I bought another unicycle! It’s a URC Roadrunner 29-er, with a hydraulic disc brake. Weighing in at 6.8 kilograms, this steel uni is no lightweight, but feels very well balanced and responsive.

The distinctive handle-saddle.

I’d been thinking of buying a 29-er for a while now, but I wasn’t quite sure if I really needed another one, or if it was THE size (that’s the hardest part of choosing a uni), as each size has different characteristics, and every choice means that some options open up and others get ruled out or sidelined. Having gotten a 24” unicycle a while ago, it’s gone a long way in improving my confidence as it’s an excellent all-round unicycle for getting around in the city, negotiating through traffic etc. I’ve now added more than 130 km on my 24”, and I even started to gradually but steadily improve my speed, but I realized that a 29-er would be the ticket, for something faster. A 29-er would also be less daunting than a 36-er, and I just might be able to dare push it a bit harder than I can, on the 36-er. I asked around for advice, looked at the options, and tried ordering through the Swedish chapter of UDC (unicycle dot se) but was put off by the tepid response I got. The 29-er I initially looked at was a Kris Holm 29-er, but realized soon that it had a rim which was quite exceptionally broad, meaning I couldn’t really get skinnier tires on it, if I wanted. Following the recommendation of a friend, I looked at URC, the steel offering by the same manufacturer that makes the popular mad4one unicycles, and before long, I’d decided that I wanted the URC 29” Roadrunner with the ISIS disc, a unicycle I could practice riding faster with, and perhaps sometime in the future, even try a bit of mountain unicycling with.

I received my unicycle on February 2, and did some riding in the basement before daring to take it outside. I realized however that the 28x2.0 tire that it sported was too skinny to inspire confidence on snow and ice. After a 5 km ride, I came back and decided to order a studded tire, perhaps with a broader profile. After a bit of asking around, and searching for options, I decided on the 29x2.25 Schwalbe Ice Spiker Pro; the tire arrived today, and I lost no time getting it onto the 29-er.

While I’ve ridden a bicycle with studded tires, the experience of riding a unicycle with a studded tire was quite different, and it took a bit of practice to get the hang of it. The tire is quite noisy on cement/asphalt without snow, and feels a bit unusual to ride on, but I seemed to get used to it quickly. On snow though, the tire feels exceptionally good. Even on slippery patches, the tire inspired total confidence, and I was for a while worried that I might do something stupid due to feeling overly confident, but I checked myself. Per Schwalbe, it’s good to at least ride 40 km on clean asphalt, in order to ensure the proper bedding in of the studs, so even if the snow melts away, I’m going to ride on this for a while. The tire behaves a bit differently with camber being a bit more challenging, but it’s more a matter of acclimatization than anything, and I hope I can get better with practice. Now that I’m no longer worried about the snow/ice outside, I’m looking to get more miles on the 29-er now.