibike is close to a 1:1 gear ratio, but the steering goes to hell at that point. The side-to-side envelope is almost non-existent. At higher speeds, the side-to-side becomes more stable (if it’s not windy) as the front-to-back envelope shrinks (due to higher gears, faster cadence, or both). Less torque = less opportunity for correction. As this envelope shrinks, the upshifting becomes more difficult. Each higher gear provides less power just when you need extra power to compensate for the loss of power during the shift. With the indexed shifters, I was less able to anticipate the shift and (with the front wheel in place) had many unplanned drops during higher speed gear changes.