Newcommer. Questions on fast unicycles

The combined foot pedal and hand crank idea is interesting. Would be
fun to ride a prototype just to see what it's like to ride a unicycle
like that. More of a novelty I would suspect, but you never know till
you try. Who knows, maybe getting the arms involved could add to the
stability? Maybe setting up the hand cranks to be 1/4 revolution out
of phase with the pedals will smooth out the dead spot in the pedal
stroke and help keep the speed up and consistent?

You could have the hands pedal at half the cadence of the feet. That
would make it easier for the hands to keep up. With the jackshaft
gearing of Pete's unicycle design you could gear it such that the feet
are going at about 100 RPM at the designed for speed, and the hands
would be going at 50 RPM. That sounds reasonable.

Traditionally for a standard unicycle you get into some crazy high
cadences to go fast. A cruising cadence over 150 and up near 200 (or
faster) when putting the speed on. At those cadences you're not so
much controlling the unicycle as just going along for the ride. Slower
cadences allow for more control. Gearing a speed record unicycle for a
cadence of about 100 at the designed for speed would probably be more
efficient.


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john_childs

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