Diet Coker!!!

Wow Ken,

This Diet Coker really does look pretty amazing. My experience of my
airfoil coker (I've never ridden a steel rimmed coker) is that it
barely felt less wieldy than my 29er (although I think I'll notice it
more when I start riding the 29er again). An ultra light coker could
be really amazing.

How much difference do you find lighter pedals / cranks make? Although
they're rotating weight, they are pretty close to the centre of the
wheel (esp. with short cranks) so I wouldn't have expected them to
"feel" that much different?

How much difference does a CF saddle base make? Can you really feel
the weight difference, or is it mainly the extra stiffness that
matters?

--
mark williamson

Dave: Just a question. What use is a unicyle with no seat? And no
pedals!
Mark: To answer a question with a question: What use is a skateboard?
Dave: Skateboards have wheels.
Mark: My wheel has a wheel!
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GizmoDuck said:

I don't have accurate enough scales to give a good measure of the whole
unicycle- but on my bathroom scales it weighs just over 6kg.

Woooah, if that's right that's less than either of the KH munis. That's
super duper light. You've saved over 2kg over the stock coker.

Is that the narrow UDC hub for weight saving, or the wider one?

Building up this kind of wheel and stuff is way cheaper now, you can
build a fantastic coker for £320 on unicycle.co.uk, with stainless
spokes, alloy seatpost and everything (see below). Obviously the
super-posh stuff like the expensive carbon seatbases adds on a lot, but
it's way cheaper than it used to be.

36 x Spokes £22.68
1 x Unicycle.com Extra-Wi... £32.00
1 x Coker 36" Tyre £65.00
1 x Black Alloy Cranks £17.00
1 x Inner tube 36" Coker ... £13.50
1 x KHE Stimulatorz Pedal... £15.00
1 x Airfoil 36-inch Rim £90.00
1 x Kris Holm Fusion Sadd... £29.00
1 x Replacement Unicycle ... £28.00
1 x Qu-ax Aluminium Seatp... £8.00

Joe

--
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GizmoDuck said:

My new Diet Coker setup:
Coker Tyre, Stans Tubeless conversion
Airfoil rim
Tommy Miller SS spokes
Standard UDC hub
Schlumpf alloy 114mm cranks (~300g vs the 500g 110mm Bicycle Euros I
had previously)
Wellgo MG-1 Magnesium pedals (370g vs 680g for my trusty sealed Snafus)

Schlumpf 1st Generation reject frame (850g vs 1100g for my old Std
Coker frame)
Miyata carbon seat, dual density foam (I haven't weighed this, but it's
at least 100g lighter than my KH Carbon seat with heavy foam that I
used at Unicon).
Wallis Deathgrip Carbon handles (about 400g lighter than the GB4
handle+grips, but I still prefer the GB4. Will swap over for the
purpose of this exercise).

Beautiful ride.

Thanks for such a detailed list, Ken. My Radial is quite heavy and
this gives me several suggestions of how/what to upgrade.

--
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steveyo

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'Ahem' (http://tinyurl.com/eknmc)! 🙂

--
yoopers

`_______
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L---L –0LLLLLLL0-
()_) ()_)----)_)

Munipsycho on the art of raising children: "My job is not to keep them
from falling. It's to teach them to always get back up."

Always give lots of credit and take very little. Seems to make everyone
happier. Conversely, take as much responsibility for mistakes as one
can assume! - Dr. Bobo

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unicycledude93: Yoopers
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joemarshall said:

you can build a fantastic coker for £320 on unicycle.co.uk

See attachment for example. This is in no way an 'I've got new toys too'
post.

Mine isn't quite like that. The flat pedals I got don't take toe clips,
so are going on the muni and have been replaced with cheap cage type
pedals. And I saved money by getting a 29er tube rather than a coker
tube. I then killed 3 tubes getting the tyre on the rim - bit of a
tight fit. Took me a lot longer to get the tyre on properly than it did
to build the wheel. The tyre is a radial, not the coker one. It's the
first time I've felt a coker tyre seperately from a wheel - they're not
light. Makes you wonder what they'd be like with something like a 36"
big apple. We can dream...

