by Alec Muffett
It struck me that if I have cars (even), motorbikes (even), bicycles (even), tricycles (odd, soon) and a wheel barrow (odd), perhaps to restore parity to my wheel count from the arrival of the impending trike, I should try one of these:
Pashley “Muni” Unicycle
…just to see what they’re like, you understand…
Some weeks ago whilst over near Birkenhead I saw a modern Penny Farthing. It was build very much like a moutain bike with decent tyres, spoked wheels, mtb handlebar, the works.
It looked really good 🙂 Pity it was only single speed 🙂
I was thinking about that. I see no reason not to put a hub-gear system into a unicycle or penny farthing; I’ve seen one of the latter too, but alas it has two wheels…
Penny farthing bikes do have their downsides… see http://www.bikeroute.com/Recumbents/News/Archives/000066.html for an example (which illustrates nicely why the now common bicycle started its life under the “safety bicycle” name).
Making a geared unicycle has been done before, though shifting while riding is non-trivial (both because of the difficulty to adjust mentally to a different “wheelsize” and of the way a geared hub needs to be either stopped or freewheeling between ratios, so there must be some type of locking mechanism that doesn’t interfere with normal unicycling). The folks at http://www.schlumpf.ch/uni_engl.htm seem to make a geared unicycle…
You clearly have never ridden a unicycle then. I should add that nor have I though each summer for the last two years I have been trying to master it. The idea of adding gears into the mix would be suicidal!
Nope, I’ve not tried a unicycle, but growing up our family had both of these:
http http://www.unicycle.uk.com/shop/shopdisplayproduct.asp?catalogid=301
and
http http://www.unicycle.uk.com/shop/shopdisplayproduct.asp?catalogid=83
…which are not dissimilar, and which I was surprised to find still being sold today. They were fun, but I am reckoning that a unicycle’s extra leverage between center of body mass, and the crank, may suit me better.
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