Loosemoose`

Right, first post on here for a while, just to say me & a Canadian unicyclist are meeting in Bristol today, and I wanted to show him the good spots. I've only ridden Bristol once and it was great, but obviously that means I haven't seen everything, and It was a while ago so I have no idea whats been changed (and I've heard stories the big amphitheatre is being messed about with?). I'm meeting him midday at Temple Meads station, but we're not riding straight away, so if anyone wants to meet us then shout up and we can meet you later in the day somewhere. Loose.

I think you overestimate the appeal of most olympic sports, lots of them (curling for example) are obscure and have kept the community feel to them, despite being recognised as olympic sports. I'm think I'm right in saying that a sport has to have a nationally recognised organising body that oversees rules, competitions and drugs testing procedures (yes thats right, in order to become an olympic sport drugs testing has to be an integral part of a sports competition). Loose.

A 2005 KH 20" Trials Uni, with Jimmy C's and A Scott Wallis CF seatbase & handle... Same setup as an american guy on Unicyclist.com has got: Pic And CF seatbase detail here. Its the lightest trials unicycle I know of, weighs 4.5kgs Loose.

I've done about 6ft 6", with a 6" drop, landing in a pedalgrab. Not tried much bigger since, I need a runup (and a nice, wide, impact-friendly landing for when I fall off onto it). Loose.

I've been talking to Roger Davies, the guy who runs the European Unicycle.com, and he says he can get pretty much any DX rim shipped from UDC in America. Are 26" DX32's available anywhere in the UK? Cos he can get them in for you if you want them. Loose.

For unicycling, go with a proven rim, thats an Alex DX32, a TryAll or Koxx Cheesehole, or (my preference) a KH 19" Freeride. Unicycles put way more transverse load onto a rim than normal bike trials, and you need to be careful to avoid tyre folding. A note about the TryAll/Koxx rims, Yoggi is constantly ripping the spokes through his rims and getting them replaced, so it'd be best to go for something eyeletted. I've heard good things about the new 19" Hog from Onza, check UDC. Loose.

Unicyclists have started moving over from the Alex rims (used to be the only rims before Koxx that didn't die really quickly) to the newer (and specially developed) KH Freeride 19" Rims. Built by Kris Holm for unicycle trials, they hold up to sideways loading better than a normal rim, and people who'd go through 5+ Alex Rims in a season are now using the same KH rim year after year, they're hella strong. U can get them from UDC, 42.2mm width and undrilled. Loose.

Taken directly from www.krisholm.com, but its vague enough to still apply to bike trials too. Trials: This involves riding over obstacles of any sort, either in natural terrain or in an urban environment, where the challenge is purely a function of technical difficulty over short distances. Riding techniques are employed purely as a means to negotiate obstacles. Loose.

After spending about 30 minutes looking through websites today (and using garageband) I found a stream of the song, and used audacity to rip the audio from the flash player... Download Link. I can't get my FTP working so its on one of those free upload places, which of course means a bloody faff about to try and actually reach it. Basically skip the advert that shows up first (or wait 10 seconds, whatever), then on the page that shows the file details, hit 'Wait in line and download'. Should work then. Its an old-school demo, one of the first tracks that Camera actually recorded, thats why it was so damn hard to locate. Enjoy. Loose.

Sometimes being associated with clowning has its upsides, I and my friends have used excuses ranging from "Well good job its not a bike then" to "Are you really going to stop me from taking my circus prop on the train?", and it seems to work every time. Legally a unicycle is comparable with a bike (where it says 'no cycling' or there's that bike with a cross through symbol, that counts for us too) but its such a legal gray area that not even the police know whats right & what isn't. I've spent hours riding around a local park, and even rode past 2 cops giving some 14 year old kid an earful for riding in there, there are signs about no cycling anywhere but unicycles are seemingly untouchable. It would suck if the government decided to stop trains from carrying bikes, and I agree with the 'Green Government' comments already made. If every city made the effort that they have done here in Southampton, I'd use the public transport system a lot more often, its £1 to go anywhere in the city on any bus, and they'll take bikes no problem (as long as its not packed) and unicycles are almost a joke to them. I still ask every time, but usually I get a reply along the lines of 'Of course mate, half of its missing!' (har har ) Loose.

I'm glad my uni is that much simpler than a normal trials bike, I'd have to have my life in the hands of a complex mechanical device like a brake (yeah ok, aeroplanes, cars etc, etc I know). Give me direct drive and a splined hub any day, at least the only things that go are seatposts and the odd crank. Loose.

The most amusing thing about all this is Microsoft tried to jump the Sony gun and release its console first, but to do that it manufactured a tiny amount of consoles. The whole of Europe only got 300,000 of them, distributed amongst more than 800,000,000 people. If the trend continues and MS can't get its production capacity increased, people are still going to be waiting for thier precious PS beater when the PS3 comes out next spring. I personally would like to own both a PS3 and an Xbox 360 (but don't have the money for either, lol) since they both have features and games I'd love to play. The Xbox has better online capability and its fans are people who make use of that to some extent. The PS3 is the more 'powerful' system, with its Core processor and so on, but is more of a games machine anyway. People who want a media capable system, which can stream from a home PC over WiFi and read images/video/music from portable devices, as well as playing games, will choose an Xbox 360. Gamers who love the cutting edge titles like Gran Turismo and Final Fantasy, will choose the PS3. I'd like to point out one fact about the Xbox that may have passed its fans by. Name a genre-defining game on the Xbox/Xbox 360... Halo? Correct. Now name another... Not so easy huh? Do the same for the Playstation 2/PS3 and you've got a wealth of titles: Gran Turismo, Final Fantasy, GTA, Burnout... Loose.

