I've only been into unicycling for a couple years now, so I only really follow the most popular companies now (KH, Koxx 1, UDC/Nimbus, Qu-Ax, Onza, ect.). I was wondering why the Semcycles are so expensive? They don't seem to be anything special at all but are normally about $100 USD more.
-- uniredneck
"Far better it is to dare mighty things, than to take rank with those poor, timid spirits who know neither victory nor defeat." - Theodore Roosevelt
While most productions, Qu-Ax, KH, Onza, Koxx, Monty etc. has moved to Taiwan, the Dutch company Semcycle is still making its own unicycles in its own country, I have visited the Semcycle factory and everything there is handmade by Apo Abrahams. Some freestyle frames are better, all the standard unicycles run a flat crown instead of a rounded one, but in quality of hubs, cranks, rims and saddles the quality isn't much higher than cheaper brands.
So summing it up:
Handmade in Holland No mass production Unique designs on freestyle frames
A guy who rides with me rides a semcycle. He was more of Juggler than Muni rider until recently. He actually went to the Semcycle pland and Abe hand built him his Unicycle. the quality and finishing of the welds are superb. It is also nice how he puts and extra layer of metal around parts that get the most stress. Semcycle Unicycles are not meant for extreme muni but my friends has stto up well to the abuse so far. If I was looking for a good freestyle Unicycle I would go the Semcycle route.
I'm pretty sure the 'made in the Netherlands' part applies to the Semcycle Deluxe only. Things may have changed since the earlier years, but the XL frames were from Taiwan, and those unicycles were probably assembled there. The Semcycle Deluxes were assembled on both sides of the Atlantic by the actual Semcycle people, not nameless Asian factory workers.
The Semcycle Deluxe is like a much more evolved version of the Classic Schwinn.
-- johnfoss
John Foss "jfoss" at "unicycling.com" -- www.unicycling.com -----------------------------------------------
"pretty much every trail that we've done on the California or Moab Muni weekends is an XC trail." -- Kris Holm, on XC from a North Shore point of view ------------------------------------------------------------------------ johnfoss's Profile: http://www.unicyclist.com/profile/832 View this thread: http://www.unicyclist.com/thread/58092