And another 'woo' for unicycle.uk.com - big random list of bits, and it
gets delivered 22 hours after ordering.

+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Filename: IMG_2192a.jpg |
|Download: http://www.unicyclist.com/attachment/14933 |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+

--
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mark williamson said:

Wow Ken,
How much difference do you find lighter pedals / cranks make? Although
they're rotating weight, they are pretty close to the centre of the
wheel (esp. with short cranks) so I wouldn't have expected them to
"feel" that much different?

Not as much as saving weight on the tube, but still noticeable
especially when you've dropped over 1/2kg. You could try attaching a
heavy crank/pedal set to a non-built up hub and then swinging it round
and round. Now do the same with the light set. Now do it at 100+rpm
and you get an idea of how much difference it makes.

I don't think the carbon base is that much lighter than a plastic seat,
but I like the stiffness especially when I'm standing up and putting my
weight on the handle. More so with a large handle like the GB4.

--
GizmoDuck

'SINZ Unitour 2007' (http://www.sinzuni.org)
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joemarshall said:

Woooah, if that's right that's less than either of the KH munis. That's
super duper light. You've saved over 2kg over the stock coker.

Is that the narrow UDC hub for weight saving, or the wider one?

Building up this kind of wheel and stuff is way cheaper now, you can
build a fantastic coker for £320 on unicycle.co.uk, with stainless
spokes, alloy seatpost and everything (see below). Obviously the
super-posh stuff like the expensive carbon seatbases adds on a lot, but
it's way cheaper than it used to be.

36 x Spokes £22.68
1 x Unicycle.com Extra-Wi... £32.00
1 x Coker 36" Tyre £65.00
1 x Black Alloy Cranks £17.00
1 x Inner tube 36" Coker ... £13.50
1 x KHE Stimulatorz Pedal... £15.00
1 x Airfoil 36-inch Rim £90.00
1 x Kris Holm Fusion Sadd... £29.00
1 x Replacement Unicycle ... £28.00
1 x Qu-ax Aluminium Seatp... £8.00

Joe

I've got the narrow hub on the frame- I like the narrower Q-factor and
I had not noticed any flex in the wheel on the old frame. This frame
seems to flex slightly more however. It's no big deal to switch the
frame back to the stock, I'll only add back 250g to it, after having
saved well over 1kg.

What's the KHE Stimulatorz pedal?

For regular riding I would normally prefer the GB4 handle and straight
cranks. However, it's also nice to be able to ride a superlight Coker
just to see how much difference it makes. The tubeless kit is the
nicest part of my Coker IMHO, and lighter than the tube set-up. Makes
a big difference to the quality of the ride.

--
GizmoDuck

'SINZ Unitour 2007' (http://www.sinzuni.org)
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yoopers said:

'Ahem' (http://tinyurl.com/eknmc)! 🙂

Ok you beat me to it. So how many calories does your Diet Coker have?
:p

My Diet Coker can be converted to a Vanilla Coker (for MUni), Lime
Coker (for racing). It can be mixed with bourbon to make an alcoholic
Coker (for Unitouring).

What can yours do?

--
GizmoDuck

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That is a very nice uni. I have been thinking about getting into
cokering cause i like riding around the streets for exercise and for
just getting out. and can you explain these air brakes, i havent heard
of this before.

--
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lvl 4 unicyclist!! w00t w00t!
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That's a beautiful piece of equipment there, Ken. And it's unbelieveably
light at 6kg, although your bathroom scale is not designed to weigh
cats. I used a 25 lb full limit scale and had to remove the seat and
weigh it separately to get an accurate estimate of a stock Coker with
steel rim. My measurement was about 27 pounds or about 12.25 kg.
BlueShift weighed in at 15 pounds or about 6.82 kg.

