One thing I didn't see mentioned was the importance of handlebars.
Depending on the length of your cranks and size of your wheel you will
at some point (probably between 12% and 24% grade) reach a point where
it is provably impossible to climb the hill without pulling up on the
seat.

If, for sake of argument, you have 6" cranks and a wheel with a radius
of 18" (i.e.; a Coker wheel) then when your pedals are horizontal and
you have all of your weight on the front pedal you will be in
equilibrium with the hill if it is a 1 in 3 grade (1 meter of rise for
every 3 meters of road distance). If the hill is any steeper then you
will roll backwards even with all of your weight on the forward crank.

And, remember that this point is when you have the maximum leverage.
With the pedals vertical you have no leverage, and the average leverage
over a full rotation is 2/pi of the maximum (the proof is simple and I
have scribbled it in the margin of my web browser). And, the weight of
the unicycle is dead weight and makes the leverage worse. Therefore the
steepest hill that can be climbed if you apply just your weight to the
pedals with 6" cranks on a 36" wheel is somewhat less than a 2/3pi grade
or 21%. Shorter cranks means you can't climb such a steep hill.

Expert riders routinely ignore this restriction, by grabbing on to
their seat and pulling up, thus letting them apply forces greater than
their own bodyweight to the pedals.

It's actually pretty amazing -- in order to climb a really steep hill
"all" you need to do is a series of one-legged squats while carrying
weights and while doing incredibly delicate adjustments so that you can
maintain your balance even through the dead-zone where you necessarily
decelerate.

A heavy unicycle makes this much trickier. Less than perfect riding
skills also complicated it a bit.


--
Bruce Dawson
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bruce Dawson's Profile: http://www.unicyclist.com/profile/1299
View this thread: http://www.unicyclist.com/thread/58221


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