Guni discussion thread

harper said:

As Mike says, there presently is really very little market for these
hubs. I hope Florian can make a profit. His parts are of exceptional
quality and many of them are case hardened. His shifting mechanism is
patented and it is the feature that makes it stand out from the first
prototypes that Frank Bonsch and I built. The static shift hubs could
be made domestically and sold for around $600 to $800. But now that
shift on the fly exists and has been repeatedly proven to be possible,
why would anyone want a static shift hub? Mike himself used it as a
stepping stone to a superior system.

I might consider buying a static shift hub if it was 400$ less.

How useful is shift on the fly anyway Ive heard its tricky to get the
hang of.
could you do without it???

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I have much love for my Harper hubbed 36er. I feel privilged to have had
the geared riding experience before it was commercially available.
Thank you Greg for having pioneered the (awsome to the nth power)
internally geared unicycle hub.

harper said:

Hey, throw me a bone here.

Is that better?

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Knowing me, and it seems like Corbin is doing this as well, but id try
to ride everything in the high gear.

A uni like Unisk8rs or Harpers would probbaly fit me better. But Id
also being taking it off road a lot, so the ISIS hub is very pleasing
to me.

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It's very useful. Even if you can't do it on-the-fly, it's still as
simple as hopping off and pressing a button.

It may be tricky to learn, but c'mon, we ride unicycles. If I can learn
it (I'm about 1 in 4 at this point) anyone can.

XCcrev said:

I might consider buying a static shift hub if it was 400$ less.

How useful is shift on the fly anyway Ive heard its tricky to get the
hang of.
could you do without it???

--
mscalisi

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mscalisi said:

It's very useful. Even if you can't do it on-the-fly, it's still as
simple as hopping off and pressing a button.

...and freemounting and riding off again, which in high gear I find
really difficult.

mscalisi said:

It may be tricky to learn, but c'mon, we ride unicycles. If I can learn
it (I'm about 1 in 4 at this point) anyone can.

...but you're not me.

With 150 cranks on my Schlumpf my shoes aren't big enough to switch the
buttons, I'd have to somehow move my feet on the pinned pedals so my
tiptoes are on the pedal. And even then, because of the shape of the
square-tapered Schlumpf cranks the button is quite recessed, making it
difficult to kick. All of the time my heel just brushes over the button
without it clicking in.

--
gkmac

"Those who can, do. Those who can't, take the pictures." - tomblackwood
"As it only hurts when you walk, will you be riding everywhere now?" -
mikepenton
"Well, not everything is as practical as making your cranks flip around
I guess." - Brian MacKenzie
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tholub said:

I understand why Schlumpfs are expensive, and I agree that Florian
probably isn't making a whole lot of money off unicycle hubs. But I
don't think there's any way in which Schlumpf unicycle hubs compare
favorably to quality bike parts. They're extremely expensive, pretty
much everyone loses buttons or has to fiddle with them regularly,
shifting is pretty sketchy, and I heard of one case where someone wound
up with a compound fracture of his leg due to a Schlupmf failure. (Oh
wait, that was you).

Of course not. Bike parts are made by multimillion dollar companies in
large factories that churn out thousands of these things every year.

Schlumpf parts are made by a guy in a workshop at the back of his
house.

If unicycling ever got as big as bicycling, I'm sure Florian would find
some more suitable means of production.

--
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Especially with a 36er, anything with much of a grade is unridable in
high gear. You can make smaller hills just by using momentum, but real
hill climbing just doesn't work. Riding what you can though, will make
you very strong.

Jerrick said:

Knowing me, and it seems like Corbin is doing this as well, but id try
to ride everything in the high gear.

A uni like Unisk8rs or Harpers would probbaly fit me better. But Id
also being taking it off road a lot, so the ISIS hub is very pleasing
to me.

--
mscalisi

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harper said:

Now that shift on the fly exists, why would anyone want a static shift
hub?

Well, I can think of one reason: because that was the type of hub that
happened to be on the geared unicycle that they stole. Little buttons
are great, but at $1000 each, they're a bit spendy.

harper said:

Hey, throw me a bone here.

I just LOVE my new geared 29" Harper-designed-and-built unicycle! I've
been thinking of a name for it, and have decided on "Blueshift". Has a
nice ring to it.

Jeff and I went out to do a little geared-up distance today on the
Sammamish River Trail, him on his Schlumpf 29 and me on Blueshift. At
20 miles, this was my longest geared ride to date, and the spinning
gets easier each time out. While we weren't particularly trying to go
fast today, I compared my average speed stats to other past rides on
the trail, and it was above almost all of them, the exceptions being
those trips where I set out deliberately (and usually alone) to try to
sustain a high speed.

