Okay, the bad news is, if this is happening, it's probably because you
bought a piece of junk, it quite likely looks something like this
www.unicycleshop.co.nz/247.html
A lot of people in New Zealand buy these, thanks to a dubious website
and some dubious importers selling to bike shops who don't do any
research into what they're selling.
Assuming I'm right:
These are kind of made to look a bit like good unicycles, but the parts
are really badly made. For example, the saddle is all bendy, making it
useless for hopping, it's also way more uncomfortable than say a Kris
Holm seat, the seatpost clamp is so weak that you will likely bend it
just clamping it up, the 'cromoly hub' probably isn't, etc. etc.
The big bad thing though, is that the way the hub is made, has a really
bad attachment between the hub body and the axle, meaning that if you
ride them for any length of time, they will separate, and leave the
pedals spinning without the wheel turning. This is totally a known
problem, I know of at least 3 people who've got a replacement hub on
warranty for this.
Unfortunately these unicycles are sold to people who don't know better,
by dodgy manufacturers/importers. The manufacturers basically rely on
people giving up on riding unicycles before they break.
The really sad thing is that for $10 more, one could get something long
lasting like this http://tinyurl.com/33nota that has a real cromoly
hub, seat clamp that won't break, and for another $30, you can have a
really good saddle too.
What you need to do right now though, is go back to whoever sold you
this unicycle, and get the hub replaced. This isn't your fault, this is
something that happens to these unicycles, so they should fix it. Argue
with them enough and they will fix it, whether or not it's in the '1
month warranty' period, this is just not fit for the purpose it's sold
for, whatever the warranty they sell it with. If you've got any
possibility of getting your money back for the whole thing, then go
with that.
Once you've got the replacement hub, you might as well ride it until it
dies again. There is no point in upgrading this unicycle. The rim is
junk, the frame, might be okay, but only fits a weak seatpost, seat
clamp, junk, seat post, narrow and weak junk, seat absolute junk,
pedals, cheap plastic ones, not what you want for muni anyway, hub,
junk. The cranks, might not be junk, but probably are. I don't think
there's a single part you'd want to keep, except maybe the tyre.
The cheapest upgrade would be just to buy another unicycle. Get one
from here http://tinyurl.com/2ybkn3 as they sell unicycles that don't
break straight away, and actually ride unicycles and know about what
they're selling. You can phone them up and talk to a real live
unicyclist, for good advice too.
http://www.unicycle.co.nz is so good that the dodgy site
(unicycleshopnz) that I linked earlier actually copied loads of text
off the unicycle.co.nz website wholesale, even copying bits out of the
unicycle descriptions into the descriptions of their unicycles, even if
they aren't true.
Joe
--
joemarshall
my pics http://gallery.unicyclist.com/albuq44
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