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Motivation: I'm a casual cyclist (I ride around 4 miles per day, to school and work and back) but I wanted to get into unicycling to casually cycle through parks and the like; nothing too extreme, but just to be able to take it on a bus and cycle around the town. I was unsure of what to look for in a beginner's unicycle, though.

Main Question: What types of things should a beginner unicyclist look for in their first unicycle? Is it worthless to buy a unicycle labeled as a "beginner's unicycle"?

I browsed the other unicycle thread, but it didn't explicitly apply to people just starting to unicycle.

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2 Answers 2

If you are an adult, I would say that you will be more comfortable using a 24 or 26" wheel versus the 20" wheel which is mainly for trick riding. Especially if you want to commute a bit the larger wheel will come in handy. Once you are comfortable on a 24 or 26" wheel, you may want to graduate to a Coker or big wheel cycle for getting around fast (I can average 12 to 13 mph for over 20 miles) Go to unicycle.com and look under commuters and you will find some really nice cycles. I used to ride a 42" Tom Miller big wheel from The Unicycle Factory and switched about 10 years ago to a 36" pneumatic tire Coker. I have made many modifications over they years so that now the only Coker item left is the tire but it's a great cycle. I hope this helps.

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I have a few different answers for the first question, if you have a larger budget than I would say you should buy a nimbus unicycle, you should try to aim for around 20 inches, but a bit higher or lower is not that bad. The next option is what I would pick is the torker cx line, these are good sturdy cheap models, but without a doubt I would get a new seat for it immediately the one it comes with is condensed agony. I have the Kris Holmes fusion free ride saddle and that one is great for learning. You should probably buy two or more new saddle hand grabs, they go by pretty fast. Now your last option is if you want to buy one second hand, this fine, but keep in mind to research the manufacturer, and then see the retail prices, you can find some good deals but be sure to avoid companies like cyclepro and other stuff that gets bad reviews, if one unicycle by the manufacturer is bad than most of them are bad. But make sure to check. Don’t worry about the price on second hand places, most of the time people just get really mad at it and just want to get rid of it. Now, new if it’s too cheap retail (about under $50 is bad usually, but you can find good ones about this price even though it’s a good rule of thumb.). And remember; do not make your first unicycle your only one, EVER! They take a lot of wear and often don’t suit your needs. Now finally when you get to the buying stage, some good places to go are http://www.seriousjuggling.com/unicycles.htm http://www.unicycle.com/ (the first is the lower price range and the second is the higher.)

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