I can't find the link to the vid or at least the one I can find is broken. They're different, and used for different things. Its like saying 'you can't do as much on a skateboard as you can on a bike' there's no real comparison. Its closest to bike trials, but not the same. These few videos should (hopefully) show that: Demo99, Ryan Atkins' Trials, Tracks. The first is Street/Trials, the second is pure Trials, with some street flare, and the third is primarily Muni. A trials unicycle is more than capable of performing all of these 3 styles with no real problems, in fact Kris Holm Trials unicycles are used in all 3, the 19" versions with Creepy Crawler/Luna tyres (depends on the year) Loose.

I've got a 26" Large Marge Rim on my Mountain Unicycle, with a 3" Gazzaloddi. its heavy but tough as hell, and won't break... Got mine from www.speedgoat.com. Loose.

Defect is the sequel to Universe 2, since people like Dylan Wallinger & Dan Doerkson don't ride any more, they've dropped from the public eye and people like Shaun Johanneson, Justin Kohse, Kevin McMullin & Xavier Collos have improved past the U2 level of riding. If you liked the stuff in U2 you'll love Defect. Loose.

The platformed wheel is called a 'BC' wheel, after some comic in the US that had a similar kind of device in it. Its basically 2 drop plates on a BMX wheel (although you can use pegs), and you ride it by staying balanced over it as it moves... Its more dependent on gravity, like a skateboard, than a unicycle is. Needless to say they're very very hard to ride, but make for some really cool tricks. Eyan Byrne on the unicyclist community has some nice videos here that show off some more tricks than Jeff Groves was able to show in the Defect trailer. Loose.

HA! All depends on which one you're better at. I suck at even riding bikes, so I think Uni Trials is better, but each to their own. All I know is that after about 6 months work on uni trials you can get good enough to be paid for it, but it takes years to do the same for bike trials. And its cheaper too. But its not as easy, since you can't just pick up a uni and ride it insanely in a few weeks, it takes a few years to be good enough to move onto trials stuff. Each has its own merits, I'm not a bike trials person, and I know from personal experience unicycle trials is not for everyone either. Back on topic, there are some very nice uni trials videos about, the Koxx-One Gallery being one of the best collections from 3 of the best riders in the world; Yoggi, Xavier Collos and Julien Monney. There's also the Defect Trailer, a teaser for the newest Trials/Street Unicycling DVD. There's an absolute goldmine of stuff over at The Unicyclist Community, just go to gallery (at the top) and search for 'Trials' or people like 'Shaun Johanneson', 'Ryan Atkins', 'Kris Holm' etc... If you search hard enough you might find some really crappy videos on there with me in them... You'll all love this video of Shaun, he's one of the kings of street right now, and a real talent in the small but growing elite unicycle riders. Loose.

Hey hey! Fame! Next comes fortune, or so I am told... I do unicycle trials and street, been doing unicycling in general for about 3 years. I started with Muni and moved on to trials 8 months ago. I like to think I'm ok at it, and I love to hear other people trying it out, and I like meeting other riders. Loose.

Hey, this is a general call out to people in Oxford, I didn't want to clog up the Stolen Bikes thread with this 'unique' occurance... A friend of mine got her Koxx Freestyle unicycle (pic) nicked in oxford last week sometime, Its pretty unique and easily identifiable. You should be able to spot it from the Koxx Cheesehole rim, its the only production uni with a gold one as standard. There were very few of these sold in the UK, (possibly only this one), so if you could keep an eye out for it locally I (and she) would really appreciate it. Loose.

Except... Loose.

Unicycling for 3 years: 1 crank 1 hub 2 seatposts 2 saddles 1 seatpost clamp Loose.

I'll be out on sunday, just got some new pedals so I'll be trying them out. Weather for sunday: Forecast Looks ok, might be damp due to early morning showers. Looks like a chilly one, 8C without windchill. Loose.

I seem to be the resident Extreme Unicyclist here on TF, I've been riding for 3 years and ride Street, Trials and Mountain. The best places for info are Unicyclist Community, Unicycle Source (UK) and Unicycling Tips & Tuts (currently down due to bandwith exceedence). All of which will be invaluable for any unicyclist. There's also a lot of info on The Unicyclopedia. As for extreme videos, I'd check out the movies page on the unicycling tips & tuts site (when its back up), or some of the recent video threads in the community. Or just go to the Unicycle Source & order Defect, the new dan heaton production (Trailer). Its ace, I got it last week. Good luck with learning, of you've got any questions just ask, I'm on here every few days at the least. Loose.

Kris has had a lot of trouble with people splitting rims along the breaking surface due to the wear indicators providing a weak spot, that the repetitive twisting would make these rims basically burst along that seam. Since the 2005 model KH Trials Uni was released he's supplied them without the wear indicator to improve rim sturdiness. The following is a quote from a thread on the Unicyclist Community Forums, about the possible upgrades to KH unicycles for the 06 model year: Loose.

I didn't really warm up properly (apart from riding around looking for you guys), and I was trying stuff I hadn't attempted before, or hadn't attempted in a long while (like scaling that rock wall, transfering to bin to 4ft drop). I haven't done systematic long drops much before, and that 4+ft drop while clearing over the bench impressed me (and scared me shitless too, I need to work on that). If I keep riding with you guys I can see my skills improving dramatically over the next 6 months. Loose.