To Jerrick's comment, I agree. I'm trying to just learn to climb with
the thing geared up, and while I reckon there are some hills that just
won't work, I think a lot of the "rollers" can just be done in 1:1.5
with some practice and a decent handle to torque on.

My one observation from today: I want shorter cranks! After spending
time on 110s during Uninam, the 170s on Blueshift felt REALLY long,
even with the gearing. When I'd try to sustain a high cadence, my
camelpack was flopping everywhere from the bounce. If I was going to
tune something like this for race conditions, I'd optimize it for the
flats, give up some ease of free-mounting, and drop the crank length to
140 or so.

All Praise Harper for pioneering the geared-unicycle!!!

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1-wheeled-grape said:

i have one of those hubs, i battered it out of a bike with a rock and a
hammer for free (found the bike in the pits), now im taking it appart
and seeing it theres any chance it can be adapted for use in a
unicycle, i even had a crazy idea to use electromagnets to change the
gears, but i dont know if that is really possible, but how cool would
it be to have a swich on your t7, that changes your gear!

If you manage to adapt it to a unicycle by removing the free wheel can
you tell me how? 🙂

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since GizmoDuck has made such good points about necessity for
failure-free operation, would a static shift hub be less failure
prone?

Although, thinking about GizmoDuck's points, it seems there's still a
variety of ways that you can get thrown from a uni at high speeds. The
popular but blowout-increasing 29-inch-tube-on-a-36-inch-wheel comes to
mind, but there's also just the random
perfectly-placed-bump-that-throws-you.

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boisei said:

since GizmoDuck has made such good points about necessity for
failure-free operation, would a static shift hub be less failure
prone?

Although, thinking about GizmoDuck's points, it seems there's still a
variety of ways that you can get thrown from a uni at high speeds. The
popular but blowout-increasing 29-inch-tube-on-a-36-inch-wheel comes to
mind, but there's also just the random
perfectly-placed-bump-that-throws-you.

Threre's two things that can go potentially go wrong with a geared hub.
It can lock up, in which case you would be thrown forwards, or you
could get a gear slip, which could have you landing on the ground at
high speed.

I think with a tyre blowout, you would at least get some warning,
whereas the little parts spinning around inside a geared hub would self
destruct pretty quickly if they didn't mesh together properly.

I know Florian is meticulous with his parts. I woudn't ride any other
geared unicycle hub at the moment. For instance, I've ridden the
Harper epicyclic, which is a great machine (and started off the
development of geared unicycle hubs), but I never felt safe riding it.

--
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The Monguni 2009....Unicycle Tour of Mongolia

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GizmoDuck said:

I know Florian is meticulous with his parts. I woudn't ride any other
geared unicycle hub at the moment. For instance, I've ridden the
Harper epicyclic, which is a great machine (and started off the
development of geared unicycle hubs), but I never felt safe riding it.

Feeling is definitely important, so I won't try to talk you out of
that. But history and performance is important too. I spent 20 miles on
Blueshift today and it worked just fine. And as far as my historical
knowledge goes, has worked just fine now for 7 or more years, with
nothing more serious than some busted spokes. I'm sure the Schlumpf is
manufactured to more exacting standards...Harper himself has said as
much. But the point I'm making is that the general design of the hub
is both sound and battle tested. Blueshift has (definitely) more time
and (I'm assuming) more miles than any Schlumpf out there, and it's
holding up fine. As far as I can tell from what has either broken on
the Schlumpfs or the Schlumpfs have caused to be broken on their
riders, the weak point in the design isn't the planet/sun gearing that
Harper's design uses, it is the shifting element that is unique to
Schlumpf's.

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Back to the general guni discussion for a moment,who can agree with the
following.Once you have ridden a large wheel like a 36er or smaller
wheel geared up to something like a 36 your perceptions of uni are
forever changed and to ride a smaller wheel can seem like a lot of
spinning for nothing.After experiencing in my case a 37" gear I know I
could carry an even higher gear if I had it available and I am not a
particularly strong rider nor talented.Since riding the 37" my standard
26" with 102mm cranks was frustratingly slow despite a high cadence,my
24" muni haha I could walk faster,20" is now just a novelty toy.The
future in guni I would like to see is 3or more gears or variable
gearing both of which would appear to be impossible at present but so
too was a 2 speed not long ago.

--
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XCcrev said:

How useful is shift on the fly anyway Ive heard its tricky to get the
hang of.
could you do without it???

