Florian Schlumpf in Austin, Feb 11th

Eric,

I would really like to see and try out that thing, I just don't know
about the timing. Is there any chance you could let the guy know that
if he went to the event on Saturday that a large number of unicyclists
would be there to see it?

Scott

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i emailed him directly and invited him to come to the jugglefest where
many more unicyclists would be available to try out his uni. he
responded but didn't mention the jugglefest. i think his time in austin
maybe limited. i will reinvite him when i see him on friday the 11th.

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I want to go, but I need to no more than "thereabouts" since it is a
private house. Do you have the exact abouts?

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yes

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Shift-able on the fly. Impressive. At $1300 it should be very
impressive. I rode the UNI.5 (24" wheel). It was very much like riding a
36" wheel, but only using a 24" wheel. It was hard to free-mount.

I'm not sure what I'll be doing that weekend.

Jer

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Well, did anyone ride it today in Austin???

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Well, we met Florian and rode the uni.

'Here are some pics' (http://gallery.unicyclist.com/schlumpfAustin) .
I'll add movies later.

The uni was fun to ride. More comments later...

-Eric

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I'm curious. Does Florian know how to ride a unicycle? He's carting a
unicycle all over the country. I hope he knows how to ride.

He's going to be in Seattle on Sunday. Wheeee!!! 🙂

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Thanks onefiftyfour Eric,

Please do report more about riding the geared Schlumpf.

How'd it ride in high gear? More challenging? Were effects of riding
surface amplified? How about your pedalling & body input in high gear,
was that more amplified?

Was it 24" or 28" and was it heavy?

As you can tell, I am curious too. Glad it was fun.

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john_childs said:

*I'm curious. Does Florian know how to ride a unicycle? He's carting
a unicycle all over the country. I hope he knows how to ride.

He's going to be in Seattle on Sunday. Wheeee!!! 🙂 *

Yes, he says he rides. He was unaware until recently of the "new" types
of riding like trials/freeriding and muni. He says he plans on making
his hubs splined. Now they are square-tapered.

The uni he brought was a 24" and when shifted-up, a quasi-36". He said
that the production version of that model would accept a 24X3 wheel. I
can imagine that would be a cool muni.

There's also the 28/29" version being sold at the same price - approx.
$1200. That comes with a BigApple tire and when shifted it becomes a
42" unicycle. We didn't get to ride one of those, but I imagine that
would be cool.

(more in the next post)...

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I ride a coker, so I was a little skeptical about how stable this 24"
wheel could be when shifted up.

When I first rode it in 36-mode, I wasn't feeling all that great about
it. I just kept thinking there's no way I'll feel like I do at coker
speed on this thing. You know the cruise control feeling of the coker;
the relaxed coker feeling of being able to ride relatively fast and not
worry about minor bumps in the road.

Well, after a while I started to feel more comfortable on it and I can
see the potential for feeling great about it. It's really pretty cool!
It's a bit of a mental thing to overcome the fact that you are riding a
24" wheel and going that fast. I think by the last time I rode the
thing, I was begining to overcome that issue. I felt like it was a
pretty stable ride at higher speeds. I'd like to borrow it for a week
to see how it would grow on me.

I didn't notice that it was any heavier than a normal 24" uni.

Shifting while riding was difficult for me, but the other riders there
were able to do it without much difficulty - both shifting up and down.
I have videos of that. I will post them later.

-Eric

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Thanks for the info and photos. Did you try shifting on the fly? I heard
it was either 12 or 16 slots so that when you shift the period of
"weightlessness" is either 360/12 or 360/16 degrees... Any actual
details there?

About making a Muni with this technology...I don't think it would be
very popular even though I have no doubt he has the skill and vision to
make it strong enough.

---Nathan

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Thanks a lot for the riding impressions. Sounds intriguing. Did
Florian mention anything about his plans for making a Coker-sized
version?

Klaas Bil - Newsgroup Addict
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Did you happen to ask about shipping to the US and VAT?

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I was there to meet Florian Schlumpf also.
I was very impressed by the unicycle (as we all were).

It took me a few minutes to learn to ride it in 36" mode. There is
something about looking down at a 24" wheel and "not knowing" how fast
it will spin. There is also a very minor amount of "play" in the system
that takes a few moments to get used to. Still, soon I was able to ride
and imagine that I would be very comfortable with it after 50 miles.

One thing that was not mentioned before is that there was an ultra
skinny tire on the unicycle. There was a light drizzle out, and I was
able to slide the tire across the ground laterally (as well as skid the
tire). I guess it was like a 1.75" width tire. THIS fact made the
unicycle "twitchy" and "un-Coker-like." With a 2.5 tire on it and
slightly lower pressure, it would feel nicer. Also, I think it would be
better in the 28/42" version to help smooth out the bumps and get insane
speeds. My thinking is that 15 mph would be sustainable for 10 hours on
it.

