bruce wrote:
*John raced on his 43" wheel with the wheelchair tire. When I asked
him about the ride, he told me that it's quite the beater-upper.
Without the pneumatic tire, there's not much there to absorb shocks.
Do you feel the bumps more at high speed? Must be quite a bronco
ride.*
You just hit 'em harder. One of the drawbacks of the hard tire is when
you hit an unexpected or sharp bump that literally pops you off the
seat. I've had it happen where there's a little 3/4" diameter round rock
in the middle of the bike path. It's the only thing there but the
unicycle manages to center itself right over it. If you're not paying
attention, and you hit it with your pedals vertical, your bottom foot
can be jolted off the pedal and you can do an ugly dismount at speed. An
air tire smooths out these sorts of things.

But the hard rubber tire handles a lot better than the Coker. It's much
easier to turn on, making my old big wheel much preferred for parades or
the rare performance in which it might be included. You can do great
spins on it, and swooping turns.

Ken's speed on an hour ride on his 56" are probably similar to, or
slower than the speed I would do in a 10k race. Somewhere between 12-16
mph? That's a guess.

I've ridden that 56" wheel before, but it was a long time ago. I think
the cranks were longer too. The original setup was at the limit of Ken's
leg length, probably with the standard 5.5" (cottered) Schwinn cranks of
that era. I can't imagine riding it with 4.5 inchers. My first ride on
it, in Ames Iowa way back in '82, included a long, scary hill I had to
go down!


--
johnfoss - Now riding to work

John Foss
the Uni-Cyclone
www.unicycling.com
________________

"Where's my kids?" -- Amy Drummond
"Where's my unicycle?" -- Andy Cotter
spoken one right after the other, mostly to themselves, at NAUCC 2003

------------------------------------------------------------------------
johnfoss's Profile: http://www.unicyclist.com/profile/832
View this thread: http://www.unicyclist.com/thread/27541