Re: SemCycles

Peter Philip (peterp@foe.co.uk)
4 Aug 1995 15:05:47 GMT

In article 100000@isa, Steve <seb@cs.uq.oz.au> writes:
>
>Hi,
>
>A friend and I just bought two 24" wheeled SemCycle Pros, but they have
>yet to arrive. We previously had 24" wheels on some cheap Taiwanese
>uni's that disintegrated into nothing after some hard riding/learning.
>
>The main problem with the old uni's were that they used cotterpins and
>that the axles and wheels were too weak. I buckled my wheel beyond all
>recognition by hopping on the peddles, and both my friend and I have both
>broken the axles. We are looking forward to receiving our new SemCycles,
>but forgot to find out if they used cotterpins which we were forever
>tightening on the old unis.
>
>Can anyone tell me how durable the SemCycles will be compared to the
>Taiwanese models? I am quite heavy at about 87 kg and I like to do stuff
>like jump gutters and bounce etc on the uni, something my old uni could
>not take.
>
>Cheers,
>Steve.
>

Semcycles are good, strong unis - mine has survived three years of hard
unicycle
hockey - but you can break them. The best way to break any unicycle is not to
maintain it. Most of the cases of severe damage to Sems I have seen has been
through not taking care of them.

- Using you uni (especially bunny-hopping) with broken/loose spokes can
destroy
the wheel
- Riding with loose cranks can cause the axle to shear (very important - keep
those cranks on tight!)
- Saddles can also snap if you land too hard on them.

I have seen each of these things happen several times, but if you look after
your spokes and keep your cranks on tight (thread tape is the best solution
we have found to date) your new uni could last for years.

Good luck ;^]

Peter

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Peter Philip peterp@foe.co.uk
of the LUNIs - London's Unicycle Hockey Team +44 181 341 7587
Coordinator of UNICON VIII - The World Unicycling Convention 1996
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