It's remarkably easy to shift on the fly. I thought it would be
extremely dangerous and difficult if not impossible. When Florian was
in Seattle I saw several riders succeed on their first or second
attempt. You could do without it but it is much more convenient than
getting off and futzing with hardware for about a minute.

GizmoDuck said:

There's two things that can go potentially go wrong with a geared hub.
It can lock up, in which case you would be thrown forwards, or you
could get a gear slip, which could have you landing on the ground at
high speed.

I can think of a half dozen or so more right off hand. I won't tell you
about them so I won't erode your confidence. Oops...sorry.

tomblackwood said:

I spent 20 miles on Blueshift today and it worked just fine. And as far
as my historical knowledge goes, has worked just fine now for 7 or more
years, with nothing more serious than some busted spokes.

Within the last two years the weld between the sun gear and the sun
gear bearing cage failed when I was cranking uphill. This was a failure
at low speed with high torque applied so it wasn't catastrophic. It was
more of a low speed step off. This is a failure that would be very
unlikely during flat high speed riding because there is little torque
under those conditions. The axle is no longer connected to the hub in
this failure mode.

The attachment between the torque arm and the frame is notorious for
coming loose at the five screw attachment point. The symptom mimics
excess gear slop at the cranks. A competent and responsible builder
would have put Lok-Tite on the screws by now. I, however, am a hack.

--
harper

-Greg Harper

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

"The 20" is suboptimal for distance work." - mikefule
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dangerdog said:

Back to the general guni discussion for a moment,who can agree with the
following.Once you have ridden a large wheel like a 36er or smaller
wheel geared up to something like a 36 your perceptions of uni are
forever changed and to ride a smaller wheel can seem like a lot of
spinning for nothing.After experiencing in my case a 37" gear I know I
could carry an even higher gear if I had it available and I am not a
particularly strong rider nor talented.Since riding the 37" my standard
26" with 102mm cranks was frustratingly slow despite a high cadence,my
24" muni haha I could walk faster,20" is now just a novelty toy.The
future in guni I would like to see is 3or more gears or variable
gearing both of which would appear to be impossible at present but so
too was a 2 speed not long ago.

It would be interesting to see if anyone could develop a hub with more
than 2 gears. Maybe a handlebar mounted gearshifter maybe. Hopefully
someone smarter than me could develop one, patent it and sell it to the
rest of the unicycle community much like what schlumpf has done.

wishful thinking perhaps

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I really think that there is potential in the NewVinchi hub desighn for
a continualy variable transmission in a unicycle. Not sure if I would
trust a desighn that relies on friction though.

http://www.fallbrooktech.com/NuVinci.asp

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yeah I just watched the video
seems alot simpler than any gearing mechanisim
It does sound promising if some one could contact them to see if it
would be suitable and safe for gunis that would be a start.

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GizmoDuck said:

I run Dura-Ace which is quite a bit more than that. And in this part of
the world, there is no way you'd get an Ultegra groupset for $500USD!

The Schlumpf hubs are all handmade and assembled. I think that when
you take into account the amount of work that goes into building
them...Florian must be paying himself next to nothing. Especially if
you add in the research and development costs.

Shimano gear parts

XTR Dual Control Rapid Fire Shifter Lever Disk- ST-M975 (pair) $449.99
XTR M972 GS 9-Speed Rear Derailleur………………........……….…….$239.00
XTR M971 Front Derailleur…………………………………...........…...…...$109.00
XTR M970 Hollowtech II Crankset w/ BB…………….......……………..$549.98
XTR M970 9-Speed Cassette………………………………...........…………$239.00
Dura-Ace FH-7850 32-Hole Rear Hub………………………….........…..$239.98
Shimano Dura-Ace® HB-7800 Front Hub……………….….......……….$134.99

Total…………………………………………………………..................………….$2011.94

I realize there are a lot more parts there, but their basic technology
has been around for a long time and they _are__mass produced.

--
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XCcrev said:

yeah I just watched the video
seems alot simpler than any gearing mechanisim
It does sound promising if some one could contact them to see if it
would be suitable and safe for gunis that would be a start.

I emailed them a while back and they said they have no intention at
this stage to make a unicycle hub.

John,

We appreciate your enthusiasm for the NuVinci CVP. At this time, we
don't have plans to adapt the hub for use in a unicycle. Maybe
someday...

Regards,

R. Scott Harris

Director - Customer Services

ATC

9901 West Reno

Oklahoma City, OK 73127

Ph: 405-577-9925

Fax: 405-577-9922

Cell: 405-229-2507

[email hidden]

www.atcnuvinci.com

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bump

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