Need some help. Friend of mine went from a cheapy street unicycle to
building an over-the-top heavy duty trail unicycle. Thing is, in
fitting a lot of parts together, he wound up with a 28" frame and a 29"
tire (tyre for the transAtlantic amongst us). He measured the frame
and thought "Hey, that'll fit!" It sort of fits. He ground out some
of the frame to make way for the tire. When the tire was new and still
had the little stringy rubber bits on it, they dragged the top edge of
the frame. Now, when we ride mud, the frame pretty much scrapes all
the mud off the tire as we go. We worried that plain physics would
cause some problem when weight was put on it, but that didn't seem to
be an issue.
Now here's the thing. His skill level makes it difficult to gauge how
much the 1) design of the unicycle is inhibiting his improvement 2) the
weight of the unicycle might be causing problems, but not the design.
3) His weight (230) or skill level might be the only difficulty and the
ride is fine the way it is.
I'm not a teacher, and he and I (and occasionally another person or
two) ride at daybreak, so there's no one there that can say "Hey, you
need to improve _____ skill." or "Hey, your wheel's clearance is a
significant problem." or whatever else. Most uni-riders are normal as
opposed to 'morning people', I've come to believe. I can rarely talk
the local Uni-gurus into joining us.
Frankly, I'm worried he'll get sort of discouraged with his lack of
progress (he falls a lot.) and I'll be back to riding my sunrise rides
with only my dog along.
What can the hotshots advise that I should look for, ask about,
measure, tell him to try... etc? Does the description of the wheel
sound like a problem, or should we just concentrate on skill level?
Thanks.
Ex-Kayote
--
dogzilla
Dogzilla
http://www.cafepress.com/unicycles
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