What are the differences between the Ying Yang and the Nimbus Muni? The Ying Yang is more expensive but I don’t know why?
You know, I wondered the same thing myself. I got the 24" Nimbus Muni for $350 USD, and I love it. It’s been more than good enough for me, so I feel like I made a good choice. I was also able to upgrade to Magura rim brakes that I got used from this site, and my overall costs are still less than the Yin Yang.
After comparing the Yin Yang to mine, here’s the big differences I noticed: The most important, of course, is that there are blue accents on Yin Yang (OK, just kidding). Actually, the big differences that I could see are the saddle and the hub. The saddle on the Yin Yang is a KH Freeride, and the hub allows you to add on a disk brake later if you want to upgrade.
The Nimbus muni has a Nimbus Gel saddle and the ability to upgrade to Magura rim brakes (as does the Yin Yang), but is not “disk brake ready”. In order to upgrade it to disk brakes, you might have to spend a lot of money replace the hub, add a lot of parts, etc.
I don’t have a KH freeride saddle or disk brakes to compare it to, but I’ve been very happy with my Nimbus muni with Nimbus Gel saddle and Magura rim brakes (and tons of people don’t use brakes at all). I think for a budget-minded 1st muni, this has been great, and I plan to ride it for many more years. I really like my Nimbus muni, and if cost is a factor, I think it’s a good choice.
I found all this info from looking at the Product Description on these unicycles. You can identify the different components, and then look them up individually (most of them are sold on the unicycle dot com website) and see what the details are on each of them and compare. It’s also a good idea to figure out what upgrades may cost as well. For example, look at the cost of the base Nimbus muni and then see what it would cost to purchase everything needed to upgrade to rim brakes vs disk brakes vs buying a muni that already comes with a disk brake, etc. Sometimes, it’s cheaper to buy a unicycle with everything included as buying a base model and upgrading may cost more in the long run. You’ll just have to do the math and decide for yourself.
You can also email them at the unicycle dot com website, and they’ll probably give you some good info. I’ve always had a good experience with their customer service.
Just throwing this out as a quick note. Please try and use the search function. (or google’s search function, which works quite well for unicyclist.com) There’s a wealth of information already on the forums.
If you’re considering buying a new wheel, and not sure what to get, it’s probably best to explain what you want from the wheel and keep discussion rolling in the same thread. If you have questions on a specific unicycle, you can probably hunt down a thread that already contains information, and add questions if you still need help. Doing this makes it easier to search for that information later on without sifting through duplicate threads.
Is the Ying Yang lighter than the Nimbus Muni?
Just looked at the Ying Yang, and I am very confused by it. It’s lighter than the Nimbus, but I personally am not much of a weight saver, so I would advise you to get the Nimbus, and later upgrade the Frame to a KH one with spirit cranks and a disk brake.
I don’t think you’ll break a KH frame, but depending on how hardcore you would get into Downhill you might bend a KH rim like the one that is one the Ying Yang. Also if the Hub is still the same as depicted in the current picture on udc of the ying yang, it is a pretty bad design.
Doesn’t the website list weights for both of them as 14.5 lbs? That’s what I’m seeing.
The differences I see are that the “Ying Yang” (yes, it really should be “Yin Yang”) has a nicer Kris Holm saddle, a Kris Holm rim (5 mm wider than a Dominator 2), and a hub with mounting holes for a brake disc. It’s awfully hard to say whether those things would be “worth the difference in cost” because that’s a totally personal judgement. But I’d guess that for someone looking at steel-frame Nimbus munis instead of Oracles, the extra $115 (about 33% more) might feel like a pretty big bite. You could still have plenty of fun on the less expensive one.
You are right, don’t know how I read that wrong. That makes the ying yang seem even weirder to me, because it is not a combination of parts I would ever choose. This is just my way, but I would probably always go custom uni, and for roughly the budget of a ying yang you might get a nimbus but with a KH frame and saddle of choice. Later upgrade to disk brake with some spirit cranks (you probably want dual holes at some point), and avoid having a D-brake adapter.