Building a "Universe Cycle"

Step 6 Ride.

Be careful. Wear a helmet and wrist guards.

While it is quite intimidating to get on the first time, it is easier than it looks to ride. I am upper 40s and have never successfully ridden a unicycle (yet) and I was able to figure this out in about 10 minutes without a single crash to the ground.


Start along a handrail or ledge where you can steady yourself. Set the pedals with one high and one low (6 and 12 o'clock). Step on the low pedal first. Then step onto the high pedal, while keeping more weight on the low pedal to keep it from moving. Now slowly roll forward until the pedals are even (3 & 9 o'clock). Now try to pedal forward. Avoid stopping at the 6 & 12 position at first because you have the least control there. Try to keep a little pressure on the rising pedal. This will limit the speed and jerkiness.

If you feel like you are going to fall, step off with the high foot first. The lower foot will rotate the cycle a little, but it gets pretty stable. It does not turn sideways well, but you can usually get it to rotate on smooth ground.

The video is my daughter's first successful run across the garage. She is quite good at it now.

Comments

[bertzie]

How in gods name do you turn on that thing?

[SCrock]

Lightly with a mallet.

[Achan20]

kewl. id brake it or me. lol. sounds like it could use some wd40. lol. verry cool. im sure you could make some money off that.

[abcnow]

so now try to make one with bigger outside wheels. then you could go faster.

[peterjr]

do have a video you can post

[peterjr]

sorry i just found it, you did a great job

[cwebsterlusk]

This thing looks really simple to build and i am always up for a new challenge so riding it would be no problem, but do you know how much weight it can hold? I'm not exactly the smallest guy around.

[bdring]

The heaviest person so far to ride was about 210lbs....no problem with it.

[cwebsterlusk]

lol, whoops! i am 6'4" and 245lbs i'll just modify it and prolly have no problems

[bdring]

My guess is the pedals are the weak link. The wheels and pipe parts seem to be very strong. Use a hardwood and make sure the grain crosses axis of the shaft. Any type of nylon or teflon inside the pedal would make it smoother to operate at higher weights.

[cwebsterlusk]

i was thinking about ball bearings and a sleeve in the pedals. it would make them easier to pedal and they would hold more weight. Also instead of plywood for the wheels i was thinking about ripping some 2x10 oak boards i have lying around.

[QuestionConvenience]

I like the project. Does the pipe run through the pedal? Could you just route out a "canal" for the pipe to run through (on the bottom)? Or should the pipe be centered in the pedal? What keeps the motion of pedalling from unscrewing the pipe from the flanges?

[bdring]

Yes, you could do that, but you you probably want to some way for the pedal to right itself. You could weight the pedal. I made it out of two pieces side to side. You could do it top to bottom and use a half groove method on both piece. The pipes will not unwind because one will alway tighten on the other end. I noticed that often one wheel would twist a few degrees, making the thing out of square. I tack welded each flange from the back side. I mentioned this in the steps.