Wizards 50th Birthday

Quote: terapined

Does a unicycle take more effort then a bike and does your butt get more sore?

This photo was taken in Los Angeles in the 1880's.

Before gears bicycles had a very large wheel (up to 60"). This kind of bicycle is fundamentally a unicycle, because the small wheel purpose is primarily to allow you to mount the cycle. Once you are moving it provides almost no help in balancing.

The wheel size takes into account something fundamental about the human body. At cadence above 100 cycles per minute the human body gets quite inefficient. So you want to go as far as possible with one cycle. The easiest way to do that it is to make a large wheel. Unfortunately if you go to fast and hit a bump you are likely to fly over the wheel head first. To counter that problem, cyclists in the 19th century flying down a hill would take their legs off the pedals and bring them over the handlebar. If they hit a nasty bump they would be flipped onto their feet instead of their head. Still painful, but less chance of getting a serious concussion or even dying.

The unicycle does not have the small wheel, but as we said earlier that is really only for mounting. The Wizard is using a 29" diameter wheel instead of more familiar 25" wheels for bicycles. But he is nowhere near the size wheel of the old pre-gear bicycles.

The Wizard said that you should easily be able to follow in a bicycle. You may only have 25" wheels, but you will gear them up to easily 2 or 3 times that size. Your cadence need only be leisurely to match his speed.

Someone correctly calculated that the Wizard would have to maintain a cadence of 66 cycles per minute if he took no breaks in 8 hours. Given that he takes 2 hours of breaks, he must produce an average of 88 cycles per minute. Given that he will go slower through the difficult bits, he is going to have to adopt some high cadences.



To be a little bit fairer you should follow the Wizard with a bike like this single speed child's bike or select a beach cruiser. The Crank has 42 teeth and the Cog Set has 18 teeth. The wheels are 24". So it is the equivalent of riding a unicycle of wheel size 42/18*24" = 56". Plus you don't have to balance. It is still much easier than riding a unicycle with 29" wheel, but it is a little fairer than multi speed bike.

To really get an equivalent 29" unicycle wheel in a bike, you should be looking at children's bike.

This gear hub for a unicycle allows you to pump the gear ratio up by 50% with a switch. So a 29" wheel becomes the equivalent of 43.5" wheel. It's an impressive piece of engineering, but it starts at $1200.

Quote: terapined

Unicycle, its the butt taking all the weight.
Wiz, how has your behind felt after your longest ride ever, any soreness?

Not too bad. I wear bicycle shorts, which helps. Then again, I've only gone up to about 15 miles in one ride so far.

Quote:

Now on the fence, 8 hours with rests, I dont know, leaning toward no because I ride and I believe unicycle takes more effort.
Does a unicle take more effort then a bike and does your butt get more sore?

Unicycle seats are bigger than bicycle seats. It is also easier to change your position on a unicycle seat. The hard part about this I don't think will be the butt. Where is gets hard is just turning the peddles fast for several hours. It isn't just the legs, but riding a unicycle requires the whole body to balance. With bicycling I found it uncomfortable hunching over and my hands would often suffer from the pins & needles feeling. Unicycles are really pretty comfortable to ride, just exhausting.

I'm thinking of doing a long ride tomorrow. If I do, I'll let you know how it goes.

Quote: Pacomartin

Interesting pic in that film was very slow in
the 1880's and required a long exposure.
This isn't blurry, which means the bikes
were stationary. How did they do it.

Quote: Ayecarumba

I did some quick figuring, and I'm feeling better about my side of the bet:...
You will need to do this more than 66 times a minute for 8 straight hours to succeed.

This article says the average cyclist pedals at about 60 revolutions per minute.

I imagine you can purchase a high quality cadence meter that will give you a readout over several hours that you can download to the computer when you are done. If not, I assume most of them will at least give you an average.

Over a 15 mile run, you should have a cadence well above 66 if you are going to average that for 50 miles.

Personally, I think this bet should be about the endurance. The pressure to come in under 8 hours is going to make it pretty difficult.

Quote: Wizard

... With bicycling I found it uncomfortable hunching over and my hands would often suffer from the pins & needles feeling...

It sounds like your bike geometry needs tweaking. Adjusting your handlebars and seat could help. I suggest consulting the techs at your local bike shop.

They also sell handlebars with "joystick" grip positions, and even forearm rests built-in. Maybe a combination of these (and some gloves) will help.

Any thoughts on establishing a world record? The nice thing about being the first to attempt it is that you will own the world record at least once. Sure, your time could be bested by some super athlete the next week to a point where you could never hope to get it back, but your name will always be the first on the trophy.

Quote: Ayecarumba

It sounds like your bike geometry needs tweaking. Adjusting your handlebars and seat could help. I suggest consulting the techs at your local bike shop.

I think the issue is that I have a bad back and leaning over for hours at a time takes its tole. I'm sure I would be more comfortable on a beach cruiser but I wouldn't get very far. A recumbent bicycle might also help. I already use gloves on long bike rides but they provide marginal relief only for my hands.

Quote:

They also sell handlebars with "joystick" grip positions, and even forearm rests built-in. Maybe a combination of these (and some gloves) will help.

Maybe. I've seen lots of the serious road bikers have them.

Quote:

Any thoughts on establishing a world record? The nice thing about being the first to attempt it is that you will own the world record at least once. Sure, your time could be bested by some super athlete the next week to a point where you could never hope to get it back, but your name will always be the first on the trophy.

I've looked at endurance records for unicycling and what I'm doing doesn't come close.

This morning I did a 19 mile ride. About 30% of it was very steep, causing me to ride at walking speed and take frequent rests. My total time was three hours and 15 minutes. So that comes to a speed of only 5.8 miles per hour. I know I could do MUCH better on level ground. Going forward, I will not choose such a steep route.

Next week I'm thinking of riding to downtown and back. If anybody wants to join me for lunch, let me know. I will be pretty stinky, just to warn you.

When do men begin to lie about their age?

Quote: Nareed

When do men begin to lie about their age?

Ages 17 - 20 ;)

Quote: Wizard

Next week I'm thinking of riding to downtown and back. If anybody wants to join me for lunch, let me know. I will be pretty stinky, just to warn you.

A biking article I read addressed the problem of riding to work and sweating. It claimed as long as you had bathed recently, sweating alone doesn't make you stink. They said, just towel off was good enough once you cool down.

(so any people who work with stinky bike riders at work, it's because they don't bathe enough or wash their clothes, not because they worked up a sweat.)

Like I said, so I read... I have not tested it.

Quote: rxwine

A biking article I read addressed the problem of riding to work and sweating. It claimed as long as you had bathed recently, sweating alone doesn't make you stink. They said, just towel off was good enough once you cool down.

(so any people who work with stinky bike riders at work, it's because they don't bathe enough or wash their clothes, not because they worked up a sweat.)

Like I said, so I read... I have not tested it.

19 mile ride. Pretty good. I need to get back into doing some long rides. When you commute by bike, don't really have that weekend itch to ride, sigh

I always have a set of clothes I bring with me in a backpack to change into at work. I also wet a paper towel and wipe down in the bathroom before changing into fresh clothes.
I have people near me at work that never complain.
Its really only about 3 months in the Summer I sweat on the way to work.
Other 9 months, nice and cool in the morning and my commute is at a leisurely pace so no sweating.
I'm not a big sweater anyway.
Regardless, I always bring a change of clothes with me.