Sounds nimble, though. If you can get the wheel set down that far you
can really whip it around quickly. It makes riding skinnies easier.
Scott makes fantastic stuff, doesn't he? That grip of his is unreal.

--
harper

-Greg Harper

B L U E S H I F T

*jc is the only main man. there can be no other.*

This is still my nth post....*AWESOME!!!*
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The Bruiser said:

That is a very nice uni. I have been thinking about getting into
cokering cause i like riding around the streets for exercise and for
just getting out. and can you explain these air brakes, i havent heard
of this before.

I love my airbrake- it's soooo light!

I've attached a photo of it:

--
GizmoDuck

'SINZ Unitour 2007' (http://www.sinzuni.org)
'www.adventureunicyclist.com' (http://www.adventureunicyclist.com/)
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harper said:

That's a beautiful piece of equipment there, Ken. And it's unbelieveably
light at 6kg, although your bathroom scale is not designed to weigh
cats. I used a 25 lb full limit scale and had to remove the seat and
weigh it separately to get an accurate estimate of a stock Coker with
steel rim. My measurement was about 27 pounds or about 12.25 kg.
BlueShift weighed in at 15 pounds or about 6.82 kg.

I just put my JC Coker on the (digital) bathroom scale and it came to
21.4 lb (9.7 kg). It's a tank, but less of a tank than a stock Coker.

I haven't considered weight in choosing the parts for it. I could do
many things to lower the weight. I'm back to the stock Coker tube so a
29er tube or a tubeless conversion would lower some weight. I have the
TA tire on it which I like. The tire will get lighter as it wears
down. I have a Magura brake on it. A steel rail adapter and steel
carriage bolts in the seat. I do have an aluminum seatpost. Frame is
a steel GB4 and I have no idea how much it weighs.

My JC Coker handle is all aluminum. I haven't weighed it separately.
It is modular and easily removable.

I keep considering a Stans tubeless conversion. My main concern is
that it would probably (possibly) burp air when I have to squeeze the
tire to fit it between the brake pads every time the wheel is removed
or inserted. And I don't have an air compressor.

The stock Coker tube makes the wheel feel like a slug at times
(especially when climbing). I took it for a ride today and looked down
at the tire several times to see if the tire was losing air because it
felt like such a slug. It felt better when I had the 29er tube.

--
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john_childs (att) hotmail (dott) com
Team Dirty Muni
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GizmoDuck said:

Not as much as saving weight on the tube, but still noticeable
especially when you've dropped over 1/2kg.

I had the same experience this weekend when I tried my non-splined
MUni after having ridden 2.5 years on a KH24. The cotterless hub on
the old MUni is easily 1 kg (over 2 lbs) lighter than the splined KH
hub (according to unicycle.uk.com). And the difference in handling is
VERY noticeable.

Indeed, such 'hardly rotating' weight near the hub still does more to
how responsive the unicycle feels than e.g. weight that's in the
saddle - let alone weight in the rider.

The reason why weight in the rim or tyre is so important is that it
resists acceleration and deceleration of the wheel. A big part of that
is rotational inertia. Granted, a hub does rotate too, but the
rotational inertia is quite small due to the hub being so close to the
axis of rotation. Same with cranks but to a lesser degree.

Now, when you accellerate the wheel e.g for keeping balance, the hub
mass has to undergo linear accelleration, and it will resist that too.
Conversely, the seat does not directly accellerate forward (or not as
much) when you push the wheel forward. On the contrary, when you push
the wheel forward to regain balance, the objective is to bring the
wheel back under the seat so it (the wheel) has to accellerate more.

A long-winded way to say that mass in hub, pedals and cranks is still
an important factor in responsiveness of a unicycle.

