With the Vortex you have to pay an extra $100, but then both it and the
Wilder come with a Profile crankset (lifetime warranty). That's a
plus.
The story on the Vortex was to look for a logical extension of the
Hunter frame, using the theory of small, high-quality bicycle tubing
instead of lesser-quality fat tubing. But less of it. To me it looks
better than the Hunter design.
The Wilder is a gorgeous piece of hand-made aluminum art, at least as
long as you get the red one. 🙂 I think it's the only hand-made
aluminum unicycle on the market. Very sweet.
Both of those unicycles (and a few others) are so high-priced because
they are made by hand, by the guys who make the rest of the cycles.
Labor cost and time-per-frame are very high. By contrast, today's KH
frames are mass-produced in a factory in Taiwan (or China?). Each frame
probably takes less than 1/10th the time to make, and the labor cost is
much less.
Those cycles were top-of-the-line when they came out, but they have
been superseded in most ways. The high prices are still justified by
their rarity and historical value. If you have the money, why not?
You'll be helping out those builders. There won't be many more of them
made, if any...
--
johnfoss
John Foss
"jfoss" at "unicycling.com" -- www.unicycling.com
-----------------------------------------------
"The worst thing you can do on a unicycle when you land is stop dead."
-- Kris Holm, world's expert on high-consequence unicycling
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