Tyre pressure

unisteez said:

are you being serious?

yes, I weigh 74 pounds though😉

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Well, I weigh about twelve and a half stone and 15 psi was...
Allright, maybe twelve and three quarters but seriously when I got on
the ...

OKAY, OKAY!
I'm thirteen stone okay!
Happy now!? Huh?

Sheesh!...
🙂

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Into the blue

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Into the blue said:

So what does everyone feel comfortable with here?
Should I gradually increase my psi and work on my skill level, or is
there any point and I should leave things as they are?
Just wondering.
Blue.

After I saw your post, I decided to lower my tire pressure.

I have been riding for 12 days now, I have a 24 in Torker LX that came
with a 24x1.95 tire. The info on the side of the tire said between 40
and 60 pounds, so I pumped it up to 50 :-)

Today I dropped it down to 30 and riding was much easier. I went double
my normal distance at the lower pressure.

I was concerned that running on lower than 40 might cause some damage.
If it makes any difference, I weigh about 175 pounds.

Reccomendations?

Thanks,
Tom

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I recently lowered my muni (knobbly) tyre pressure to 20psi.

Correction: my tyre pressure was lowered for me by mister northcott
after he tried out my muni. Before it was about 35psi, complete
guesswork as I had no other riders to help me out. Since most of my
riding isn't that technical I wasn't keen to lower it for a while for
fear of added rolling resistance.

But if there is any increased resistance I barely notice it, in fact on
rough tracks it seems to take slightly less effort. The tyre is much
more easily persuaded to roll over roots and stones, plus I tend to get
smoothly bounded up and down instead of juddered. Not to mention it
take a lot less effort to hop up kerbs, as the tyre bounces.

The only bad thing was that for some reason riding down stairs took a
turn for the worse and I had to effectively re-learn it in order not to
UPD. I'm very puzzled why that is.

My (hardly used) 20" freestyle with a slick Maxxis Hookworm tyre I used
to run at about 45psi, but due to at least two pinch flats I now
inflate it to about 95psi.

One curious thing I know is that all beginners seem to learn with
smooth tyres, yet they are typically inflated to about half their
recommended pressure which increases rolling resistance.

Often when I lend my freestyle to a beginner rider, they seem to have
difficulty adjusting to the high pressure. Usually this is because they
are used to the low pressure on their own unicycles. I have no idea if
they would have an easier or harder time learning to ride if they used
a uni with a high pressure tyre from the start.

Yet I prefer very high pressure in slick tyres (which is what they are
designed for), since indoors and on the road rolling resistance is
virtually zero making for less effort.

Low pressure in slick tyres is something I find awful to ride on, even
though I am okay with riding a low pressure muni tyre even indoors and
on the road.

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rob.northcott said:

For a 3" muni tyre, ridden off-road, a good general starting point is
1psi per 10lbs of rider weight. Then adjust it either way depending on
your riding style and the type of trails (if you're bottoming out,
raise the pressure a bit, if you're bouncing off roots/rocks as you
ride over them, lower it a bit). Obviously lower pressure means more
rolling resistance, so if it's a smooth trail you could raise pressure
a bit to go faster/save energy.

Rob

Would this ratio (1psi/10 lbs) apply for riding on my 1.95 inch street
tire? I weigh about 170, but unless I increase it to at least 25 lbs, I
feel like there is too much resistance caused by the lower pressure. My
uni is a stock 24' Torker LX if that helps for making comparisons.

I'm just learning to ride and not doing any jumps/drops, etc.

Thanks,
Tom

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tomkarches said:

Would this ratio (1psi/10 lbs) apply for riding on my 1.95 inch street
tire?

No, that's for a big fat muni tyre ridden off-road. A road tyre should
be quite a bit harder. I don't have much experience of road unicycle
riding, but the 1.85" tyre on my 20" freestyle uni is at about 50 psi,
and I've heard people saying they run Big Apple 29er road tyres at 60.
So I would guess that somewhere between about 40 and 60 should be the
right sort of range. Anybody confirm or dispute that?

Rob

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Some of the best offroad tyres ride very poorly on pavement. Unless you
change the pressure. How much? Depends on all those previously
mentioned factors.

So far from all I've seen and read (and experienced), there isn't any
useful formula for what's the "right" amount of pressure unless you get
very specific indeed. Such as: 24 x 1.75 tire for indoor riding with
rider weight of 125 lbs or more = 50 psi. Something like that. Take the
same unicycle outside, and the numbers change. Make the tire wider,
they change again. Ride on bumpy stuff, they change some more. Ride on
sharp rocks, you have to change it again.

So I have a nice general rule I use:

1. Enough to keep the rim off the ground.

This is always the most important one. The wider the tire, generally,
the less pressure you can get away with. This is good if you want
traction and "rollover" of obstacles. If you want low friction, you
want to go high. If you ride a skinny tire offroad (like we originally
did on our 1.75s), you'll have to up the pressure to protect yourself
from snakebite punctures.

If youi're riding indoors or on a smooth surface, then go by the amount
of traction you want. For lowest traction, more air. For lots of
traction (or steering control for beginners) let some out.

Always start with more pressure than you think you'll need. It's easier
to let some out than to keep adding more. Get a small frame pump to
carry with you if you ride offroad. Make sure it can work with both
major valve styles or else the first time you need it (maybe for
someone else) it'll have the wrong one.

Beyond that, we can only estimate recommended pressures if you tell us
how much you weigh, the type of rim and tire you're using, the type of
terrain, and what you're doing on it.

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For general muni usage, I think 1 psi per 10 pounds of weight is just
about a perfect starting point. Unless you run a Large Marge rim, and
then it's more like 1 psi for every 15 pounds of weight.

I run a higher pressure if I'm expecting high speed and relatively low
technical runs. A higher pressure rolls better, but will buck you off
once it gets rocky.
But you can always let some pressure out.

I think a very wise thing is to get a pressure gauge, find a few psi
settings that work well for you and stick with them according to the
readings of the particular gauge you use (the readings can vary quite a
lot, gauge to gauge).
Running too low a pressure makes the muni hard to turn and you'll
eventually pinch flat when you rim out.

JL

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