I was impressed by the workmanship. It reminded me of a brand-new well
tuned road b*ke moreso than a unicycle. One downside is that one "must"
use the frame that the unicycle is built with, I wanted to be able to
simply throw this wheel on my current (MUni) rig, and have the exact
feel of my rig rather than have to build a second unicycle.

I can also see this unicycle for being great to go cross-country on. For
steep climbs, urban, and populated areas, it would be easy to shift to
28" and for moderate downhill and boring distances, the 42" wheel would
be a welcome change.

Overall, I am motivated to buy one - if for no other reason but to mount
it on the living room wall and marvel at it 🙂. I think in part here,
the greatest feature about it is the fantasies that come to the
imagination moreso than it's actual use; In my dream I yell with
frustration "Damn it! Keep up you guys!" GizmoDuck, AspenMike, Nathan
all cry out "We can't!" . . .

😎

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nathan said:

*Thanks for the info and photos. Did you try shifting on the fly? I
heard it was either 12 or 16 slots so that when you shift the period
of "weightlessness" is either 360/12 or 360/16 degrees... Any actual
details there?

About making a Muni with this technology...I don't think it would be
very popular even though I have no doubt he has the skill and vision
to make it strong enough.

---Nathan *

You may be right about the 12 or 16 degrees. Florian mentioned this. I
heard the number 60 mentioned. It must of been 16 with a swiss accent.
I didn't really comprehend what he was telling me. I did experience it
though. I was able to shift it at virtually a stand-still. Then I was
never able to ride off on it in the new gear. Other's were able to
shift it with relative ease with the wheel moving, and then keep riding.
The "weightlessness" period (of time) will be significantly reduced if
the wheel is moving. So, I don't think that would be a problem after
some practice shifting on the fly.

To be clear: the "weightlessness" period is when the wheel is not
engaged with ANY gear (coasting). this happens during the shift.

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ChangingLINKS.com said:

*
It took me a few minutes to learn to ride it in 36" mode. There is
something about looking down at a 24" wheel and "not knowing" how fast
it will spin. There is also a very minor amount of "play" in the
system that takes a few moments to get used to. Still, soon I was able
to ride and imagine that I would be very comfortable with it after 50
miles.

One thing that was not mentioned before is that there was an ultra
skinny tire on the unicycle. There was a light drizzle out, and I was
able to slide the tire across the ground laterally (as well as skid
the tire). I guess it was like a 1.75" width tire. THIS fact made the
unicycle "twitchy" and "un-Coker-like." With a 2.5 tire on it and
slightly lower pressure, it would feel nicer. Also, I think it would
be better in the 28/42" version to help smooth out the bumps and get
insane speeds. My thinking is that 15 mph would be sustainable for 10
hours on it.

😎 *

Wow, that sounds awesome! Pity I have to wait till August to try one.

Couple of questions- how would it compare to a 36" Coker if you had the
same length cranks on it? Will it be faster because of the lightweight
wheel or slower because of the loss of flywheel effect?
Will the amount of play affect the length of cranks you can use? I know
Greg Harpers Epicyclic had a noticeacle amount play which didn't affect
the ride at all- but that had fairly long cranks on them- so you
couldn't really spin that fast.

Did you get to try a 28" Schlumpf? Was it faster than a Coker?
I'm debating whether to get a 28" or 36" Schlumpf (hopefully they'll be
available in August). But I'm thinking a 28" with really short cranks
would be almost as fast as a 36" Schlumpf because of the lighter wheel-
I dread the thought of lugging 2 Cokers back on a plane from Europe!

Did you ask him about service life? Because it's geared I'm guessing
that the moving parts will eventually wear down- will Florian provide
spare parts or will the whole unit have to be replaced?

Cheers,

Ken

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Hi Ken! Are you recovered now??

A few of us in Seattle have been able to ride both my chain-geared 36,
and Harper's Blueshift 29" (w/ 2.3" Big Apple tire), in addition to
direct-drive 36's. Speaking only for myself, I much preferred Blueshift
in 1.5 mode (=43.5"😉 to a direct-drive 36. It has a lower center of
gravity, and rode smoother with the near-slick Big Apple tire. I didn't
mind the slight play at the cranks (it had 150mm cranks when I tried
it). I found it easy as pie to freemount, while I still have problems
mounting any 36" wheel. And, I was able to make a U-turn on the bike
path, whereas I can't yet do that with a 36. On a tour, the Blueshift
gets my vote hands down over a Coker.

I suspect I'll draw the same conclusion tomorrow when we get to demo the
Schlumpf hub. I think that hub will have lots of applications simply
due to it's easy shiftability. Even Blueshift is excitingly useable, so
what if it takes a minute to change gears?? The "Holy Grail" of
unicycling is now in sight...

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nathan said:

*About making a Muni with this technology...I don't think it would be
very popular even though I have no doubt he has the skill and vision
to make it strong enough.*

It would be nice to have a higher gear for those fireroads, or for just
cruising on the flats to get to the main trail. A low gear may be nice
for the steep uphills. I think it has potential if the slop can be
minimized.

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