The weather today was beautiful so with the lawn freshly mowed and the
family out doing their various things I set out to take a ride on the
prototype Harper Hub unicycle. To refresh your memory - This unicycle
is almost identical to Harper's Blue Shift except the hub and frame were
built over seas. I have assembled it with an Alex Adventurer 700c rim,
28 x 2.35 Schwalbe Big Apple tire, 170mm cranks, magnesium Wellgo
pedals, bike seat post with rail adapter and carbon fiber based air
saddle. It's a very nice ride!

With Ken Fuchs' recent thread about his hour time trial, I decided
that's what I should try too. I drove to a paved bike/walking path
that's a big figure 8 with straight sections of paved path leading in
and out. It has some sharp turns and one short but steep spot - also
people on the path - so it wasn't ideal for trying to set a speed
record, but good enough for today.

I unloaded the uni, suited up and set off! about 1/2 mile into the ride
I realized that I left my water bottle in the truck. Oh well ... I'll
just tough it out rather than go back. Last weekend I played lumber
jack using a chain saw to cut up a large tree for firewood. I strained
my back wrestling logs around. About 15 minutes into the ride my back
started hurting. I concentrated on *trying* to keep my back muscles
relaxed and just spin the pedals smoothly but this unicycle is not easy
to ride and I find it hard to really relax so I just did the best I
could and pressed on.

The pavement was rough in several places and as I tired, I went slower
over these spots. In fact the bumps caused more than one UPD. The
short but steep part caused a few UPD's as well.

With my back killing me and very thirsty (remember - no water?) I
managed to ride 1:02 and a distance of 9.6 miles or and average of 9.3
miles per hour.

With that done I went to my shop to tinker around a bit - mostly clean
up a project I was working on yesterday. I drank a bunch of water and
my back started feeling pretty good so I was off again - this time in
29" mode for some MUni.

The trail I set out for is known as the "Prison Loop" because it runs
next to the Idaho State Women's Prison. It's a very popular trail with
the mountain bikers because it's handy - it literally starts in town
about 1/4 mile from my shop. The published information for the Prison
Loop is 5.4 miles and 860 feet of elevation gain.

For the time trial I had the Big Apple inflated to 52 psi. I was great
on the pavement but I figured I'd better let some air out for off road
so I set the pressure to 38 psi. I've ridden this trail many times on
both the 24 x 3.0 Gaz and 29" MUni's but the ride that the Big Apple
gave was super plush! I rolled over rocks with ease that are a
challenge on my 29'er with WTB Motoraptor. I was amazed at how smooth
and easy that thing rolled! Then about 1/2 mile into the ride I
realized I left my Camelback in the truck! What and idiot! I decided
to press on anyway rather than go back.

The geared hub uni felt great off road - just like my regular 29'er only
better because of the Big Apple. The extra 5 pounds of hub wasn't
anything I noticed. I rode smoothly through rocks and was able to lower
my cadence and ride farther between rest stops because the Big Apple
just seemed to roll through the "dead spots" in my pedal stroke. As I
climbed up the trail I started getting thirsty.

The single track is a steady climb but a mile or so up the trail there's
a gully with some down hill then a sharp climb out that I've not been
able to ride. This little bit of down hill into the gully was the first
indication that something wasn't right. I rode to the bottom and as far
up the other side as I could, then walked up the steep part until the
trail flattened out a bit. From there the single track comes to a
nicely graded dirt road that is a steady climb for about 3/4 mile.
Besides being *very* thirsty by now, the climb up the road was the best
I've done yet because of the smooth rolling Big Apple.

At 2.25 miles the climbing is done and it's back to single track -
mostly all down hill. This is the payback for the "death march" to this
point. I started down the smooth dirt trail that's about 14" wide and
worn 6" - 8" deep in the center but something was very wrong: I couldn't
seem to ride straight down the trail! I was twisting my upper body and
flailing my arms in all kinds of directions just to stay on the trail.
The Big Apple wanted to climb up the sloped sides of the trail in the
worst way!

What is usually a great downhill ride soon became agony! My back was
hurting again because of all the wierd contortions I was putting is
through just trying to keep going straight - and was *really* thirsty by
now.

What could I do but just press on? It was a very tough ride down and
back to my truck. Some of it I just couldn't do because my back was
hurting so bad and it was almost impossible to keep the uni on the
trail. Within 1/2 mile of my truck the trail flattens out and I was
able to ride that ok. I was like a horse heading to the barn at this
point. The first thing I did when I got to my truck was pick up the
Camelback (sitting right there on the front seat) and take a nice long
drink of delicious warm Camelback water! This time I rode 5.33 miles in
1:05 for an average speed of 4.8 miles per hour.

The bottom line is that the Harper geared hub uni is great both on and
off road. I would like to have brakes on it and switch it to 43.5" mode
for the off road down hill sections. That could be interesting. The
Big Apple turned out to be a serious bummer off road. I don't know if
it's because of the very round profile or the lack of tread or both but
even as nice as it rides over rocks and bumps I won't be riding it off
road again!

Steve Howard


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