Klaas Bil - Newsgroup Addict
--
"I'm slowly but surely stealing Wales and bringing it back to my house on the wheel, frame and cranks of my muni. - phil"

GizmoDuck said:

I've got the narrow hub on the frame- I like the narrower Q-factor and I
had not noticed any flex in the wheel on the old frame. This frame
seems to flex slightly more however. It's no big deal to switch the
frame back to the stock, I'll only add back 250g to it, after having
saved well over 1kg.

What's the KHE Stimulatorz pedal?

Plastic bmx platforms - apparently you can put metal pins in them to
make them okay. They're quite lightweight. Not as nice as the magnesium
ones but way cheaper. Thinking about it though, I'd buy Azonic Fusion
pedals not from unicycle.com if I wanted platforms, or some cage pedals
like John has if I wanted clips, would add about a fiver to the cost.

Have you compared the weight to your munis, how does it compare to
them?

Joe

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GizmoDuck said:

It can be mixed with bourbon to make an alcoholic Coker

If somebody in Italy built one it could be a Roman Coker :p
(sorry)

Rob

--
rob.northcott

'Dartmoor Muni Weekend'
(http://www.unicyclist.com/forums/showthread.php?t=46116) - Last
weekend in May 2006
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Klaas Bil said:

On Mon, 4 Sep 2006 19:10:28 -0500, GizmoDuck
I had the same experience this weekend when I tried my non-splined
MUni after having ridden 2.5 years on a KH24. The cotterless hub on
the old MUni is easily 1 kg (over 2 lbs) lighter than the splined KH
hub (according to unicycle.uk.com). And the difference in handling is
VERY noticeable.

OK, that's very interesting, and very useful to know.

Quoted message said:

The reason why weight in the rim or tyre is so important is that it
resists acceleration and deceleration of the wheel. A big part of that
is rotational inertia. Granted, a hub does rotate too, but the
rotational inertia is quite small due to the hub being so close to the
axis of rotation. Same with cranks but to a lesser degree.

Exactly. When thinking about the handling of the unicycle I usually
focus on the moment of inertia of the wheel (which, to my mind,
determines much of the "beastiness" of controlling a 36" :-).

Quoted message said:

Now, when you accellerate the wheel e.g for keeping balance, the hub
mass has to undergo linear accelleration, and it will resist that too.
Conversely, the seat does not directly accellerate forward (or not as
much) when you push the wheel forward. On the contrary, when you push
the wheel forward to regain balance, the objective is to bring the
wheel back under the seat so it (the wheel) has to accellerate more.

A long-winded way to say that mass in hub, pedals and cranks is still
an important factor in responsiveness of a unicycle.

Ooooh, good point. I hadn't thought of it that way - makes a great deal
of sense! I've already got alloy cranks on my 36er - guess I might
start looking for some lighter weight pedals also.

Handling is particularly important to me since I do a lot of riding
around blissfully unaware pedestrian tourists, and because I have dodgy
knees and they get less angry with me if I don't put lots of force
through them!

Thanks very much for the explanation, I'll add that to my mental list
of "unicycle physics" :-)

Cheers,
Mark

--
"I'm slowly but surely stealing Wales and bringing it back to my house
on the wheel, frame and cranks of my muni. - phil"

--
mark williamson

Dave: Just a question. What use is a unicyle with no seat? And no
pedals!
Mark: To answer a question with a question: What use is a skateboard?
Dave: Skateboards have wheels.
Mark: My wheel has a wheel!
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Noooooo.

Now I wish people wouldn't talk about thier unicycles cos it only gets
me thinking 😉

The trouble with buying things that you've never had before is that you
don't know what customisation you are going to need until you've used
it a bit. After having (my first) coker for about 4 months now I have
decided 2 things: one - I wanted to ride on 125 cranks, two - I wanted
an airfoil rim and for the wheel to be a bit lighter for me to be able
to turn the wheel with 125 cranks. In the meantime I had also realised
that if I wanted to ride on 125 cranks I would have to get another
frame because I would have to raise the short person's coker frame too
far when I put on the shorter cranks.

