Oh no!

[Mike Lewis]

The other day I'm riding my unicycle to school, like I do every morning, when
all of a sudden I feel one of the peddles get a bit wobbly. So I stop and check
it out. Everything feels pretty tight, so I get back on. Two cranks later, my
right crank arm falls off, sheared off at the axle!

So, a few questions:

a) Is the axle part of the hub/wheel assembly? This is a cottered uni, pretty
old. None of the bike stores I visited knew anything about it.

b) can I get a new one of whatever it is that I need, and how hard will it be to
fix if I can? (And that's a pretty big if...)

c) Should I just give up and buy a whole new uni? If so, where can I buy one
(I'd rather not go mail order, but I will if I have to)? I'm in the
Davis/Sacramento area. (With a zillion bikes in town, you'd expect that at
least someone would know something about and/or carry unicycles and/or parts,
but this is not the case... :-( )

-Mike "Quickly growing tired of walking" Lewis

--
Mike Lewis | // | Diamond-o! Stick-on-a-string! mclewis@ucdavis.edu | \\ // |
Chuckwagon! Whitestag! lewism@cs.ucdavis.edu | \X/ | NUMBER FOUR!!!!

[Doug Borngasser]

>a) Is the axle part of the hub/wheel assembly? This is a cottered uni, pretty
> old. None of the bike stores I visited knew anything about it.

It sounds like you'll have to replace the hub.

>b) can I get a new one of whatever it is that I need, and how hard will it be
> to fix if I can? (And that's a pretty big if...)

Tom Miller has hubs as do other people connected to the group. I just replaced a
hub on my old cottered uni that I bent going off some big bumps. It's not too
difficult. The toughest part is trueing the wheel after you have laced in the
new hub. I did mine by eye and its not perfect, but it works just fine.

>c) Should I just give up and buy a whole new uni? If so, where can I buy one
> (I'd rather not go mail order, but I will if I have to)? I'm in the

I bought myself a new uni while I was working on the old one, that way I had
something to ride and something to learn repairs on. Now I have a decent loaner
uni that I'm using to get some friends who used to ride hooked again. If you
don't want to spend the money, all you need is some standard wrenches and a
spoke wrench and you should be able to start riding again before too long.

_ _ Doug Borngasser
(o)(o) San Diego CA db db@ucsd.edu \__/ You know you're a
unicyclist when walking feels strange.

[Mike Lewis]

Doug Borngasser (dborngas@sdcc3.ucsd.edu) wrote:

: I bought myself a new uni while I was working on the old one, that way I
: had something to ride and something to learn repairs on. Now I have a
: decent loaner uni that I'm using to get some friends who used to ride
: hooked again. If you don't want to spend the money, all you need is some
: standard wrenches and a spoke wrench and you should be able to start riding
: again before too long.

Thanks for replying, but unfortunately, my car was broken into last night, and
the unicycle in question was stolen (or at least what was left of it). So it
looks like it's new unicycle time. :-(

What I'd like to know is, what kind of bastard breaks into a car to steal a
unicycle, and an unrideble one at that?!???

--
Mike Lewis | // | Diamond-o! Stick-on-a-string! mclewis@ucdavis.edu | \\ // |
Chuckwagon! Whitestag! lewism@cs.ucdavis.edu | \X/ | NUMBER FOUR!!!! Gow a head,
flahm mi speling

[Unicycle@aol.com]

In a message dated 95-11-21 21:10:35 EST, mike@larry.utah.com wrote:

>What I'd like to know is, what kind of bastard breaks into a car to steal a
>unicycle, and an unrideble one at that?!???

I consider myself lucky, I guess. Through many break-ins over the years, with
the theft of several boom boxes, I never had a unicycle stolen out of my car,
even though there was always one in there when other stuff was stolen. I guess
the key to not having your unicycle stolen is to have something in the car
that's more interesting to a scumbag theif.

I did get a unicycle stolen once. It was incidental. The whole car was stolen
(1983). In it was the first Miyata unicycle to be sold in a store in Michigan.
Neither were ever seen again.

Keep 'em Locked, John Foss, the Uni-Cyclone unicycle@aol.com