So this thread has got me thinking. Why not go for a diet coker since I
would need a completely new unicycle? Joe's post was very useful. So I
priced a similar set up on udc last night. Now all I have to do is find
the money ...

Cathy

--
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You don't have to think too much Cathy. Nice as all this
'super-light-weight' optemisation can sound, it doesn't make nearly as
much difference as riding lots.

Unless you get obsessive about it and go for every possible component,
like Ken's machine, the factor of improvement will be pretty low.

I recently upgraded my 36er wheel from a stock Quax one to an
airfoil-rimmed, stainless spoked one. Possibly the most significant
change was the wider hub and carefully tentioned build, giving a
tighter wheel. I never thought that it felt 'soft' before (over 2500
miles of road use), and hasn't ever so much as hinted that it may even
consider looking into the possibility of beginning the process of the
slightest amount of tacoing. I also changed from 114 to 102mm cranks,
which may affect the apparent feeling, but it certainly did feel like
it turned more deftly and responsively.

So, I felt that the new rim/spokes (though I think I really got it
largely due to the old one being increasingly rusty, and the visual
appeal of the airfoil) can make sudden sharp turns feel 'lighter'. But
I don't think it makes it feel much different to ride along. Going up
hill on a grim day and it can easily feel just as sluggish as it did in
such situations before. After all, it's only a reduction of (plucking
a figure from the air) something like 20% of the wheel's weight.

(Deadly) Des may be the ultimate advocate of the minimal factor of
equipment. He rode his first 24hr Mountain Mayhem race on a standard
stock Coker, which had never been off-road before. He says that
despite having an airfoil rim currently (I think due to the standard
steel not being sold seperately when needing a replacement), he'd be
just as happy to go back to a steel rim. He just rides whatever, and
is one of the fastest/best at it.

There may be a significant mental placebo effect. If you feel like you
have a good, strong, light, fast wheel, you'll probably feel stronger
and ride it faster. If you think that you're wheel sucks, it will
probably seem heavier and slower than it is. May some go-faster
stripes is what we all need.

Crank length, on the other hand, can have a huge effect. 🙂 A 36"
wheel with short (eg 110mm) cranks feels like a completely different
creature to one with longer (eg 150mm) ones. And cranks can cost only
£7/pair.

My tuppence.

Sam

--
redwelly

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sometimes you feel like throwing up, so it's really nice to be able to
pick and choose." - Ken Looi
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UDC US doesn't have the right size frame for less than $500, it also
doesn't have a 36" tire

--
Ducttape

Spencer Hochberg said:

Hey, I didn't know I was in a sig line!

sparrowhawk said:

ive been dreaming for years of the prediction made by the gods written
on the scrolls of Korteweg that i will be in a signature on a odd
invention made by man himself.....oh you can dream....you can
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John,
Not a major problem with burping. When the tyre is freshly converted
to tubeless, you can make it burp by squeezing the tyre at low
pressure. It's not a major problem as all it does is squirt some
sealant in your face and then plugs the hole. You will need an
aircompressor for the conversion though, or get your LBS to do it.

Cathy,
As you can see from Joes list- it doesn't cost that much to drop the
weight significantly. And even from my Coker- it doesn't cost alot
more than any other custom Coker. And you can see how little it costs
to swap the cranks and pedals over to something lightweight.

Mark,
If you're riding around pedestrians, a lighter Coker is easier to
decelerate and steer around them. The Diet Coker handles like a much
smaller unicycle because it has less momentum.

Sam,
I like your Sig line!
I do find that lightening the wheel makes a difference, and I'm pretty
sure it's more than psychological. It's far easier to decelerate
*(especially if you don't use a brake), and it feels more lively-
easier to twist/turn/hop etc.
When I first changed over my spokes and converted to tubeless, I found
that I could go up a crank size (eg from 125's to 110's) and it would
handle in a similar fashion. When I ride a regular Coker- it feels
quite sluggish.

--
GizmoDuck

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